Kings Cross Soaring Roof Final

The tip of the day is about the importance of using Aperture Priority Mode for taking HDR photos. See end of this post.

I finally got round to visiting the latest photographers iconic London Scene. This is the new roof over the concourse of Kings Cross mainline station in North London.

The picture was taken handheld  with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 10-20 wide angle zoom at 10mm. 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 vibrant presets group with detail 2 preset with adjustments. Some areas were excluded from the effect by applying Topaz on a duplicate layer with a layer mask.

General adjustments in layers and curves to enhance with a layer mask used to exclude highlights.

Vibrance increased 50 points.

Then I copied back in the minus OEV image as a new layer. The move tool was used to align the images after reducing layer opacity. Then a black layer mask was applied to the minus 2EV layer to hide it. A white brush was used to bring this image back in for the base area on the right, the 1^st floor cafe area to give a more natural look.

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 41 amount and 41 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.

Original at 0EV

Kings Cross Soaring Roof Original

Tonemapped image Detail Enhancer

Kings Cross Soaring Roof Tonemapped

Final Image

Kings Cross Soaring Roof Final

Tip of the Day

When taking an HDR image one of the most important settings to use on your camera is to set it to Aperture Priority. Why? Simply that Aperture controls depth of field, how much of the image will be in focus. If say you were using shutter priority or Auto you could end up with differing areas of focus in your bracketed exposures if your camera is adjusting aperture in order to make the changes in exposure as it goes through the bracket. Not good!

Edwin Jones