Urban waterfront nightscape lighting plays a crucial role in promoting nighttime tourism. In this paper, a comprehensive evaluation framework was developed to explore the relationship between nightscape lighting design and aesthetic effects. The specific methods are as follows: Firstly, 11 aesthetic evaluation indicators were extracted from three dimensions: brightness effects, color effects, and proportional effects. All 11 indicators were quantified using a computational aesthetics approach. Then, 32 participants conducted subjective aesthetic evaluations on 15 urban waterfront nightscapes using a 7-point Likert scale, generating subjective data. The aesthetic evaluation indicators for these 15 urban waterfront nightscapes were also calculated. Finally, the subjective data and the objective calculated data were analyzed using correlation analysis. The results identified significant correlations between aesthetic appeal and various indicators, such as the skyline lighting scale, lighting area ratio, visual balance of lighting, focal point eccentricity of skyline lighting, and color richness of lighting. Specifically, the skyline lighting scale, lighting area ratio, and focal point eccentricity of skyline lighting positively correlate with the overall aesthetic appeal, whereas visual balance and color richness of lighting show negative correlations. This demonstrates how lighting designers can optimize lighting design elements to enhance people’s aesthetic experience.