Church Interior

a very dark church, HDR with CS2 and some Topaz layers added in. critiques please

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Looks great! I get more of the HDR feel on the ceiling and less on the lower 2/3'rds of the pic.

Its hard to fault the image, but perhaps the large areas of red and brown tones washing throughout the scene prevent some of the other colours emerging more strongly - i.e. the colours in the stained glass, the flowers near the centre of the image, the lights hanging from the ceiling, even the blue tones of the books in the pews. I think that the other colours need a chance to come out a bit more, so desaturating some of the russet tones might help achieve this. And some sharpening of the central area of the image might help. But again, its a good photo.

Nicely done - yes, a little sharpening would help. Shame you could not ask the guy to move out of the picture.

thanks for the replies and critques; yes the red and brown do dominate... the guys were musicians warming up their violins b-4 the ceremony. I believe this was my 1st hdr shot ever. When i get some time a bit later i will redo it using photomatix 4. It will be interesting to see if the tones change vs. cs2. I want to maintain the original look or maybe about 2/3 of it if i can quantify it.

yes the stained glass should be more pronounced. it was a dull day outside here in "sunny" Buffalo. Perhaps a layer mask on the darker shot to bring out the glass more...
thanks again!

Heres the original HDR.. its actually a little better i think; more contrast and sharper in the center. still cant get that glass to pop more though!!

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Great capture but have to agree with the above and add that it either needs straightning or some lens correction

Nice job for your first tonemapped image.

You could make a selection of the glass window then increase the vibrance/saturation to make it stand out more.

I like the second one better. Nice shot and processing.

thanks for all the critiques and comments... i tryed to level it in CS2 using the grid. I'll take a look again. Non-L glass makes a difference in perspective for sure... used a kit 17-85 but i'm not blaming the lens... thanks again i really appreciate you HDR veterans!!

Crisp detail throughout in the second. Very nice.
Definitely make another copy of the pic with the vibrance turned up.
Then add it as a layer and layer mask the window into the original.