How to make sunset darker?

[skieur]

Nice job skieur, particularly with the shadows...how did you manage it without losing it in the rest of the image?

How about the white balance? Don´t you find the dress is still too blue?
And the horizon...?

I put a quick freehand selection around the couple, not at all precise, with a large feather amount of 45. I then used the bottom of the curves line to bring up the brightness in the dark area...the couple.

You are right about white balance. Shadow colour temperature is always cooler than in the sun. If you look closely you will see that the colour temperature of her head is warmer than that of her arms or the dress. Because of the background it would be necessary to precisely select the dress for a hue or colour change....certainly not impossible, but a little more time consuming...and yes, I did forget to straighten the horizon.

skieur

 

[Kweaver]

Here is what I got after a quick run through.

 

[elsaspet]

I'm sorry to say, but there wasn't a photograph to begin with, much less a sunset to save.
That sounds mean huh? I promise, I don't mean to be.
However, the original photo is simply not worth saving for a multitude of reasons.
The composition is not strong.
Many elements are blown out
You have heavy backlight which you didn't adjust for (I'd guess -1.5 stop would have worked well.)
Although the couple will no doubt like this photo, it's not really a fixable offense.
I bet you have lots of others that are way better.
Hugs,
Cindy