simple before and after architecture photo

[jepabst]

I do a lot of real estate photography and the clients often need the photos immediately. As such I often am forced to shoot in less than ideal situations. So, with this image it was overcast, so the sky was completely white. I had to replace the sky and increase the detail and contrast in the midtones to make the image pop.

 

[jannatul18]

Good job done. Its looking quite natural after adding the sky section here. Also the color adjustment looking natural here.

 

[CanadianInvestor]

A nice, simple fix to make the building look great against a nice sky. This appears to be a van der Rohe design.

Thank you.

 

[RustyTheGeek]

Oh man, it's that jepabst guy again! : What a show off! LOL!

Kidding of course! I always enjoy seeing your stuff. Great job on this! I like the result. Sometimes you gotta work a little magic! I don't do photoshop much (if ever) but I do use LR all the time. Other than the sky replacement, how much work was this? Was it as simple as doing a few global tweaks of the blacks, highlights, contrast, WB, etc or did you have to do a lot more that isn't easy to guess?

While you're at it, why not put some real work into this and photoshop a tiny copy of that image of you that your wife took on the street shooting the wedding shot? Or that great ultrawide shot you took of the large wedding party? I see some good spots for this on the grass at the bottom of the image. You know, just to make it interesting! ;D

You know, kind of an 'Easter Egg' in the pabst image to make people ask questions. Maybe it will go viral!

 

[RustyTheGeek]

As I look at this again, I'm thinking this was a blessing. It's much easier to add punch to a correctly exposed flat image than to try and remove unwanted shadowing and blown highlights from a harsh sunlight drenched image at a bad time of day. Am I right? So in this case, you were able to fudge the better light/color somewhat without the drawbacks associated with bright sun. Who knows, maybe this will be your go-to method from now on?

 

[ajfotofilmagem]

Only am I think the perspective correction is exaggerated? When I see pictures of buildings, seen from below, I hope the top look more narrow, the way my eyes see.

If the top seems wider, it is unpleasant to my eyes.

 

[jepabst]

Yes, this is a Mies building - or maybe his son - in any event, very Mies.

Rusty - an interesting thought - to shoot all the time in overcast - but I'm not sure that I'd want to replace skies all the time, it adds quite a bit of time to the jobs. I did it on this rainy day - so maybe you are right;http://www.joshpabstphoto.com/burnham-center-before-and-after/

I will agree that balancing a super bright sky and deep shadows is a real challenge - and some amount of 'HDR' style technique is usually necessary.

For the most part, the tweaks were as you said - contrast - and usually when I have flat lighting, I will use a tad more 'clarity' in lightroom to compensate for the muddy nature of the lighting.

AJfofo - it's true that the perspective has been corrected - and if you don't use a tilt-S___-lens you will not have the vertical lines straight. That said, most architectural photography has vertical lines straight - as I've shown.

I'm going to do more of these and talk about them on my blog in the category architecture photogrpahy before and after

 

[privatebydesign]

Yes, this is a Mies building - or maybe his son - in any event, very Mies.

Rusty - an interesting thought - to shoot all the time in overcast - but I'm not sure that I'd want to replace skies all the time, it adds quite a bit of time to the jobs. I did it on this rainy day - so maybe you are right;http://www.joshpabstphoto.com/burnham-center-before-and-after/

A simple blend like that shouldn't be time consuming, even to a very high standard, and even if you wanted cloud reflections in the brightest windows etc. There is no one process to always do it, but of the four or five I use one will almost always do it quickly and well. Along with 'blend if' modes there is the background eraser, quick selections, magnetic selections, refine mask options etc etc.

Not belittling the efforts, but it is a very common thing and with a skyline like that not very difficult. Something like the image below is far more challenging but only took a few minutes with the 'background eraser' and 'refine edge'.

 

[RustyTheGeek]

One thing I like about this thread is that it reinforces the fact that it's true you can't always get a nice blue sky if you want the foreground subject to be properly/adequately exposed at the same time. Not without significant fill flash anyway. With that in mind, I really want to see the size of the fill flash (off camera frame left) that jepabst used to get that building to look so good with a nice sky in the background! Oh wait! Nevermind! LOL!

 

[jepabst]

These commercial images are delivered at 15-20 megapixels (4500px). It takes time to do it well. Even at this small size we can see 'problems' with the sky behind the truck. When you are delivering paid images at huge resolutions, post productions takes more than a couple minutes.

 

[Skirball]

Only am I think the perspective correction is exaggerated? When I see pictures of buildings, seen from below, I hope the top look more narrow, the way my eyes see.

If the top seems wider, it is unpleasant to my eyes.

It takes getting used to, but eventually not having straight verticals bothers you more than the exaggerated look. If you work in the architectural/Real Estate world, you get used to it, as it's just how it's done.