Epic photo of Nottingham Midland

[mumrar]

I know its an arrogant thread title, but it got your attention and it also represents an image which took a lot of effort.

I was unsure how to get a good shot of the station building facade at Nottingham as I'd heard mention of some changes ahead.

This shot depicts the original Midland Railway facade to Nottingham railway station. It comprises a total of 97 shots, 32 sets of 3 were for HDR editing before using Photoshops 'Photomerge' facility. The 97th shot was an individual shot of just the tower, not HDR. This was then all put together flattened down and reworked in 'Lens correction'. Finally via some gradient, filling and healing I made up the left and right corner portions of the sky to go alongside the tower. It took 2 hours of preparation work and probably 45 minutes of various processing in Photoshop or Photomatix (for the HDR files).

So look at this link and let me know what you think. I know the sky is dodgy, but I can still have a better go at it later. I was thinking of contacting EMT to see if they are interested too.

 

[Craig]

Interesting shot. The result is quite good, but it's fairly obviously HDR if you know what I mean.

 

[Guinness]

Excellent picture.

 

[jacknottm]

Spot on Matt

Jack

 

[bunnahabhain]

The pavement between the third arch seems to look a bit strange to me. Other than that, nice.

 

[EE Type 3]

Looking superb, a slight tweek of the sky as you said will be a job well done Mr Wilson.

Edit: Just noticed a small 'error' if you will, the road markings just to the left of the bus shelter don't join up. But to be fair I'm just nit picking

 

[Phoenix]

Hey great shot and a good deal of time spent which always shows great dedication.
Just two Niggles of my own just the sky needs some slight tweaking and is there anyway of using the lens distortion tool to make the road flat.
Sorry just it would be 100% perfect then.
Great work tho mate!!!

 

[mumrar]

As regards the items that don't join up properly, due to perspective it is a physical imposibillity to get it all to work out. For example, when a road entrance is on the right of the frame, both sides of the road out will head towards the camera but diagonally towards the bottom right corner. Then with the road entrance in the centre, the left hand edge of the road out will head towards the camera and towards the left corner, and the right hand edge of the road will head towards the camera and towards the right corner. Finally, with the same Road entrance in the right of the frame, both of the sides of the road entrance will point out and diagonal to the bottom left corner. Photoshop picks out the best possible pieces to make the overall shot look composed, but in reality the only way you can get a flat on view head on with all straight lines is the plans for the building because perspective just doesn't work like that.

I hope this explanation serves useful, I'm not trying to insult anyones intelligence, but until you've tried this kind of photo you don't necessarily realise all of the barriers you come up against. And lastly, I can see way more imperfections of contradictary lines in the shot too, but I'm very self-critical.

Just two Niggles of my own just the sky needs some slight tweaking and is there anyway of using the lens distortion tool to make the road flat.
Sorry just it would be 100% perfect then.
Great work tho mate!!!

I'm hoping to sort the sky out very soon when I have a suitable hi-res and pleasing enough one to blend in to it. And there is no way of making the road flat, because it isn't flat. If you look at the brick work on the left and right hand edges of the building you'll see where the road drops off. Thanks for all of the complements, any updated links and I'll post them in here

 

[mumrar]

Just an update, I've had a look at getting the colours better balanced in the image and have also transplanted a suitable sky into the picture too. No doubt this last bit will open up some debate about what should and shouldn't be done to images, but I use whatever I can. The new image can be found here

 

[WillPS]

Beautiful work there, although on the right hand side there's a bit of a halo around the station top.

 

[Bighat]

Haven't been there for over thirty years, when I worked in Nottingham for about six months.
Brought back memories.

BTW ther was a very iffy night club down one of the adjacent streets.

Not a 'photo-perfectionist', so well done, certainly worked for me!