Up! (HDR Vertorama)

Up! (HDR Vertorama)

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Making-of

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The story of this photo:
I took this shot in a hotel in Budapest. Actually, I did not realize that this was a hotel until I looked it up in Google Maps a few minutes ago. Anyway, it was in the afternoon and the sun was shining in illuminating the ceiling in nice yellow tones. This was actually a part of a larger vertorama shot. However, when I stitched all the shots together, the overall composition was not really good. So I decided to use only a part of the scene. Therefore, this is a rather small vertorama. Nevertheless, it is one.

I almost forgot to mention that I was invited by Topaz Labs to contribute to their Pro Insight Blog section. You can find my article here: Integrating Topaz Adjust in your HDR Workflow. Accoring to the increase in traffic here and on the HDR Cookbook, quite a few people read it. I hope you find it useful too.

Enjoy!

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

How it was shot:
> Taken with a tripod
> 3×3 autobracketed shots (three exposures each with 0, -2, +2 EV)
> Camera: Nikon D7000
> Lens: Sigma 10-20mm F3,5 EX DC HSM
> Details can be found here

How it was stitched and tonemapped:
> Created TIFFs from the RAW files in ACR – reducing CA [details] and setting the same white balance for each shot
> Created additional exposures with -4EV and +4EV with ACR to control the highlights and shadows [details]
> Created 3 tone-mapped images from the TIFF files using Photomatix Pro 4.0 (Detail Enhancer)
> Saved the images as 16bit TIFs
> Stitched the 3 TIFs using Photoshop

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
> Topaz Denoise (very lightly to remove the remaining noise) [details]
> Topaz Infocus on the entire image for sharpening
> Saturation layer on the ornaments and the wall in the upper part (desaturation)
> Levels layer on the ornaments and the wall in the upper part (contrast)
> Saturation layer on the balustrade (desaturation)
> Levels layer on the balustrade (contrast)
> Global saturation layer (master)
> Levels layer on the middle part (brightening)
> Sharpening using the high-pass filter [details]
> Vignette effect using a masked fill layer [details]
> Watermarking [details]

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

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Basilica of Vierzehnheiligen – Bad Staffelstein, Germany (HDR Vertorama) Baroque Oval – Ludwigsburg Palace, Germany (HDR Vertorama) Ethnographic Museum – Budapest, Hungary (HDR Vertorama) St. Martin’s Cathedral (HDR Vertorama)