The Library (HDR Vertorama)

The story of this photo

View the Before-and-After comparison for this image

On the way to the location of our most recent vacation, we went past Wiblingen Abbey near Ulm in southern Germany. This abbey is renowned for its great library. Having seen some images of this library, I knew that this would be a great place for shooting vertoramas. And here it is.

The funny thing about this room is that most of the elements that appear to be marble (e.g. the pillars) are actually painted wood because it was cheaper. Typical for Swabian people. 😉

Enjoy!

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How it was shot

• Taken hand-held [see here and here]
• 7×3 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
• 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 7 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
• Levels layer on the floor (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the floor (master)
• Photo filter lyer on the floor (orange)
• Levels layer on the white parts of the ceiling (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the white parts of the ceiling (desaturation)
• Levels layer on the paintings (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the paintings (master, tones down the reds)
• Levels layer on the ornaments (more contrast)
• Levels, saturation and photo filter layers separately on the different ornaments
• Levels layer on the statues (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the statues (desaturation)
• Saturation layer on the middle part of the image (master)
• 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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