I'm impressed you didn't blow out the whites . . . I sure would have. :)

Do the statues have a blue hue or is that just me? #9400467

I respectfully disagree on the prior posts and believe the blue/white is blown out considerably. Suggest a 60% or so recovery in RAW. It won't bring all the detail in but will help a lot. WB looks to be to off on the cool side a bit. I would really like to see some room on the right for the majority to look into as they are facing to the right, which would be a better comp. I like the roof line, but since the window is crowded anyway perhaps an 8X10 format taking off the top and a bit on the left and adding to the right might work well, if you have the space. Depending on the actual color of the statues (which look very blue/cyan and may be their true color) lowering the saturation of those two channels might be in order if they are supposed to be white. Finally I would open the shadows just a little. #9400518

I had noticed the people having a blue cast also. I thought the crop was alittle to tight on the right where they were looking or going. I thought you could use a little dodging on the guy with the shovel and one next to him around thier chest area to bring out the details more.

was this picture taken as a raw on jeg? #9401320

#9401336

The recovery and fill sliders probably were not included n CS2. Essentially they are RAW versions of the shadow/highlight adjustment in PS proper. Like all RAW adjustments they just let you get away with more adjustment without causing other problems.

Overall I think your unadjusted image looks much better than the first post. I will try a screen grab as soon as I get a chance and see if I can give you some suggestions only including tools you have.

I know an upgrade to the current version of CS would be very expensive, but you might consider the current version of PSE which I think you can get for around $80 if you shop. I saw it at Costco here for $79 a few weeks back. I believe it is probably better than CS2 at least in the RAW editor and may have some other upgrades in the PS portion also above the CS2 level. I always recommend near the current version of CS if you can afford it as this is the "professional" standard, but PSE will do almost everything CS will. Sometimes PSE is not as quick or convenient doing some tasks and has a few limitations as I found out when recommending 16 bit processing but it is very good, especially for the price difference. #9401422

#9401447

I really like your last posting I think the detail is much nicer. and it really makes statues stands out. #9401508

You will need to save the selection once done or if you have "add mask to selection option" you can do that from your original mask. Here again I am not sure of your CS2 or PSE limits on masks.

For the illustration purposes here I just did a rough quick select tool selection but this can be more accurate and refined from what I show.

OK I did warm it slightly. From the jpg I get with a screen capture I can only give the + or - settings which is not what you see working with the original RAW. These were +4 on temp and +7 on tint. You can convert the full RAW to jpg and open the jpg in the RAW editor to duplicate this if you need to.

I then opened in the PS editor. I selected the statues then applied the selection as a mask so only the statues would be affected and did a 20% shadow and a 10% highlights adjustment.

I made sure the selection was again active and did a levels adjustment on the statues only sliders at 14 .96 255.

Reverse the selection and mask out the statues so you do a selective levels adjustment to the BG only sliders at 0 1.28 202.

Stamp the image ctrl shift alt E all together. You will get a new copy of the shot. Do this with the top lawyer in your layers stack selected in order to have all your prior edits included. You may now use the other tools such as burn. Do another shadows highlights adjustment to taste. I did a little burning on the shovel, path, and statues with the burn tool set a 6% and highlights. I did some color saturation with the sponge tool set at saturate 25% on the front grass, BG tree, and some BG rock areas.

The second shot is the crop with the right extended slightly. I cheated here as I used context fill to add the area on the right. You would need to do this with a clone as you don't have this in CS2.

I always emphasize these illustration edits are quick and dirty and should be adjusted to your own taste. I sometimes do more than I would on a real edit just so you can clearly see the effects. On this one it is not bad but the selection should have more care applied to it. I spent a lot more time writing this than the edits took. #9401599

#9408885

As I mentioned above, I only showed this unaltered image to give you folks some idea of the location and buildings but I have now taken a look at the histogram which to my eyes looks pretty balanced and not indicating any blown highlights. Any thought though about the overall image would be of interest. #9409279

Compositionally, I actually like the last image that shows more of their environment and tells more of a story. #9409556