Need Help with this one

[kat]

Anything to make this better. Ugh..had 5 mins to shoot it and not under my ideal environment with what I have camera wise or knowledge wise (tell yah..only for a friend!). Please anything will help.

[Marko]

Not sure what the "goal" is.
If the goal is to get a better balanced image tonewise, reshoot it closer to sunset so the house has more detail.

[kat]

I'm asking if there is anything I can do for this shot to make it better (editing wise). LOL..if I could reshoot it or even have shot it the way and time I wanted to it wouldn't even have looked liked this but I was told 15mins before it happened it had to happen. Eeek! Now to work with what I got haha.

[Marko]

Looks decent to me as is....to improve it further I might try to dodge all the blacks a bit more to see if I could get additional detail in the house.

[kat]

K will give that a go for sure! I haven't shot at night in so long I forget how hard it really is.. :(

[Andrew]

Kat, to bad about the short notice. I'm sure the shot would have been more to your liking if you had the time to try a few things. To me the contrast is so stark that it appears the people were later added to a backdrop shot. As I'm sure you know a longer exposure to bring in more of the ambient would have helped. Do you happen to have this shot in RAW? If yes, try masking out the people and increasing the exposure on the house a bit. If not, use the mask with brightness and see how it adjusts. Also, I've read that in these same conditions, masking and softening the edges of a subject a bit, around the people, helps blend them in to the background better. Good luck. You got a nice shot with a well exposed group it's just a bit too withdrawn from the dark background. Good luck with the changes.

[Jeff!]

Hello Kat,

I'm new here and wanted to get involved right off the bat... I completely agree with Andrew. It does look like the family was superimposed. To correct this, I would lighten the house (shadows) - how much will depend on your eye. If you're using Photoshop, you can go to Image - Adjustments - Shadows/Highlights. You'll probably have to lower the shadows values (Amount & Tonal Width). Just play around a bit, and I'm sure the image will become a little more cohesive. Good lookin' family, btw... Good luck!

[Mad Aussie]

Kat, I'd duplicate the layer and then saturate the colours in the house/background and play with the levels to get those blacks a bit blacker before blending back together again.
The people are cropped so I'd probably crop in a bit on the house as well I think.

[Mad Aussie]

Hey Kat ... can I have a quick play and post up my version using that photo above?

[kat]

Thanks MA but already sent.. they needed it asap told them if they want a photo from now on give me a days notice to actually set things up :P