photoshop help

[breakingnews]

Sadly, I'm using Photoshop 5.5. Would upgrade but I don't use it enough to justify it.

I tried to lasso and adjust from there, but the whole area is too light to get a good grab on the area I actually want to dim. Made the flood lights look really odd compared with the rest of the photo.

In the end, I reduced the white output using curves (and discovered that there is, in fact, a building and darkened windows visible through the flood lights) and raised the contrast moderately. Then sharpened with unsharp mask (about 60%, 2 pixel radius). then lightened.

I thought it would be better as a darker, clean-cut print as opposed to more shadow and neutral light throughout the scene. It still looks like the adjusted image I posted, but there's significant difference between dark and lit areas of the photo. Kind of like stars against a black sky at night. I dunno. I guess we'll see when the print (18x24) comes back next week.