No U Turn

No U Turn, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

So this is my first trip into LA. I have been here before, but that was 20 years ago. I have semi-no idea where I am going accept how to get to downtown, (which you can't miss because of all the tall buildings). I get off the freeway at 3rd st, left here, right there, go straight and I end up by the Disney Concert Hall. (Of Course I got a picture of the concert hall as well) At this time of the morning all parking is available as well as parking structures are just open no attendants, no nothing. So I figure that is pretty cool. Circling the block, driving around aimlessly. Got followed by a few cops who must have thought I was some kind of nut. Anyway, I pulled into the parking structure across from the Disney Concert Hall. The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon. Drove to the top parking floor and after getting out of the car the first thing I saw was this view of the city being lit up by the morning sun. What a way to start the day.

The Shot:

>Standard 3 Shot HDR +2, 0, -2, ISO 400, F/9, 24-105L @24mm, Tripod and Cable shutter release

Post Processing:

>ACR

  >Remove Black, All Sharpening, Added Noise Reduction, Removed Chromatic Abberration

  >Saved as Tiffs

Photomatix:

>Detail Enhancer

  >Strength 100%

  >Color Saturation 79%

  >Smoothing (High)

  >Luminosity 2.1

  >White Point 6.526

  >Black Point .5585

  >Microsmoothing 16.4 (Smooth out sky)

  >Saved as 16 Bit Tiff

Post Processing:

>Topaz Adjust-Color and Detail Enhancement

>Topaz InFocus-Sharpening

>Color efex Pro 3.0

  >Pro Contrast

 >Glamor Glow (Masked for Street, sidewalk and 2 front buildings

>Adjustment Layer-Levels-Fix Uneven Luminance from HDR Process

  > (Used HDR Cookbook – Fixing Uneven Luminance)  GREAT TUTORIAL!
>Adjustment Layer-Levels-Enhance sky blue's only
>Lens Correction-Correct Vertical Perspective
>Topaz Adjust-Denoise for sky only

>Cropped, Framed and sized for posting