Greenwich College Symmetry Final

This is another shot from my recent visit to Greenwich in London, UK. This is the Old Royal Naval College. This and the other parts of Greenwich including the Observatory are part of the Greenwich World Heritage site. I aimed in the picture to get a low point of view and central symmetry. The fisheye lens did I feel add to the image.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Samyang Fisheye lens at 8 mm. 3 raw images 2EV spacing. Opened in Photoshop first and each image noise reduced with Noiseware Pro and saved as tiffs. 

Photomatix

The 3 images at 2EV separation were outputted in Photomatix detail enhancer.

Photoshop

First an adjustment layer was used to increase brightness with a layer mask used to exclude the over bright columns on the right from the adjustment.

The 0EV image was opened. This image was then copied in as a new layer. A black layer mask was used to exclude this. Then a white brush was used to build up detail in highlight areas especially on the right.  The original image was also partly brought back in with 50% opacity over the sky to avoid an overdone HDR look there.

Topaz adjust was used with vibrant presets group with the Detail Strong preset to bring in more detail. The effect was applied on a layer with a layer mask which I used to exclude the sky.

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

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 39 amount and 39 radius. A layer mask was used to exclude this effect from some highlights.

The healing brush and clone tool were used to remove the edge of a man on the right and a shadow on the near paving.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the original. Then the tonemapped image and then the final result.

Original at 0EV

Greenwich College Symmetry Original

Tonemapped image

Greenwich College Symmetry Tonemapped

Final Image

Greenwich College Symmetry Final

For licences see Greenwich College Symmetry

Edwin Jones