LIghts at night

[Mojo1094]

So, can anyone help with this? Is there a filter I can use or an editing technique I can use to reduce the shine from the lights?

 

[JooB]

I suppose you mean the two big lights in front of the church and the overexposed middle section of the left tower. Well, if you have a raw version of this photo... perhaps. With darktable or other software you can try selecting only the overexposed areas with parametric masks and try to reduce the exposion in that areas. But the tower section will be difficult.

If you just have the jpg version I don't think you can do anything for the tower section because the basic information you need is gone in the jpg.

Idea: Perhaps you make a duplicate of the right tower and mirror it vertical. Then use it to replace the whole left tower above the entrance door with it's mirrored brother from the right side. Just mirror the right tower, not the whole background. It will be difficult to cut out the towers but the right one is exposed well and dimming the two lights in front of the church as mentined above can be done. Good luck!

 

[Mojo1094]

I do have a RAW version of the photo. I figured I could fix it with the right know how, but this was more a technique question. I don’t mind the difference in the towers, more the two lights below. Like, would lowering the ISO VS lowering the shutter speed

 

[Skybuyer]

The only program that I know of that would have the power to attempt to fix your image is Photoshop Unfortunately you have way more issues in this image than the bright lights. Not only do you have blown out large lights, but you have a black area in the church door that extends into the steps where there is no detail. In other words you have both over-exposed and under-exposed areas of the image. To fix this image you would need another source image with the details that are missing in over-exposed and underexposed areas.

The best advice I can give you is to go back and reshoot it with multiple frames of increasing and decreasing exposure and merge them., sculpting out the details as required This might be difficult as you can see there is virtually no light being shined on the doorway area. Also the side of the building was partially blown out. This is a tough one because the lighting isn't very conducive to a good shot and increased exposure to get detail in the shadow areas may be wiped out with flare from the lights.

 

[Mojo1094]

The only program that I know of that would have the power to attempt to fix your image is Photoshop Unfortunately you have way more issues in this image than the bright lights. Not only do you have blown out large lights, but you have a black area in the church door that extends into the steps where there is no detail. In other words you have both over-exposed and under-exposed areas of the image. To fix this image you would need another source image with the details that are missing in over-exposed and underexposed areas.

The best advice I can give you is to go back and reshoot it with multiple frames of increasing and decreasing exposure and merge them., sculpting out the details as required This might be difficult as you can see there is virtually no light being shined on the doorway area. Also the side of the building was partially blown out. This is a tough one because the lighting isn't very conducive to a good shot and increased exposure to get detail in the shadow areas may be wiped out with flare from the lights.

Well, I was shooting very late at night, in overcast conditions. I wasn't planning ... then again I am so new to this I gotta learn somehow.

But thank you. I look at a shot when I take it and try to make it look nice through the lens and take very little thought into taking a shot with the most visible and then editing the photo later to create the lighting effect I want.

 

[Skybuyer]

Well, I was shooting very late at night, in overcast conditions. I wasn't planning ... then again I am so new to this I gotta learn somehow.

But thank you. I look at a shot when I take it and try to make it look nice through the lens and take very little thought into taking a shot with the most visible and then editing the photo later to create the lighting effect I want.

What drone did you use to shoot this scene? There are some tricks you'll learn along the way. The on thing I'd use this example to point out is that the sensor only has so much range from highlight to shadows. If there is too much difference between the highlights and the shadlows the camera doesn't have enough dynamic range to capture the detail of both highlights and shadows in one shot.

The key to having something like this work is one shot to exposre for shadow detail, a second to shoot for highlight detail and use a program to lay and align the images on top of each other. Sometimes shooting in HDR if your drone allows, will work with moderate dynamic range, but I would be not so well in with this church lighting. Then, with two ore more different exposures, you mask (or erase) the parts of one layer that don't work, letting the proper exposure from those local areas show through the top layer, showing a complete range of detail. I could believe that after getting the proper shots (from the same exact place,just different exposures) you could use a program like Photoshop ELEMENTS or any other photo editing program that has similar basic capabilities as Photoshop has. I'm sorry but I'm not familiar with any others, but I'm sure other members would know what a good Photoshop substitute would be. The techinque I described is not very difficult or time consuming once you get the method down.

Edit: As I thought about it some more, the easiest way to get good shots is picking the right time. If you go to take the shot just before the sunlight fades, the light from the sky will fill the shadows ehough for decent detail and as the lights come on the ambient light will help keep the highlights from blowing out as it will change the exposure you'd use.

BTW... Where exactly in the midwest to you live and where is this church located?

 

[DroneToJoy]

I Use Lightroom for the MM2 and it works great. Just do a AEB shot with three layers and merge and then play...

 

[arjay3]

I do have a RAW version of the photo. I figured I could fix it with the right know how, but this was more a technique question. I don’t mind the difference in the towers, more the two lights below. Like, would lowering the ISO VS lowering the shutter speed

The bright lights cannot be changed with any software. The over-exposed areas of the church are likely very fixable in Photoshop by selecting just the subject area and editing with various Photoshop tools. Since digital images have much more pixel information in the bright areas rather than the dark areas likely the dark can't be fixed much.

 

[JimSteadman]

So, can anyone help with this? Is there a filter I can use or an editing technique I can use to reduce the shine from the lights?

View attachment 127213

So, can anyone help with this? Is there a filter I can use or an editing technique I can use to reduce the shine from the lights?

View attachment 127213

Mojo -

I used Photoshop to adjust as below. As you will see I cropped out the floodlights on the ground. But the image is still difficult to deal with. The Raw Filter in Photoshop is more powerful and better all around than the one in Lightroom, but this kind of photo is never going to be able to be developed into what you want. Some suggestions - also made elsewhere -

Go to the same location just about sunset and take some shots which are less vertical. That will mean that you have to fly away from the church to get these tall towers and the rest of the building in the frame. Don't be afraid to do that. Getting the city spread out around a church like this makes a real statement and the sky at sunset can amplify that. Take note of the direction of the sun and use it to your advantage. You can either shoot into the sun for a silhouette or put the sun to the back of the drone and use the light from the sunset to illuminate the scene. The camera is powerful and delivers stunning images, but you have to bear in mind that you can never develop the pure black or pure white light into any other color.

Someone suggested that you can always play with the parts that are too light. I do not find that true. If the lights are 'blown out' you cannot recover them. You can often lighten areas that are too dark, but you really need to invest in some real photo editing software.

You can set your camera to take 3 or maybe 5 shots at different exposures automatically. I don't have your specific drown, but exposure issues can be remedied in that way. If you have the right software - either Lightroom or Photoshop it will automatically lay these images down on top of each other and pick the best parts to give you a good image.