In this second of our two part video tutorial, we’ll be finishing up our full edit of a night time cityscape composite. If you missed part 1 of this tutorial it can be found here.

We’ll be working with a number of relatively basic tools to build up this image, most of which are available from Photoshop CS3 and onward. In the first part we extended the dynamic range of the image, worked on some basic colour adjustments and composited in our sky, moon and shooting star. In this second part we’ll be adding reflections, making tonal adjustments, dodging and burning, sharpening and adding some mood and atmosphere.

The gear and settings for this image were as follows:
Camera: Nikon D800
Lenses: Nikon 24-70mm f2.8, Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 (for sky)
Base Exposure: ISO200, f/7, 8 seconds, 28mm
Exposure for shadows: ISO200, f/7, 15 seconds, 28mm
Exposure for the sky: ISO400, f/2.8, 30 seconds, 14mm
Exposure for moon: ISO200, f/7, 1.3 seconds, 36mm

As you’ll see in the video, 4 images were used to composite the final photo. The Base exposure had the blacks slider reduced to -40 and contrast increased to +15 in Lightroom before being brought into Photoshop.

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