#SlidersSunday

A photo that I'd always wanted to upload, but I somehow was never happy with the necesseray sliding - until now. Why "necessary" sliding?, you might ask. Well, this was a mere snapshot, one of those "hit the shutter button quickly or that moment is gone" shots that we all know about. Taken already in late spring 2018, when Sabine.R and I were waiting for the blue hour at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of the Cultures of the World - HKW -, the former Berlin Congress Hall). The HKW lies amidst the huge Tiergarten park area, and some of the tall trees there apparently were the local crow population's nighttime gathering place. While the area was almost totally devoid of humans, there was quite a bustle and hustle, a constant coming and going of crows - at a considerable noise level, so probably their day had been an eventful one, and now they were swapping stories ;-) The HKW isn't an easy buidling to photograph (please check my album for more images, if you like), and at one point I was as interested in the crows (which also met on top of the HKW's roof) as in the building itself. When I spotted this crow - and its landing shadow - I was just about to take my camera down to walk around the building to find a different, more interesting angle to shoot from. So I quickly switched my cam (my faithful little "always in my bag" LX100) back on and hurried to get my, hopefully sharp enough, shot. And sort of sharp enough it was, but only sort of. Especially the roof had just a little too much (motion) blur to make it pleasant to look at.

And here the necessary sliding comes in. Apart from cropping the image to that "pop-artish" square format and increasing the colours' saturation and such for that extra "pop", I felt that I had to do something about the "ever so slightly too unsharp" parts of the roof. In the end I decided to borrow the concrete texture from one of the many other sharp images I'd taken there. It was a little tricky to blend the texture in at the correct angle, because even if one thinks so, one never takes two images at the exact same angle, but in the end I think I got it right. Sort of ;-) There also was some considerable noise reduction / detail extraction going on (not in one processing session, but literally over the past months, because I would return to this image every now and then) which, for most of the part, were painstakingly done by masking things out in PS. So it was some sort of revelation and also a slight annoyance when I applied my finishing touches only yesterday - in my newly bought programme Topaz Sharpen AI - which did all of the aforementioned: decrease the motion blur and noise, and sharpen the image still some more...in one single step ;-)

Happy (Sliders) Sunday, Everyone, stay safe, stay well, stay happy!

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Happy Sliders Sunday :)

I haven't been around on Flickr much recently because of a nasty feverish infection that still keeps me confined to bed most of the time. But I wanted to send a little sign of life, even if it's from the archives. I wanted to upload something lighter / brighter after the many dark images I've shown recently, and I also wanted it to be a LX100 image which helped to reduce the images to chose from :). This one shows a detail of the Berlin Congress Hall (which, as some of you already know, has been nicknamed "pregnant oyster" by the Berliners). We (= Sabine.R and I) had been there fairly late, because we wanted to take blue hour captures of the Congress Hall, but we still had to wait until 11 p.m. before the sky finally assumed that magical blue (please check the image in the first comment if you like).

We'd had a cloudless blue sky back then, and in LR I'd played around with the HSL sliders to remove the fading evening blue - and quite liked the result. Actually this image had already been developed and edited for a long time, but since I'm checking out Topaz DeNoise (30 day trial) right now, I thought I'd give it another noise (which can be quite strong on the LX100 with its 13 MP sensor) reducing treatment. Topaz DeNoise did a really good job here, I think, and - so far - I'm really impressed with the results it yields. More on Topaz DeNoise later :)

I'll try to catch up with you, but at the moment I'm still feeling somewhat under the weather. Have a great new week ahead, dear Flickr friends!

