La Defense Enterprise Landing Approach Final (2)

This is the canopy over the entrance area to the EDF building in the Paris business district of La Defence. It looks just like the undersides of the Saucer Section of the Starship Enterprise. Whoever was the architect of the building was being very kind to Photographers or Sci Fi fans or both. I took a shot of this in April in daylight and this night shot was taken on my visit in June. Despite the city lights the stars are just visible in the picture.

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

The first step was to correct some over bright areas in the sky which the tonemapping brought in. I copied in as a new layer the 0EV image and used a layer mask to apply it only to the sky.

Detail brought back in with Topaz adjust with Vibrant preset group, Dynamic Preset with adjustments. Some areas were excluded from the effect especially the highlights by applying Topaz on a duplicate layer with a layer mask.

General adjustments in levels to enhance with layer mask to exclude highlights.

Saturation adjustment layer greens decreased to reduce false greens in the lights.

Vibrance increase 33 points

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

Duplicate layer and 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 50 amount and 50 radius. A mask was used to partly exclude the effect from highlights.

Patch tool and cloning tool used to remove distracting highlights from top left and bottom right corners.

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

La Defense Enterprise Landing Approach Original

Tonemapped image Detail Enhancer

La Defense Enterprise Landing Approach Tonemapped

Final Image

La Defense Enterprise Landing Approach Final (2)

Edwin Jones