Giant Spider Web La Defense Paris Final

Another shot from the archives I got round to processing from my Paris visit in July. The shot was taken at La Defense the modern Paris Business District. Amazing what you come across while wandering around such a large area of modern Architecture. I think it is either a kind of roof or another of the artworks which are common in the La Defense District.

The location is a short way SW of the Arch De La Defense not far from the bridge in the previous upload.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 10-20 wide angle zoom at 20mm. 3 raw images 2EV spacing for HDR. Opened in Photoshop first and each image noise reduced with Noiseware Pro and saved as tiffs.

Photomatix

Outputted in Photomatix to Detail Enhancer. Click the Camera name top right on Flickr for this image for Exif details and the settings used.

Photoshop

Detail was brought back in with Topaz adjust with HDR preset group, Clarity Preset.

The 0EV layer was copied in, excluded with a layer mask and used to tone down over bright areas in the sky.

Brightness was increased slightly 5 points with a layer mask used to exclude the adjustment from the sky

Vibrance increased 41 points.

Overall Saturation was increased slightly.

Hue Saturation yellows used to bring out the lines in the building and increase the contrast with the blue tones.

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

First duplicate layer Noiseware Pro and a little sharpening

Second duplicate layer with mask to apply extra sharpening and contrast with low amount and high radius using Unsharp mask (Clarity Effect) The settings were 64 amount and 64 radius.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the original, then the tonemapped image and then the final result.

Original at 0EV

Giant Spider Web La Defense Paris Original

After Photomatix Detail Enhancer Tonemapped Method

Giant Spider Web La Defense Paris Tonemapped

Final Image

Giant Spider Web La Defense Paris Final

Edwin Jones