Kleines Lebenszeichen aus dem Archiv, da ich ja schon eine Weile nichts mehr hochgeladen habe, woran eine fiese Fieber-Husten-Geschichte Schuld ist, die mich schon seit Längerem plagt. Nach all den doch recht dunklen Fotos der letzten Zeit wollte ich endlich wieder ein helleres Bild zeigen, außerdem sollte es auch mal wieder ein LX100-Foto sein, was dann die Auswahl angenehm eingeschränkt hat :) Hier seht Ihr ein Detail der Berliner Kongresshalle (auch bekannt als "schwangere Auster"). Als wir (= Sabine.R und ich) an einem Mai-Abend vor knapp zwei Jahren dort waren, wollten wir Blaue-Stunde-Fotos der Kongresshalle machen, mussten dann aber noch bis 23 Uhr warten, bis sich das magische Blau endlich zeigte. Der Tag an sich war wolkenlos gewesen, und beim Entwickeln / der Bearbeitung kam mir die Idee, die zarten, verblassenden Blautöne des Abendhimmels per HSL-Regler zu entfernen, was mir letzten Endes auch recht gut gefiel. An sich war das Foto schon lange fertig bearbeitet, aber da ich gerade Topaz DeNoise ausprobiere, habe ich dem Bild spaßenshalber mit sanfter (erneuter) Entrauschung noch den letzten Schliff verpasst. Bislang bin ich von den Topaz-DeNoise-Ergebnissen ziemlich beeindruckt, gut möglich, dass ich das Programm nach der Testphase kaufen werde.

Ich wünsche Euch eine schöne neue Woche, liebe Flickr-Freunde! Und bitte nicht böse sein, wenn ich im Moment mehr Sternchen verteile als dazu auch Kommentare schreibe, ich bin noch nicht wieder ganz auf dem Damm.

Tags:   sliderssunday Post Processed to the MAX!!! HSS Berlin Deutschland Germany Berliner Kongresshalle Haus der Kulturen der Welt HKW Hugh Stubbins Schwangere Auster Nachkriegsmoderne Salle des Congrès (Berlin) l'huitre enceinte Maison des cultures du monde architecture moon Mond lune luna minimalism elegance arhitectură lună 1950's architecture modern etterkrigsmodernisme Mid-century modern Дом культур мира Луна Модерн середины века архитектура Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 Lumix LX100 Lumix Leica compact camera MFT LEICA DC-Vario SUMMILUX Lightroom Topaz DeNoise

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7DWF, Sundays: Fauna
Sliders Sunday

The Birds of Tiergarten :-) Crows gathering for the night in Berlin's Tiergarten park nearby the conference hall / House of the World's Cultures. Taken on the Spree side of the conference hall during the blue hour photowalk with Sabine.R (our blue hour captures of the conference hall were taken on the backside of the building). The late evening sky was cloudless and at that point pale blue. So I decided to give this capture the "Nik Color Efex treatment" and jazz it up with some of its colour filters. There were quite many crows, busily flying around before settling for the night, they were pretty talkative, or should I say noisy, too. But friendly (though we've heard of crow attacks during breeding season), minding their own business :-)

HSS Everyone, and have a beautiful new week ahead!

Die Vögel vom Tiergarten

Krähenansammlung zur Nacht in der Nähe der Berliner Kongresshalle. Aufgenommen auf der Spreeseite der Kongresshalle, bevor Sabine.R und ich für die Blaue-Stunde-Fotos zur Rückseite des Gebäudes gingen. Die Krähen machten einen ganz schönen Lärm, waren aber friedlich (es gab ja schon Meldungen von Attacken auf Menschen während der Brutsaison). Für Sliders Sunday habe ich den zu diesem Zeitpunkt blassblauen Himmel mit Farbfiltern der Nik Collection (Color Efex) ein wenig aufgepeppt. Ich hoffe, es gefällt Euch.

Ich wünsche Euch einen guten Start in die neue Woche!

Tags:   7DWF Fauna sliderssunday Post Processed to the MAX!!! HSS silhouettes sunset purple orange corvidae corvus crows Krähen Vögel Silhouetten Sonnenuntergang coucher de soleil asfințit apus apusul soarelui tramonto atardecer pôr-do-sol ηλιοβασίλεμα günbatımı заход солнца corneille cioară cornacchia corneja corvo κόρακας karga ворона birds oiseaux păsări uccelli pájaro pássaro πουλί kuş птицы пернатые Hitchcock The Birds Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 Lumix LX100 Lumix Leica LEICA DC-Vario SUMMILUX Nik Collection Color Efex Pro Graduated Filters

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