Night Photos - Problem with lights...

[natefromri]

Just wondering if anybody had any tips regarding bright lights in a night photo being too bright vs. the rest of your photo. How do YOU balance bright lights in a photo like this so they don't take over the photograph?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

--Nate

[GB1]

Nice pic.

You have two ways to do it that I'm aware of - at time of shooting with a graduated neutral density filter, or afterwards on the computer using masks, etc. (You could also do so using filter masks, but since that would require multiple exposures and probably camera movement between them, I wouldn't advise wasting your time on that.)

I did a quick exp. with a graduated mask around the high, bright light, reducing it's brightness a bit. Looks a little different (though not sure if it's better!)

GB

[2kids2shoot]

Just wondering if anybody had any tips regarding bright lights in a night photo being too bright vs. the rest of your photo. How do YOU balance bright lights in a photo like this so they don't take over the photograph?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

--Nate

I haven't taken too many shots like this, but when I have I usually bracket the heck out of it. Much easier with digital since you can kind of see what's going on. In this particular picture the sky looks brown and maybe a bit overexposed. Do you have any shots with less time exposure?

[DownByFive]

Just wondering if anybody had any tips regarding bright lights in a night photo being too bright vs. the rest of your photo. How do YOU balance bright lights in a photo like this so they don't take over the photograph?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

--Nate

I don't find the blown lights all that distracting here, but they are sort of overwhelming on the right side, but they also sort of add to the effect...About the only way to avoid blowouts is to take the photo when there is more light in the sky, which will allow you to balance the natural and artificial light...I also messed with the color balance a little to make it look a little more natural. I just adjusted the red curve down and the blue curve up so that they were about even on a selected gray point.

[natefromri]

Nice! NICE!!! Thanks for describing how you changed the sky color. It was very cloudy that night when I took it and that's why the clouds were so red-looking. That's AWESOME how you changed that. I'm still fairly new to Photoshop. Thanks again! With the right background color (dark blue instead of red), the lights don't seem to be such a problem.

--Nate