Question for problems with street lights

[Guenterm (Win11, MAC OS, DPL 5, FP, VP, Nik4, Olympus)]

Hello,

sometimes on night photos there are street lights/lamps which are to bright, and sometimes have halos like

What’s the best way to handle this. I’ve tried with local adjustment but the results don’t look natural.
Any ideas welcome and if it’s necessary I can also upload the .orf file

greetings

[rrblint (Mark)]

Hello Guenter. Yes please upload the ORF file so we can take a shot at it.

[Guenterm (Win11, MAC OS, DPL 5, FP, VP, Nik4, Olympus)]

Hi Marc,

you will find it here Dropbox - DXO Test - Simplify your life

Thanks in advance

Guenter

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

The best answer is to take a spot reading of the light and place that at 2 stops over-exposed, then when you process it, you will have to recover the shadow detail.

Or clean the lens more often?

[Guenterm (Win11, MAC OS, DPL 5, FP, VP, Nik4, Olympus)]

Hi Joanna,
the first one I know and the most time I follow this, but the situation surprised me, because that was the first silent outdoor disco I saw, and I forgot all I’ve learned

The second one I’ve never heard before

Enjoy weekend and don’t drink and dive or was it drive

[Joanna (Joanna Carter)]

Well, I had a go at your image…

The key was additional control points, on the same mask, to include the lower luminosity around the edges of the lamp.

Here’s my DOP file

_9110107.ORF.dop (8,7 Ko)

And here’s an exported jpeg

[Guenterm (Win11, MAC OS, DPL 5, FP, VP, Nik4, Olympus)]

Dear Joanna,

thanks for the brainwork, and as I see this info was also helpful for others

Many kind regards from Germany

Guenter

[rrblint (Mark)]

Hi Guenter. Using a technique similar to Joanna’s, this is what I came up with:

Here is the corresponding DOP file:

_9110107_DxO.dng.dop (10.8 KB)

[Beachscriber (Andrew vdM, PLv5, Win10, Nikon D750, Galaxy Note8, GoPro Hero9 Black, DJI Mini2)]

I find that with DXO one is forced to use more control points because its selection isn’t as well defined as what I was used to in Capture NX2 (where Control points were born). In DXO the selection radiates too much from the middle of the control point and too little according to what it is placed on. To get some control over the selection you then often have to place multiple control points and the negatives. Even then it seldom works as well as it was in Capture NX2.
Here is a comparison I posted some time ago. Dunno if its changed since v4.

Control Points - Change the shape of the circle as well as the size

John-M, You might be right about some folk not understanding of how the control points work. That does seem to be what underlies the desire to change their shape. I can see the use of being able to adjust the shape but one can always adjust effective overall shape by adding copies of the same point, … HOWEVER, I do understand how they work, having used them for at least ten years (since Capture NX) and the way they work in PL doesn’t satisfy me. It’s a disappointment for me because I depend on …

[mwsilvers (Mark - New Jersey, USA)]

Actually, I believe control points were “born” in the original version of the Nik Collection by Nik Software.

Mark

[Beachscriber (Andrew vdM, PLv5, Win10, Nikon D750, Galaxy Note8, GoPro Hero9 Black, DJI Mini2)]

Sorry, you’re right, except that Capture NX was by Nik Software.