City Hall Descending Spirals FinalCity Hall Descending Spirals

The idea of this shot was to show the domed shape of the building which confines the spiral staircase and determines its shape and also to show the scale and context with the Thames visible through the windows.

My visit to the Open House weekend started with City Hall on the South Bank. The amazing spiral staircase inside is the centrepiece of this building. I had been to it in 2011 but wanted to try out my fisheye lens on it. I took so many shots inside that processing another one was a must.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Samyang Fisheye lens at 8 mm. 3 raw images 2EV spacing.

Photomatix

The 3 images at 2EV separation were outputted in Photomatix detail enhancer with custom settings

Photoshop

The minus 2EV image was opened. This image was then copied in as a new layer. A brush was then used on the area of sky in the top left which was too bright to brighten to darken this to match the main sky area.

The plus 2EV image was opened. This image was then copied in as a new layer. A brush was then used on the area of spiral overhead to lighten this.

Topaz Adjust Vibrant clarity preset with adjustments was used to bring in more detail.

Levels and brightness contrast used to brighten the interior with layer masks used to exclude the sky.

Vibrance adjustment layer increased 12 points.

Saturation Greens used to bring down the green hue on the steps while retaining it in the interior glass

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 37 amount and 37 radius. A layer mask was used to apply this effect only to parts of the interior.

The healing and clone tools were used to tidy up.

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

City Hall Descending Spirals OriginalCity Hall Descending Spirals

Tonemapped image

City Hall Descending Spirals TonemappedCity Hall Descending Spirals

Final Image

City Hall Descending Spirals FinalCity Hall Descending Spirals

For licences and prints see City Hall Descending Spirals

Edwin Jones