Much prefer the lighter and larger aspect of #2 though looks to need a WB adjustment and IMO this does improve it
They are, of course, two different images.
The first one I changed the WB to 'Sodium-vapor Lamps' plus a little sharpening.
The second WB is 'Direct sunlight' as shot plus a lot of Unsharp Mask and a little cropping.
The street lighting (lots of it) was from behind and a little from the sides, the fronts of the statues were about 95% black to the naked eye.
I shot them with the camera set to 'BKT 1.0' and went from there, manual at f8 and between 10 and 30 second exposures. Also tried flash but not good and I don't pretend to understand flash.
It was the Liver Building that I went to photograph.
(ps. I sailed from and to this place many times in the Sixties when I was in the Merchant Navy (young, good looking, intelligent, magnetic personality, modest - just the same now but a little older
).
With The Beatles by Graeme Hutson, on Flickr
The Beatles
Mersey Ferry passengers