Walk to the Future Kings Cross Final

Full details about today’s image are below. First a tip about a script to make commenting easier in flickr.

Tip of the Day

I tend to make a lot of comments on my contacts pictures and sometimes a day or 2 later I may not be sure if I have already commented on a picture. Before it used to be chore to scroll through the comments made, sometimes a lot,  to see if I have already commented. Now I use a free Firefox script called Flickr Commented On which is hosted at userscripts.org. This adds a small icon to the menu bar on a flickr photo. The icon will be greyed out if you haven't posted a comment on the particular image - and will be coloured red if you have. The icon will also appear on the page showing your contacts latest uploads on the bottom right of the thumbnail. When you get to the website using Firefox click the top right install button not the download buttons which go to adverts and the script installs automatically

The Shot

This was taken in one of the London Underground tunnels coming from the concourse of the adjoining Kings Cross and St Pancras mainline stations in North London.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 10-20 wide angle zoom at 10mm. 1 raw image was used to create a false HDR with extra exposures created at 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 Exposure Fusion for a natural look. 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 relative contrast 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.

Contrast was increased by 14 points

Saturation in the Vibrance adjustment layer was decreased by 46 points with a layer mask to exclude the people from the adjustment.

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. 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 fused image and then the final result.

Original at 0EV

Walk to the Future Kings Cross Original

Fused image

Walk to the Future Kings Cross Tonemapped

Final Image

Walk to the Future Kings Cross Final

Edwin Jones