Sean McCormack shows you how to master Lightroom Classic’s AI masking function to create dramatic night-time cityscapes
BEFORE
AFTER
Blue hour is one of my favourite times to shoot, although the light doesn’t last long.
Despite that, night-time in a city is still a great time to take photos and, with processing, you can boost the effect. Older cities tend to have more appeal, especially those which still use tungsten streetlights; more modern cities are more likely to have LED streetlights, to save money. The light is not as warm, meaning that you lose the beautiful blue/ yellow complementary colour scheme of blue hour.
While you can use high ISOs to capture night cityscapes handheld, it’s far better to keep the ISO as low as possible. If you like starburst effects on street lights, you’ll also need to use a narrow aperture around f/16 to achieve that look. Low ISOs and narrow apertures will need longer exposure times – far longer than you can shoot handheld. That means a tripod is a must for shake-free cityscapes at night.
So what can you do to make your night cityscapes look even better? You can lighten the skies and add a touch more blue. To complement this, you can warm the light or even the buildings in general. Thanks to Lightroom Classic CC’s masking, this task is made a lot easier.
DOWNLOAD PROJECT FILES TO YOUR COMPUTER FROM: http://downloads. photoplusmag.com/pp217.zip
STEP BY STEP THE SKY’S THE LIMIT FOR NIGHT CITYSCAPES
01 GLOBAL ADJUSTMENTS
Make global adjustments first. Increase Exposure as needed (+0.80) and then decrease Highlights to control lighting (-21). Bring Shadows up to taste (+50) but it can increase noise. Clean up using the healing tool. Do a triple action, setting Texture, Clarity and Dehaze to +15 for more presence.
02 LIGHTEN THE SKY
Open Masking – it’s the final tool in the Tool Strip under the Histogram. Click Select Sky. This creates a red mask on the selection. Now, lighten the sky by setting Exposure to taste: 0.50 looks good here. Decrease the Temp slider to -50 to add more blue. Again, this should be to personal taste.
03 BRING BACK DETAIL
Staying in the Masking panel, click the ‘+’ icon and choose Select Subject. In our night shot, this automatically selects St Paul’s cathedral. You can bring back some detail by reducin
