Creating Night Lighting

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I am compositing a few images to create the elementary school yearbook cover.  The location in downtown Richmond did not provide adequate space to position the kids as needed.  My plan was to shoot the kids separately at dusk using my speedlight and a reflector to create night time dramatic lighting but my speedlight failed and I had to shoot with better exposure.  My question is....how do I edit the kids to fit into the night background?  How do I create the directional light from the lower front right?  I have tried a few methods but seem to just create bad color.  And Google is not helping me.  I am attaching the psd in progress as a jpg.  The selections are rough as I was trialing how to best make this work.  I will be specific in the details when I know I'm not wasting my time    

[Damien Symonds]

First, fix this problem.

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[Damien Symonds]

Yes, that problem.

Follow the troubleshooter all the way to its conclusion.

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Fixed.

 

[Damien Symonds]

Great.  And is that cape still safe?  Not clipped?

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No.

[Damien Symonds]

Ok, adjust to fix that as you re-process the raw file.  Then, could you post the two photos (city and kids) separately for me so I can experiment with the darkening you need?

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[Damien Symonds]

Oh crap, your city photo is still Adobe RGB.

[Damien Symonds]

Regarding the darkening, I guess there would be a million ways of doing it.  I suggest trying this:

1. Add a Gradient Map layer, plain black-to-white.
2. Clip it to the kids layer.  This will mean they're in black-and-white, but the city is still in colour.
3. Change the GM layer's blend mode to "Multiply".  This will turn them back to colour, but a lot darker.
4. Paint low-opacity black on the mask of the GM layer, to return some of the original brightness where you want the light to be striking the kids.
5. Then add a black Solid Color layer, and also clip it to the layers below.
6. Invert its mask to hide it.
7. Paint with low-opacity white where you want the kids to be darkened.

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  On 7/31/2017 at 2:02 AM, Damien Symonds said:

Oh crap, your city photo is still Adobe RGB.

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I'm sorry.  I'm must not have saved correctly.  

  On 7/31/2017 at 2:18 AM, Damien Symonds said:

Regarding the darkening, I guess there would be a million ways of doing it.  I suggest trying this:

1. Add a Gradient Map layer, plain black-to-white.
2. Clip it to the kids layer.  This will mean they're in black-and-white, but the city is still in colour.
3. Change the GM layer's blend mode to "Multiply".  This will turn them back to colour, but a lot darker.
4. Paint low-opacity black on the mask of the GM layer, to return some of the original brightness where you want the light to be striking the kids.
5. Then add a black Solid Color layer, and also clip it to the layers below.
6. Invert its mask to hide it.
7. Paint with low-opacity white where you want the kids to be darkened.

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Thank you!  I will try this in the morning and post results.  

[Damien Symonds]

This is my hasty play with the method described above:

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I could not change the color profile in the background and was forced to adapt my other images to the background profile.  I no longer have the RAW of the background.  Rookie.....I know.  I'm learning (and struggling).  This is the best I could make of it and it still looks weird.  I just wanted to update you on my progress because I appreciate the time you have taken to help me.  Thank you.

The spine of the book would lay down the middle of this image.  I have a lot of work to do.  

[Damien Symonds]

Gee, their dark areas will need to be darker yet, won't they?

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Yeah, I think maybe so.  It feels strange aiming to block out detail when most of the time I am trying to preserve it.  

[Damien Symonds]

So true!!!