Futuristic Tron Cityscape

Leaving Singapore for Melacca

This morning I began the third and final leg of my photography trip, Malaysia. I’ve split with my companions and headed solo to Melacca to shoot the famous mosque here. When I arrived, my plans to scout the location were delayed slightly as the button on my pants (the crotch area), fell off.

I bought a sewing kit and spent some time learning how to sew. I tried to figure out exactly what a thimble is used for but sadly it was beyond me. I knew that it belonged on one of my fingers or thumbs.

The romantic life of travel photography…

Singapore went by in a flash. Early wake ups and late night shooting meant that my camera had an extreme workout. Yet, in contrast to Dubai, I came out with few images I was happy with. Hopefully the weather will be kinder next time!

On the final night I had the pleasure of hosting a photowalk with some locals. Despite the last minute planning, and holding it on Chinese New Year, the turn out was superb. It was nice to meet so many talented photographers. The photo below was taken by Partha Roy, a good photographer-friend of mine in Singapore.

Workflow Explanation – Tron, Futuristic Cityscape

To learn my post-processing techniques, feel free to check out my courses: The Art of Digital Blending & The Art of Cityscape Photography

My idea with this image was to go with a cold, futuristic cityscape, which was a very straightforward process.

Firstly, I imported two exposures (main exposure for light trails and buildings and a darker exposure to control the highlights) into Adobe Camera RAW.  In ACR I reduced saturation to around -45. I then added a colder temperature by moving the temperature slider to the left, until the image took on that futurist feel.

With the darker exposure selected, I lowered the Highlights slightly, just to recover some blown out areas.

After opening in Photoshop, I layered the 2 exposures and added a black mask to the dark exposure. With luminosity masks, I used Brights 3 to selectively recover some of the highlights.

I cropped the image so that the roof of the tall building was close to the top right corner of the image, thus ‘closing’ the composition, so that we’re immediately drawn to the light trails.

I then used NIK Color Efex’s Pro Contrast filter to create local contrast, and brighten the buildings and foreground. I used the Elliptical marquee tool to create a vignette around the image. I then hand painted more vignette, with a new layer and a black paint brush, just in the foreground to concentrate the eye more in the centre of the image.

Finally, I used a large, soft Dodge brush to brighten the midtones at the bottom and middle of the buildings across the road. This was done to give the impression that the light trails were so bright they were illuminating the buildings nearby.

I look forward to seeing your futuristic cityscapes 😀

Before/After slider