jaime

I am using my laptop now, so no quality screen here.

It seems that the photo is a bit dark (I see mostly medium to dark tones). At what time of the day was this photo taken?

What do you mean exactly by desaturated/based on luminosity? You used HSL instead of HSV?

Okay, I see. In this case (dawn, some natural sun light in combination with the colourful neon lights), I think the original one will also be interesting. Could you post that one also if you do not mind? I would like to compare it with the B&W version.

One could wonder if a B&W works here well. The colours in fact do add to the mood of this picture: vivid, saturated neon lights together with a shade of natural soft light. Maybe the scene was even more interesting after a few minutes when the sky gets darker and ambient artificial light becomes a bit more prominent.

Anyway, one can see in the B&W picture that the catchy red has disappeared:
- the red columns at the side of the tower have about the same tone as the blue/green windows of the tower
- the blue and the purple of the Oz-mall bill board at the middle left look exactly the same now
- the red letters ABC on the lower left are barely visible
- even the nice colour contrast between the blue sky and the red neon lights on top of the building has largely gone

So, I did some quick checks. Desaturation based on "lightness" and even the simple "average" preserve more of the red. But not as much as I would like.

When using the channel mixer I achieved something more to my taste when using :
red 90
green 50
blue -10 (indeed I subtract a bit of blue to get the sky darker; shadows become also darker and loose unfortunately detail)

I checked "Monochrome" and "Preserve luminosity" of course.

One has to tweak and fiddle of course to get things right.

Well, just my opinion, nothing more, and I hope it helps.

Serge, I've tried what you told me, I think the picture looks nicer doing your stuff.

Thank you!