The challenge today is thinking about how you want to use the tools to represent your photograph. This picture was taken on Tri-X pushed to 1600 ISO and developed in ethol Blue (no longer available). Then the image was scaned with a Nikon Cool Scanner 5000. Then I imported it into Lightroom. Needless to say this is an older shot I did about 1974.
Then what I’m faced with is how to effect the image with the Photoshop tools I have. In the old days there would be no choice besides dodge/burn/hand tint or the like. The Nik software allows you to set up control points and “play” with the image in a way that blows my mind. It all gets back to the art and what statement you want to make but with all these tools things can get fuzzy.
I took a first crack at the picture and came up with this.

#1
I then received a comment that the stairs in the lower left were too blown out. Well that started me all over again using the Nik software to control specific areas of the image. I ended up with Stairs 2

#2
This is a totally different look from the first try. I think we try to take the easy way out of these kinds of things. If that wasn’t true the version 2 wouldn’t exist. I personally like it better. It is closer to what I was trying to capture. I’ve marked them #1 and #2. Please vote on which version you would chose.
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