Alien Invasion (HDR)

Alien Invasion (HDR)

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Before and after

Making-of

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The story of this photo:
Ok guys, gather all your belongings and run! They are here! They have landed in a small pond in Bremen, Germany and set out to conquer our planet. The good news is, they are pretty stupid. Can you imagine flying 12 quazillion miles just to crash-land in a pond?

Ok, relax! Everything is ok. They are not coming to get you (yet). This is the rather extravagant building of the science center at the University of Bremen. It is called “Universum” (engl.: universe).

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

Success story:
This photo was featured in the Explore D90 Content from June 23rd to June 27th 2010. It is/was also featured in the The Top30 HDR Images in June on hdrlabs.com.

How it was shot:
> Handheld
> Three exposures (0, -2, +2 ev) autobracketed
> 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 to get back the colors and the details [details]
> Topaz Denoise on the water (very aggressively) [details]
> Topaz Denoise on the rest of the image (less aggressively) [details]
> Curves layer on the sky and the reflection of the sky in the water to increase the contrast
> Saturation layer on the sky and the reflection of the sky in the water to enhance the blue tones
> Selective color layer (more black in the blue tones) on the sky and the reflection of the sky in the water to enhance the blue tones
> Saturation layer on the reflection of the building to tone down the yellows
> Curves and saturation layers (increased master and decreased reds) on the building
> Saturation layer on the plants (greens and yellows)
> Sharpening using the high-pass filter [details]

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

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