Louvre Final Image

The first evening of my stay in Paris and I headed to the Louvre to take images of the spectacular courtyard and Pyramid. This area is open and accessible at any time even when the Museum is closed. The courtyard opens onto the Place du Carrousel. Although Tripods are not allowed in the Louvre Museum there is no mention in the regulations of the Courtyard. However I did read on the Web of a photographer being told by an over zealous Secuurity Guard not to use a Tripod. I had no problems and saw no security guards probably because the image was taken at 10.40 pm.

The picture was taken with a Tripod with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 10-20 wide angle zoom at 12mm. 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. To see the settings used see this image on my flickr stream and click the Camera name top right for Exif details http://www.flickr.com/photos/edwinjones/7111974257/.

Photoshop

I used Photomatix to output to a second file using Fusion Intensive setting. The Detail enhancer file was used as the base layer and then the fusion file was copied in as a layer. A layer mask was used to apply this to reduce noise and excess detail in some parts of the foreground and the sky.

Detail brought back in with Topaz adjust with Vibrant, Dramatic settings with adjustments.

General adjustments in levels and curves to enhance.

Saturation adjustment layer reds and yellows used to decrease the reds in the sky and the yellows on the building.

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 40 amount and 40 radius. A mask was used to partly exclude the effect from the sky and highlights on the Pyramid.

Some tidy up with clone brush.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the middle of the 3 exposures. Then the tonemapped image and then the final result. It will be noted that a lot of the improvement  comes with the Photoshop editing.

Original at 0EV

Louvre Original

Tonemapped image Detail Enhancer

Louvre Tonemapped Detail Enhancer

Final Image

Louvre Final Image