2 Pro City of Brotherly Love Skyline

[NoVaMavicPilot]

Aerial of the Philadelphia skyline at sunset, taken from above the Delaware River in August 2021.

 

[Giovanni]

ditto

 

[Dale D]

Aerial of the Philadelphia skyline at sunset, taken from above the Delaware River in August 2021.View attachment 143367

If you would allow a comment...the image is good, but can be improved, in my opinion by not cutting off the tops of the buildings, and showing some details in the foreground.

I used some basic Photoshop adjustments. I used the linear masking to open up the lower 3/4th of the image, increased exposure,shadows, contrast, and decreased whites and temperature. For the buildings and sky I used a radial mask to increase the exposure, and reduce some of the sun glare. Here is an unedited, and edited comparison.

Dale
Miami

 

[NoVaMavicPilot]

If you would allow a comment...the image is good, but can be improved, in my opinion by not cutting off the tops of the buildings, and showing some details in the foreground.

I used some basic Photoshop adjustments. I used the linear masking to open up the lower 3/4th of the image, increased exposure,shadows, contrast, and decreased whites and temperature. For the buildings and sky I used a radial mask to increase the exposure, and reduce some of the sun glare. Here is an unedited, and edited comparison. View attachment 143401View attachment 143402

Dale
Miami

Thanks for taking the time to re-edit the photo. I appreciate the comments. Yes, I hated the fact that I had to slightly chop the tops of the buildings, but the light was completely blown out and unrecoverable, as I took the shot about ten minutes too early. I left the foreground relatively dark after playing around with it. I think your foreground edits would otherwise be good but look a bit unnatural. Sometimes an overall dark look is better, to me at least.

 

[Dale D]

Thanks for taking the time to re-edit the photo. I appreciate the comments. Yes, I hated the fact that I had to slightly chop the tops of the buildings, but the light was completely blown out and unrecoverable, as I took the shot about ten minutes too early. I left the foreground relatively dark after playing around with it. I think your foreground edits would otherwise be good but look a bit unnatural. Sometimes an overall dark look is better, to me at least.

The amount of foreground edits is totally subjective! It is in your hands! Just move the mouse and slider to your desired amount. I like to open the dark foregrounds to show some detail and the best would be the "shadows" slider in Photoshop. also, now in Adobe (Photoshop or Lightroom) you can use the new masking tool to just edit any portion of your image you want. In the case of this image, I would have used the linear mask on the foreground to open the shadows. There is absolutely no way you can have good details in the highs and lows, or bright areas (sun/sky) and foreground (dark) because of the high dynamic range of at least 3 stops or more.

 

[NoVaMavicPilot]

Yes, thanks! Expert in Photoshop and Lightroom.

 

[Dale D]

Yes, thanks! Expert in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Thank you for that but I am far from being an expert in those.

As far as your last comment , I did not realize that you had the option of cropping to include the tops of the buildings. Can you crop off the bottom part of the expressway to include the tops of the buildings? I think there is more interest in giving space to the tops of the buildings than including the highway viaducts.