help with this sunset pic (pp help)

i took this photo about a year ago, looking at it now... i feel that it has some potential to be a pretty nice photo, of course if i had any gnd filters i wouldnt have this problem. anyone here dont mind telling me, or even doing themselves some pp editing to help create the sky a bit more contrasty/saturated/br​ighter? look or whatever to make the blue more bluer and the red more redder.. lol.. and the cityscape a little bit more brighter as well (since its severly underexposed) ..
well thats what i feel would make the photo nicer, if not.. then nm.. do/suggest what you think would make it better..
here is the original.. o and i shot this in jpeg...:o

This is not an easy fix. My suggestion would be to reshoot the area (of course you're not going to get exactly the same image again) using either a GND filter, or using HDR. This scene would lend itself well to HDR techniques since there's no important areas in motion.

A lot of curves and masking. I'm not particularly happy with it, but this is a tough nut.
_

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Nice LD. I went a little bit further (too far? ) and added a crop.

I agree, this was a hard picture to work on I tried a lot of curves, screening, masking, unsharp mask, etc also and this is what I ended up with:

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Might not be what you are looking for but I liked the atmosphere of the original and tried to build on that...

This was tough. I couldn't get anything that I was happy with, so I gave up! This is as far as I got before packing it in

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wow, thanks guys.
i think i like yunaisengs style the most, with the brighter sky and city.
griptapes take on it is cool too.. gives it a scary look
i probably will take LD's suggestion and reshoot , but i still dont have no gnd's so i guess i mite have to try a hdr.

Well, I messed around with it a bit myself and I wasn't able to come up with too much more than has already been posted. However after looking at the shot itself a bit as you said your going to do a reshoot I have a suggestion...

Aside from shooting this from the same location, if you can try and get down on the bank of the river there and shoot with your widest lens in a classic landscape format. I'd also wait until right around "dark" or just afterwards and shoot with a longer exposure. Not trying to jack your thread here, but to give you an example of what I'm talking about, here's a shot I did down in Louisville Kentucky a couple of years ago shot across the Ohio river...

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Walczak Photo wrote in post #5986519
Well, I messed around with it a bit myself and I wasn't able to come up with too much more than has already been posted. However after looking at the shot itself a bit as you said your going to do a reshoot I have a suggestion...

Aside from shooting this from the same location, if you can try and get down on the bank of the river there and shoot with your widest lens in a classic landscape format. I'd also wait until right around "dark" or just afterwards and shoot with a longer exposure. Not trying to jack your thread here, but to give you an example of what I'm talking about, here's a shot I did down in Louisville Kentucky a couple of years ago shot across the Ohio river...

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While the sky isn't quite as impressive as the sky in your first shot is, the "city scape" I believe is more interesting in this type of shot where the city "comes alive". In your original shot, you had split the horizon right down the middle and as such had two separate shots really...the sky and the city. This is of course just my opinion here, but I think the subject of the shot really was the city itself so I would just let the sunset go and make the city as interesting as possible.

Again, just a suggestion!
Peace,
Jim

sounds like a very good idea, im not sure if i can get there by walking.. but i will sure try to find a way

tommy52 wrote in post #5984913
wow, thanks guys.
i think i like yunaisengs style the most, with the brighter sky and city.
.

Yes, I have to say that was definitely my pick of the bunch too.

A disarmingly challenging image that one.

I like the photo and think the location is beautiful, but I think that a hazy sky is a hazy sky. If you get a chance I would re-shoot it.