Tue Jan 31, 2006 11:49 am Reply with quote
Interesting differences in the two techniques there. The first one produces a more photo-realistic effect and is more simple to do, but the end image could be a bit too dark and unexciting and it lacks the light sources and highlights that a real night scene would have. The second is more stylised, almost cartoonish (especially with the strong sharpen) but produces a clearer and overall more eye-catching finish. (Obviously the type of source makes a big difference there too though!)
Personally, I've used a combination of the two - masking the sky/background (as suggested in the first tutorial) and using a lower-contrast/brightness tinted layer overlay for the main scene/objects (as suggested in the 2nd tutorial), with final touching up/lighting effects added as per the 2nd link too.