Posted on Dec.10, 2010, under Ann Arbor
(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 14mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, 5 exposure HDR @ f/9)
I’ve been posting a lot of grungy, dark images the past few days and I decided it was time to do something a little more colorful. I took this shot in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2009 and its been sitting in my ‘blog possibilities’ collection for a while so I decided to trot it out. The image shows the Acme Mercantile store on Liberty Street. The store has all sorts of interesting items for sale. I took this shot on a walk I took around town focusing primarily on using my ultra-wide angle lens (7-14 Digital Zuiko 2x crop factor). The image was produced as an HDR from 5 exposures, with some additional processing.
Processing started with merging the 5 exposures using Photomatix Pro. I then took the image in to Photoshop where I used Free Transform to adjust the perspective. When doing perspective corrections in Photoshop I like to use the Free Transform tools of Skew and Scale. I set up some guides and correct by eye. After doing the perspective correction I used the BuzSim preset in Topaz Simplify to make the image look more like a painting. I like the effect this preset has on brick, grass and leaves. I didn’t want the entire image to have this effect, however, so I painted on a layer mask to bring reality back to the parts of the building that I wanted to look realistic. You can compare the finished image above, to one of the exposures in the HDR sequence, below.
Remember to click on either image to see it in lightbox mode.
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Image and text Copyright © 2009-2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
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