this is a series of 8 pictures that I made at the beginning of this year in Cologne. Only a few people have been around there on this day and it was a great oportunity to do some architecture shots. Architecture is one of my favorite areas of photography, preferably playing with lines and structures. I hope you enjoy these images .
All photos processed in darktable (git master) and a little sharpening in gimp after export. The methods for perspective correction are amazing in darktable.
Very nice. The tones seem to have a nice quality about them. Plenty of contrast but well controlled, I think? I’d be interested to read about/see your post processing approach.
This place has been very quiet on the occasions I’ve been there, too.
Very nice compositing thoughout, but number eight is really fantastic with the lines and shapes. I’d also like to know a bit more about the post processing.
Some words regarding my processing in darktable, which is nothing really special, however:
Lens correction is pretty important in such pictures to get rid of distortions.
Perspective correction. darktable (git version here) provides two excellent methods. For example in (ii) and (iii) I used the automatic correction (vertical only), which does an excellent job . In (ii) I pulled back a little bit, since the image tends to look over-corrected with respect to perspective. However, the walls on the left need to be straight. In (iv) and (v) I used the manual perspective correction.
Colors: WB has been adapted and since D750 raws appear a little greenish to me in darktable, I apply a the following color shift using the color balance module:
Contrast: Quite often I use the shadows and highlights module with individual settings for each image. Another important module is the amazing equalizer. A particular preset that I use on a lot of images is this:
Basically, this is darktable’s clarity preset, but with a a parametric mask that causes the effect o be strong on the mid tones and quite low in the shadows and highlights. The default clarity setting produces quite harsh results IMHO, with negative effect on shadows and highlights.
On some of the above images I used a second equalizer instance to push the contrast on coarse structures. Here is an example:
In case of (viii) I also placed a little “highlight”, using the exposure module and a drawn mask:
@paperdigits: Maybe (or even probably) it is a matter of taste. I don’t think that in any way the jpegs generated by the camera represent the truth, but IMHO the less greenish appearance was one (if not the only) aspect that I liked more on the nikon jpegs. Maybe you should give it a try and compare on your own
Ah-ha, I didn’t understand you correctly, I thought you meant the raw, not the in camera jpg, sorry. I’ve never shot a jpeg on my D750, so that’s probably why I never noticed
No, you got me right, @paperdigits. I wad talking about the raw But it is actually one aspect of the camera jpeg that I like. And it feels to me that darktable’s default is a little too greenish–atleat for my taste.
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I think new year’s day was the right time to visit this place 
