Skyline Bridge La Defense Paris Final

A shot from the archives I just got round to processing from my Paris visit in July. The shot was taken at La Defense the modern Paris Business District.

The location is a short way SW of the Arch De La Defense.

The picture was taken with a Tripod 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, Crisp Preset.

The 0EV layer was copied in, excluded with a layer mask and used to tone down distracting highlights on the left and right.

General adjustments in levels to enhance and increase contrast.

Vibrance increased 21 points.

Hue Saturation blues used to reduce blue saturation for a more natural look.

Hue Saturation reds used to bring up the red in the arches of the Bridge.

Hue Saturation yellows used to bring up the sunlight on the Bridge.

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 57 amount and 57 radius.

Clone tool and healing brush content aware used to tidy up the sky.

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

Skyline Bridge La Defense Paris Original

 After Photomatix Detail Enhancer Tonemapped Method

Skyline Bridge La Defense Paris Tonemapped

 Final Image

Skyline Bridge La Defense Paris Final

Edwin Jones