A Subtle Hint (HDR)

The story of this photo:
You probably know what they say about us Germans, don’t you? We are relaxed, laid-back, and lay our fate in god’s hands, because he (she?) knows best. …oh wait, I was on the wrong page! Germans are perfectionists. They do not leave anything to chance! Even more so when it comes to cars, because that’s what we do best, right?

Ok, here you go! A perfect example of German “Gründlichkeit” (does that word even exist in other languages?): When you come to the site of the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, you will find about 20 of these arrows telling you where to go for exactly one museum (the little thingy in the background). Imagine something like this for every museum in Rome… got the picture? These things are pretty massive too. Not as big as suggested by this photo, of course. This is more due to the 10mm focal length that exaggerates anything that is close to the lens. But still, they are impossible to ignore.

Irony disclaimer: I think Mercedes has done a brilliant job in building this museum. If you ever happen to be in Stuttgart, this is worth a visit.

Take a look at my “HDR Cookbook”! It contains some more information on my techniques.

How it was shot:
> Handheld
> Three exposures (0, -2, +2 ev) autobracketed and merged to get and HDR
> Camera: Nikon D90
> Lens: Sigma 10-20mm F3,5 EX DC HSM
> Details can be found here

How it was tonemapped:
> Preparation: developed the raw files with ACR mainly in order to reduce the CA [details]
> Photomatix version 3.1 (Detail Enhancer)

How it was post-processed:
> Post-processing was done in Photoshop
> Topaz Adjust on the entire image (except for the sky) to get back the colors and the details [details]
> Topaz Denoise [details]
> Saturation layer on the plants (master, yellows)
> Saturation layer on the pavement to desaturate it a bit
> Levels layer on the pavement to tone the contrast and brightness
> Levels and saturation layers on the museum building to tune brightness and contrast
> Saturation layer on the museum building to desaturate it a bit (blues)
> Photo filter (Cooling filter (82)), saturation and levels layers on the sky to tune the tones and brightness
> Saturation layer on the arrow
> Halo reduction in the sky using a levels adjustment layer (gamma ~ 0.8) and delicate masking to blend this darker layer into those halo spots [details]
> Sharpening using the high-pass filter [details]

Any comments, feedback or criticisms are highly welcome! Thanks for viewing!