How do I control the exposure of the sun?

[SoCal Diver]

Folks, I’m a relative newbie to Lightroom 12.0.  I shot the attached sunset as a learning exercise.  Nikon D7500, 80 mm, 1/125 sec., f/4.0, ISO 280. Exported edited RAW file as a JPG - see: attached.  How do I tone down the sun while preserving its color (more or less) without affecting the rest of the image?  I tried setting up a radial gradient mask over the sun and then played around with exposure, temperature, tint, and hue. I couldn’t affect any significant change. Reducing exposure just makes the sun display as a gray circle. Feathering = 0; so Amount defaults to 100.  Help please.  Thanks.  Vic. 

[Rob_Cullen · Accepted solution]

This is an 'in camera' problem where, if possible, reduce camera exposure sufficient to render some color in the sun if it is filtered through the atmosphere. This would result in the rest of the scene being very under-exposed. Perhaps a situation for HDR technique.

When the image tones have been "clipped" to pure white (by the extreme brightness) as in your image, then nothing will bring back color or detail in the sun. As you found the 'white' sun will just go 'grey'.

In Photoshop you may be able to layer another suitable sun image on your scene.