Thanks. Originally I was going to post a double image of this scene, taken at different settings and ask for opinions, but at the alst minute went for the single, brighter image. Doug has pointed out that reducing the saturation would have helped combat the white-out effect from the lamps and I agree that this effect is not desirable. I almost took the darker picture, cut and pasted the lamps and staircase onto the brighter one and then posted it...but just let it arrive as is. For interest's sake here are the two pictures side-by-side, un-touched. I should mention here that I did rotate the original picture I posted here because, as you can see in these photos, the fountain appears to be tilted...this is a problem I have that stems from using the LCD screen...You might have noticed other photos of mine that look a little tilted to the right. It's proof-positive that I am a bit skewed in the head. Wait a minute!...I just went to PhotoPaint to check the spelling of "skew" and found a "Deskew" function...see how little I know about these programs!....never even looked past "adjust" and "resample". IR not the smartest 4-eyed nin-com-poop hmmm? (now how do I apply that function to the photographer.....)