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Soft effect


Maybe fill the layer above with white and then lower the opacity very low?
 
I duplicate the layer, add Gaussian blur, and set the blending options to overlay, or what over blending option looks best.
I also add a brown vignette and set it to multiply to get rid of the blue tones, and replace it with an autumnal feel.
I am going to presume that you wasn't referring to the noise in the images, and was just wanting to create the soft feel.

View attachment 33666
 
There are two basic approaches to obtaining a certain look with Photoshop: Either do-it-yourself, or download / purchase "actions" or plugins constructed by someone else. The previous responders gave good examples of both approaches.

Here's my philosophy on this: Because your starting images will never be the same as the starting images used to construct the illustrations (advertisements) for each action, unless you are very forgiving, you'll almost always have to tweak the results (or even the internals) of an action that you thought would be perfect. To do this correctly, you usually have to be reasonably proficient at PS. If you are, then you probably don't need to use someone else's actions, so I tend towards the DIY approach.

However, there is another use of someone else's actions: When you are starting out making efx, you can use other people's actions to learn from. This is especially easy with actions, because you can easily see the individual steps used in each action.

If I were going to attempt to figure out how, say, your first image was done, I would note that because of the artificial lights in the scene are visible, (A) it had to be taken around either sunset or sunrise. If you start with an image taken at some other time of day, you just won't get the same look. Next, note that (B) the brighter colors are warm, while (C) the shadow areas have a slightly cyan color cast. Also, note that (D) there are no real blacks in the 1st image, and that (E) the shadow areas are noisy.

Once you have the above analysis, you are more than half way home. Think of how you might do each of the above efx, "A" through "E", and put them together. There are many other ways to do it, but, for example, ACR offers you every one of the above efx. ACR does not allow you to synthesize other important aspects of the image such as the glow around each bright light source, but it will give you an excellent start without even going into the main part of PS.

HTH,

Tom
 
Here's an example of trying to simulate the look of your 1st example by getting the basic efx down in ACR (as described above), and then finishing it up by a fair amount of tweaks in PS to get the masked efx, to try to suggest the very bright lights not present in this original, etc..

Below is the image I started from, the effect I achieved, and your 1st image (for reference). Obviously, with more time, one would get a proportionally better result, eg, steel more blue, better simulation of the bright lights, more accurate color of the bldgs., etc.

T

chicago_el_600w.jpg

chicago_el_600w-acr-ps02_8bpc-03.jpg

OP_example-tumblr_ml5juctdLI1qkmg1uo1_500.jpg
 

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