Night photos, with or without sodium street lighting?

[steveatesh]

I'm not sure if this is one of those occasions when personal taste comes into it, or if there is indeed a wrong and right way!

Having recently taken some night time photos of St Andrews Sq in Edinburgh at a time there was a light display on, there was of course lots of sodium street lighting in the resultant photos, as well as the actual subject matter (ie the display and surrounding foliage, flowers etc)

During post production I have the option of either leaving the street lighting orange hue across the photo, or removing it simply by selecting a black point in white balance and watch the photo magically transform.

The result is two different photos, but which one would be correct? Or does it not matter?

What's your preferred way of dealing with sodium street lighting in night time shots?

[Sko77y]

I try and reduce it, but comparison pictures might help, varies from picture to picture.

Scott

[steveatesh]

This one has no correction and the street lighting shows.



This one I corrected the WB to remove the street lighting:



nb, no other processing has been done, these are straight from the RAW files.

[kman]

Down to personal preference really. I think the corrected one is better.

[Simpo Two]

The second one looks less muddy to me but it's up to you. Or you can combine the different output files and make a composite version to get the best bits of each.

[Mr Will]

First one is too yellow, second one is too blue.