Driskill Lobby Christmas Tree
Merry Christmas to all my Flickr friends! I went downtown last week to get some shots of the city at Christmas, thinking maybe some lights and decorations would get me in the Christmas spirit. Sometimes it just doesn't feel like Christmas when the weather is so warm like it's been. We did get a cold front last night, so at least it doesn't feel tropical outside today! The Driskill Hotel is one of my favorite places to visit during the holidays. The decorations and warm lighting are very nice to work with. This is a shot from the staircase, looking into the lobby. It took some patience to get this shot. I took 7 exposures, the longest of which was 8 seconds if I remember right. People would periodically walk through and I gave up trying to shoot clean. One or two exposures had people walking through, but it wan't too bad to clean up in post processing.
See my latest blog post for more info on this shot.
Processing Info
Lightroom:
- Raw conversion.
- Lens distortion correction.
- Camera profile selection.
- White balance and contrast adjustment.
- Slight cropping.
- Final export to JPG.
Photomatix:
- Tonemapped 7 exposures.
Photoshop:
- Straightening through lens correction.
- Contrast curve.
- Masking to fix ghost artifacts of people walking through and correct some shadow noise.
Photoshop filters:
- Nik Color Efex Pro Contrast.
- Nik Color Efex Tonal Contrast.
- Noiseware.
- Topaz Labs Detail Feature Enhancement.
All filters were applied to duplicate layers and blended in as appropriate with layer opacity.
Hit 'L' for large or take a look at the full size! Don't settle for the wimpy default size!
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