Architectural Shots - C&C Please!

These shots are actually a couple of months old but I'd really like to get some C&C! I'd love to hear people's thoughts on both composition and PP if possible. They're part of my development for my AS Level Photography coursework, entitled 'The City'.

1.

Nice!

These look really good.

How did you do them (gear, settings, sliders, etc.)?

The first one is my favorite. I like how the phone booths contrast with the building.

Thank you, I'm glad you like them!

They were taken handheld with a 450D and standard kit lens (with a Hoya Pro1 Polarising filter attached), AEB (0, +2, -2). I can't tell you exactly what settings I used at the moment I'm afraid, I don't have the files saved correctly so I can't retrieve the info right now...

In terms of Photomatix, I processed these a few months ago now so I can't really say too much in confidence about the sliders! I can say however that the temperature would certainly have been above 0, the smoothing on maximum, the saturation on 50 (give or take 5), the microcontrast around 10, and the strength on 65-90. Really I use Photomatix to retrieve what the camera couldn't capture and to add a little more warmth and 'wow', lol. I do most of the work in Paint Shop Pro 9 (Photoshop is only ever used as a noise removal program before the main work begins) including a lot of colour and contrast work with the curves tool. I then frame the images softly with a (very) dark brown feathered border to retain some of the temperature and realism (I find that pure black doesn't work quite so well).

Sorry I can't be of more help, these images are relatively old now, my apologies!

Thanks again for you comment!

These should probably be in the Critique Corner section of the forum. Unless you were looking for _specific_ post processing help; looks to me like you got the gist of it. Nice photos.