Sunset cityscape, and post processing thoughts/tips.

oFUNGUSo

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Took this last weekend in Austin. Got there when it was still fully light, framed the shot and took many pictures between full light and full darkness. Picked the one that seemed to have the best exposure and mix of building lights/light reflection on the buildings, and started there. Realized that I didn't like how dark all the trees were in front of the city. So, I picked one of the earlier shots where the trees were better exposed, added it to a layer, auto aligned, created a layer mask on the night exposure, and carefully painted in some exposure to the trees.

I like it BETTER than the shot with the trees blacked out, but it still doesn't look quite natural to me. The problem is the top edges of the trees. I end up with a darker line along the top of the trees, no matter how many times I've tried this (many times) I cant seem to get a better result than this. I either get a darker line along the top of the trees, or if I push it too much I end up with some lightening that leaks past the trees onto the background. Looking at the image full size I can see a both in this image. The tress on the far right.....I can see some lightening that leaked into the sky. I start with a bigger soft brush, and work my way to smaller as I get to the tips of the trees (still soft brush).

I'm wondering if anyone might have some tips, or a different technique for accomplishing blending in the trees from a lighter exposure, more naturally? Right now the only thing I can think of is to really pixel peep the $*% out of the photo and use a hard brush to along the top edge, which of course would take for ever.

Argh....now that I'm looking, I see I need to dial down that green light and reflection on the left side of the image, just a touch.

h0aJ440.jpg
 
Layer masks is typically the way that job is handled -- still tedious but probably better than a hand brush.

Joe
 
jup
i've got a tip for you
just use a lumination mask :)
 
if you want i can show you wath i mean
 

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