Photo Manipulation Wanted to add some sun to a pale photo

[SapGreen]

Hello. I really like sunrise so will be making more images like this. This is my first try, and I couldn't add warm color to the part of the city that is far away.

 

[polarwoc]

Hi and welcome to this forum. The set of buildings in the background closer to the horizon look too white. They contrast too much with the sky. I added a layer, painted these buildings with yellow, changed Blending mode to Overlay and set opacity to 11%. Then I added another layer on top, painted these buildings with orange (both these colours are taken from the sky), changed Blending mode to Soft light and set opacity to 65%.
You could alter the opacity values or blending modes to suit.

 

[SapGreen]

I've also added a gradient mask so additional coloring doesn't affect buildings that are closer to a viewer

 

[IamSam]

This is a great first try. As has been pointed out, the building closest to the horizon are still way to whitish. The gradient map helped but you would also need to add a curves adjustment layer to add back contrast to the city.

 

[SapGreen]

Oh, I started with curved adjustment layer to remove blue colors, so the city will be more yellowish. I've added another curved adjustment layer on top of it and tried to make shadows darker and highlights lighter, but I noticed that the city become too red, so I removed some red from it. I've also noticed another problem - I use the `Blend If` tool to remove the original sky, and when I change the image with curves - it affects the `Blend If` tool. You can see that part of the city on the horizon line became a little bit chewed.

 

[Argos]

In my opinion the quality of the far away of the city is too low, i think the best you can do is blend the city with the sky removing some of that part.

Fast Example with dreadful blending XD.

 

[SapGreen]

Yeah, I thought that low quality may be the case too. Thanks.