How's my photoshoppery? The old mansion house

[Fenster]

Basic camera setting were 15 seconds at ISO 200 and f/11 (infrared). This was a stitch of six images, and after correcting/straightening the image I chose to enhance the keystone of the image in order to convey drama. Other alterations include a drop-in replacement sky, extensive cloning on the right side to fix an eye sore and foreground drop-in replacement grass.

How does it look in general? Does the exaggerated keystoning add or detract from the image? Is there a noticeable slant towards the right-hand side (I've checked with a ruler and found nothing, but I still detect it)? How would you rate the quality of the work as a whole?

http://img.bhalash.com/100.jpg

[x002x]

i'm in love w/ this picture.

[chomish]

Very nice. Came out good.

[JimMcrae]

I like this shot 'as is'. How on Earth did you include the "drop-in replacement sky"?

[Fenster]

I went into quick mask and painted the outline of the building, which took about five minutes (thank your choice of deity for straight lines). I then filled in the rest of the scene with a lasso, which I finally saved to a channel for later manipulation. I didn't really have a suitable skyscape on hand so I just dropped in this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bhalash/408251391/) one, which is an old image of mine. All in all about 60 minutes work? Fix work - the foliage on either side of the house (low opacity paintbrush), the grass and tweaking the keystoning took another 60 or so.

Black and white conversion, sharpening and contrast were all handled at the last stage in Lightroom. Here's the "as-is" image:

http://img.bhalash.com/099.jpg

[johnaengus]

Love the picture and processing. The only thing that bothers me is the outward slanting of the building.

[jetcode]

there are a lot of interesting references in this image ... starting with religion

[JimMcrae]

Cracking shot and pp, and many thanks for taking the time to explain that.

[Mendal]

First I like the shot and good job in PS, now the nits....

You mentioned the right side of the image, I think this is partially due to the fact that your edit created a straight line of dark area coming in to the side of the building with a very light area above it. on the left the background is more blended and taller. ( I hope I am describing this in a way that makes sense.) the imbalance of the background causes the right side to stand out more. I think the way the harsh sun is hitting the building is also causing the visual effect of the right side standing out. not much you can do there.

I would suggest a slight counter clockwise rotation to even up everything.

Hope this helps...
Mendal

[TLeeK]

As Mendal pointed out the dark streak on the right coming from the sky should go in my opinion, over all though Awesome!

[Fenster]

Thanks all. Here is the version I went live with:

http://bhalash.com/images/20100311235422_071.jpg (http://www.bhalash.com/index.php?showimage=88)

[TLeeK]

Very Nice!

[Mendal]

looks Great!

[loydall]

The building looks superimposed onto the sky. If you had shot it in full colour, you would have a nice colour difference between building and the sky. You could then lay the sky over the top of the image and set the blending mode to something like multiply and (hopefully) you wouldn't have to be so precise with your masking as the sky layer would take on some of the characteristics of the sky beneath (you'd still be able to see the gradient of colour that you have your original).

Blending modes can be really useful for combining images and not getting that cut-out look.