Specific Window Treatment

[TonyCooper]

This photograph is for a calendar and will be rendered in Black & White, but I'm working on the color version before I convert it to B&W with a layer mask.

The problem is the two-paned middle window. The detail in the windows, and the darkness of the window, stand out too much.

I'm a reasonably advanced user of Photoshop, but anything I try is a fail. I'm not making global changes, but I've made selections of the windows and tried steps from cloning to blurring to levels changing, and nothing looks right.
I've also tried making various global changes on a layer and adding a layer above that with a layer mask that cuts out the panes.

What I'd like is to make the middle windows actually look like reflective glass like the ones on the right.

Any suggestions?

 

[Rich54]

What do you think of something like this? I created an entirely new reflection... new sky and new bushes.

• I made a selection of the middle windows.
• Added a new sky and desaturated it, similar to the windows on the right. It seems like a cloudy day, so I made sure to have clouds.
• I grabbed some of the trees on the right and pasted them into the bottom half of the windows. (Any bushes will do.) Blurred them and reduced opacity to about 35%.
• To simulate window glare, I added some white vertical streaks, reduced opacity and set blend mode to soft light.
• The sunlight of the image seems to be coming from the right, so these middle windows need to be darker than the ones on the right. Added a Curves layer for that.

You can put almost anything into a window reflection—whatever you thing would be reasonably sittig out on the lawn.

 

[TonyCooper]

Nice job, Rich.

 

[IamSam]

Maybe?

 

[chrisdesign]

 

[TonyCooper]

Thanks to IAMSAM and chrisdesign for the their contributions.

I'll wait a day or two to see what other suggestions are offered, and then make my own attempt. It'll have to be my own creation, although it will be influenced by the contributions, because I wouldn't want to use someone else's work. The trick is to figure out how to approach it based on the suggestions, not to have it done for me.

 

[JeffK]

I fussed with this way too much and ended up redecorating...
- Jeff