How it was made

Perspective – Orlando Convention Center

This image shows how you can force perspective to create something that doesn’t exist.  In this case, the marble floor doesn’t really exist as you can see below.  It was created by the position of the camera.

The Comerica Building, Downtown Orlando

Comerica Building - Downtown Orlando

 

Today’s photo is a 2 exposure RAW tonemapped with photomatix.  I did shoot 3 exposures, however, I felt I lost the drama in the sky by tonemapping using the 3 exposures.
While I got the drama in the sky, I also got a lot of noise which needed to be addressed in post.  I also got a little more haloing than I would have liked.

 

The haloing I fixed by taking the -2 exposure and opening up a layer mask then using a brush at about 15%.  That took care of that.

 

As for the noise, that was a bear, I ended up denoising a couple of times before using topaz to give it a little pop.

 

Finally, I finished it off with some sharpening.  I thought I was done, but the long blue strip that runs the length of the building was a bit oversaturated.  So, I quick masked that, took it to a group, dropped the saturation and used a levels adjustment to get it just right.

 

And, there it is.  Hope you enjoy it.