Freeway night shots! Which one?

[unique one]

IMAGE TOO BIG 1

IMAGE TOO BIG 2

IMAGE TOO BIG 3

So yes, that is someone in the middle of the freeway, not literally. There's the south bound then there's a little dirt area which has beautiful flowers growing out on it (which was where the person in the photograph is) and then the North bound. Which one would you choose to share/fix up? And how can would you fix it?

[Jim Poor]

The photos are too big (check the guidelines) and I believe they are in the wrong section.

[Gulf Coast Girl]

What is the purpose of having the person bending over in the middle of the photo? To me it seems distracting from the flowers and the highway lights

[candidrachel]

I don't get it. All I see is a pair of jeans and what looks like a poppy flower as a "head". Sorry.

[Indigo November]

Jim's right. Wrong size, wrong place.
But anyways, I would choose to work with the first one.

• Bring the blacks down and the lights very slightly up in curves. Main point being to darken it.
• Burn the whole sky with a big soft brush, opacity 75%, set to shadows.
• Dodge the whole sky with a big soft brush, opacity 100%, set to highlights. This will bring out the stars.
• Possibly add more stars by picking a color from one of the stars, setting a brush to just a few pixels (1-4 maybe, depending on the resolution of your image). Be very careful to make it look natural, not too many more, just a few strategically placed stars. Don't go crazy.
• Clone out distracting yellow streak and that square of light in the BG.
• Unsharp mask, set to maybe, amount 70, radius 5-7ish, threshold 3-5ish.

Then you have a sort of okay image, in terms of exposure. Stars are pleasing, sky looks nice, distracting elements gone.
The man is still OOF, the composition is still not great, the light streaks are not very clear, it is still noisy, but it is "okay".

Well, that is what I would do at least.

[PowerPix]

I am not sure what is going on here but I would not pick any one of the three.

Nothing about any of them works and is appealing.

[Indigo November]

Originally Posted by PowerPix

I am not sure what is going on here but I would not pick any one of the three.

Nothing about any of them works and is appealing.

If I am correct in my assumption, the OP wants to save the shot and is asking which one could be saved and how.
It seems that he got confused and posted in GCC by accident.

That's what I got out of it at least.

[PowerPix]

Ahhh well, yes.

Ok, the first one "could" be saved. The beaming crotch is distracting in my opinion.

Looks like he is bending over looking at his crotch "I see the light.....I can seeee the light!!!!"

[Indigo November]

Originally Posted by PowerPix

Ahhh well, yes.

Ok, the first one "could" be saved. The beaming crotch is distracting in my opinion.

haha, that was my first thought too.

[Indigo November]

Quick edit showing the effects of editing as I said in my first post.
Not perfect by any means, but better. Just a very quick 5-10 minute job. I was a little sloppy.