Processed from RAW in ACR and to CS5. Run through Nik HDR Efex Pro to tone map and bring up the texture and color both. Then that is run through Nik Silver Efex Pro on a very dark, contrasty, heavily vignetted custom preset I use a lot. The SEP2 layer is set to luminosity mode, transferring the tones but not the B/W aspect of it to the underlying, HDR layer. Finally, the SEP2 layer is merged into the HDR Efex layer, then a selection of the shadows is made, duped to a new layer, set to soft light mode, and blurred with gaussian blur. Opacity of this layer is faded to suit. It gives a softer, less hard-edged dimensionality to the image.
Resized, Adamus sharpening, save for web.
Statistics
Place: 7 out of 90 Avg (all users): 6.2946 Avg (commenters): 7.6000 Avg (participants): 6.0250 Avg (non-participants): 6.4157 Views since voting: 2195 Views during voting: 257 Votes: 129 Comments: 20 Favorites: 0
Well deserved top 10, Robert. Love the title. It was Archimedes who said, "Give me the place to stand, and I shall move the earth." Your use of the seawall is nicely done. The processing and use of luminous light in the right places is superb.
Fantastic shot! Overprocessed? No. It's just dark and surreal and magical. I'm more and more amazed by the tasteful and VERY different approach to HDR. Is it the additional layers? The b&w luminosity in this case? I don't know. But it knocks me off my feet every time.
(Btw I'm guessing the b&w luminosity layer did that great job on the sky. :)
I like the grunge effect.... it looks like you have tilted because the challenge asks for it... i mean, i do not get a feel that the tilt is adding to the image in anyways...
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
