Another shot from my NYC hotel window from last year. Looking forward to a Chicago trip this summer, hopefully on a high floor hotel room ;-). Fairly straight processing for me which is now crop, cloning spots, NR, Silver Efex for toning/detailing, Topaz adjust for additional toning/color.
Didn't notice the bow in the curb but see it now. Slight adjust. The person and shadow are the make it for me. Adds warmth to the sterility of the street. Great shot. (Agree with wondering about the clean window (maybe you could open yours?) and how did you find such an empty street in New York. Great timely catch.
Thanks much for the comments. They are much appreciated. The window to my surprise opened about 4 inches tilted out from the bottom way up there on the 30 somethingth floor. An interesting exercise in finding the shot in a restricted space ;-). But the window too was pretty clean so I also shot a lot just through the window (clean enough for two OOTB images of the week ;-).
Yeah, that lens has a bit of pincushion distortion.
Great graphic of a modern city scape with all the right tones of grays and silvers and hard lines. I agree with Hazel about the addition of a person and a bit of color. But, what is that reddish thing? I can see this as part of a series of prints in one of those edgy loft apartments.
Thanks, Nancy. The reddish thing is a fire hydrant. The city scape thing is a new kick for me. Have had a great time with the photos from my hotel and walking around NYC.
I like the tonal range, the shadows, and all those repeating lines at different angles. The perspective you got from "the 30 somethingth floor" is important, too.
I've been carrying around for a long time a little gadget made by Lenskirt that eliminates reflections when shooting through windows. It attaches to the glass with four suction cups and has a flexible cloth cone that can be drawn tight around the lens with a drawstring. I used it last month for the first time. The shot was taken through a window from the outside, and the importance of a clean window was apparent in some of the shots (an HDR sequence). I think I can salvage it.
You've mentioned using Silver Efex for toning, before. What are you doing with it?
Thanks much for the comments. I actually started this for the red theme but didn't quite get around to posting it then.
Dennis,
On occasion one finds a tool that is just right. Silver Efex is that tool for me. I once used curves for all manner of tonal adjustments, lots and lots of layers of curves for local contrast adjustments. I hated what it did to color because the transforms in rgb space are not aligned with hue so changing the (bright/dark) tonality of a pixel also changed its hue. Sigh. So, I started taking a layer and converting it to black and white... making tonal adjustments in curves then blending back the color with a luminosity blend. Tonal brightening desaturates while darkening increases saturation, so saturation adjustments are required to get the resulting tonality with the desired hue and saturation.
Silver Efex has just the right tools for me to do the local contrast adjustments I like - a combination of the Soft Contrast (reduction pulls up the darks ;-) and Dynamic Brightness with individual Highlights-Midtones-Shadows sliders. The added bonus in a great detailing set of sliders for Structure (NR must be done first though).
As before I then blend back the color with Luminosity blend and adjust color/saturation now with Topaz Adjust where I can fine tune some of the toning if I wish.
Thanks very much, Michael. The luminosity blending makes a lot of sense. Good idea!!! Although I have Adjust, I don't much use it. I'm going to have to make time to play around with your workflow and see what happens. I appreciate your explanation.
I like the starkness of the image very much. I think more elements should be on the right where the man is, so I removed the grate. I also changed the toning to add to the desolate feel. Might not be to your taste.........
Theme: New York Street
Posting Permissions
