Conciergerie Hall Paris Final Image

This shot was taken on the second full day of my stay in Paris when it again rained so indoors was the order of the day. This is the Guards Hall dating from medieval times of the Conciergerie which was a former Palace and prison. The building already had a fearsome reputation before the prison part became known as the waiting room for the Guillotine at the time of the Revolution.

I got there reasonably early and at the far corner of the Hall nobody said no when I set up a tripod.

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 brought back in with Topaz adjust with HDR presets dynamic Pop 2 settings with adjustments including a slight vignette. Some areas were slightly excluded from the effect especially the highlights round the lights by applying Topaz on a duplicate layer with a layer mask.

General adjustments in levels and curves to enhance with layer masks to exclude highlights.

Saturation adjustment layer blues increased and applied with a layer mask only to the light coming from the outside window.

Saturation layer yellows used to decrease the overall yellow look from the lights.

Saturation layer reds used with layer mask to add a slight warming touch of reds to the old fireplace.

Saturation layer yellows used with a layer mask to add warmer tone to the lights and the fireplace.

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 53 amount and 53 radius. A mask was used to partly exclude the effect from highlights.

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

Conciergerie Hall Paris Original

Tonemapped image Detail Enhancer

Conciergerie Hall Paris Tonemapped

Final Image

Conciergerie Hall Paris Final Image

Tip of the Day

It is often useful to bring one or more of the 3 exposures into the HDR image being edited. A good example is to reduce highlights. To do this open the image in Photoshop. Go to select all and then edit-copy. In the HDR image paste. Then add a layer mask but when adding it by clicking the white circle at the bottom of the mask panel hold down alt when clicking. This adds a black layer mask. Use a white brush to bring in parts of the differently exposed image and use brush opacity to avoid overdoing it.

Edwin Jones