More Graffiti Alley

[Stephen]

This shot was taken because I was attracted by the light from the windows on the floor. I took a series of about 8 shots at half stop intervals with the intention of producing an HDR image. Initially I used Photoshop and its Merge to HDR function to blend the 8 shots. Photomatix was then used to tonemap the result. The result was a shot with all the detail you can't get in one exposure, however it just wasn't edgy and gritty enough to give the feel I wanted. I finally put the image back into Lightroom and applied the preset I used in the previous Graffiti Alley thread. It was exactly what I wanted.



The shot below of the broken skateboard has simply had the preset applied used in the previous shots. The preset consists of a slight increase in exposure +50 and recovery +60 then Fill Light +100, Blacks +70, Clarity +100, Vibrance +100 and Saturation -83 Finally a Vignette is applied to -94 You can however tweak all this to suit.

[Ian]

Re: More Graffiti Alley

I really like these, Stephen - they would make a great panel.

Ian

[Graham_of_Rainham]

Re: More Graffiti Alley

These look a lot like the backgrounds to one of those zombie games that my son plays

I'm very interested by the "Tonemaping" technique and will be investigating it. I'd be interested to know what programs are considered the best to produce the effect.

Thanks for showing these, they have added to my interest in doing something similar.

Just need to hunt down the locations.

[Caz]

Re: More Graffiti Alley

More excellent shots - I particularly like the tonemapping effect in the first image which gives it excellent texture.

[Stephen]

Re: More Graffiti Alley

These look a lot like the backgrounds to one of those zombie games that my son plays

I'm very interested by the "Tonemaping" technique and will be investigating it. I'd be interested to know what programs are considered the best to produce the effect.

Thanks for showing these, they have added to my interest in doing something similar.

Just need to hunt down the locations.

Strictly speaking it is not the tonemapping that produces the effect you see in these images. If you have never used an HDR process you may not know that it involves blending several exposures in order to produce a single Radiance file. This frankly looks terrible but contains all the info needed to produce a photo with the high dynamic range that a single camera exposure cannot produce. This file must then be tonemapped in order to show the dynamic range. This is the result, which I hope you would agree lacks something in the gritty/edgy stakes and is not what I wanted.



The last process using the preset mentioned in Lightroom above is giving the result you see. However the HDR/tonemapping process is acheived in what I believe is the market leader, and certainly what I see most people using Photomatix