St. Martin’s Cathedral (HDR Vertorama)

The story of this photo

Check out the Before-and-after comparison of this image

St. Martin’s Cathedral in Mainz, Germany is 1000 years old and its interior is predominantly Romanesque. This style is much simpler than that of later churches with very little decorations. The big challenge in terms of photography was the notable lack of light, even on this sunny day. I had to go as low as 1/8s on the brightest exposure here. Of course, tripods were not allowed. This was quite a challenge in post-processing.

Nevertheless, I hope you like the result.

Enjoy!

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How it was shot

• Taken hand-held [see here and here]
• 4×3 auotbracketed shots (0, -2, +2EV)
• Camera: Nikon D7000
• Lens: Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED
• Details can be found here

How it was stitched and tonemapped

• CA reduction and white balance correction in ACR
• Created two additional exposures in ACR (+4EV and -4EV) to preserve highlights and shadows [details]
• Saved the images as TIFFs
• Applied noise reduction (Topaz Denoise) to each of the source images [details]
• Resulting TIFF images were then used as input to Photomatix (Details Enhancer option)
• Stitched the 4 tone-mapped TIFFs using Photoshop

How it was post-processed

• Post-processing was done in Photoshop
• Perspective correction using the transformation tools
• Topaz Adjust on the entire image to get back the colors and the details
• Topaz Infocus on the entire image for sharpening
• Photo filter layer on the ornaments (yellow)
• Levels layer on the ornaments (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the ornaments (master, lightness)
• Saturation layer on the carpets at the bottom (desaturation)
• Levels layer on the paintings (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the paintings (master)
• Vibrance layer on the paintings (more vibrance)
• Photo filter layer on the yellow walls (yellow)
• Levels layer on the yellow walls (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the yellow walls (master)
• Saturation layer on the red walls (master)
• Photo filter layer on the dome (orange/yellow)
• Saturation layer on the ceiling (desaturation)
• Many detail adjustments of contrast to preserve the highlights and shadows
• Global saturation and levels layers (fine tuning colors and contrast)
• Sharpening using the high-pass filter [details]
• Vignette effect using a masked fill layer [details]
• Watermarking [details]

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