Home Sweet Chicago

[mattjordan]

I took this series of 5 shots of the Chicago Skyline, late last year. I want to create a HUGE panoramic shot, but I have one problem. As I plan further away from my major light source (the sun), the skyline gets darker and darker. I tried to select the sky and brighten but it does not look natural. Does anyone have any advise on how I could brighten just that part of the photo. And I really don't like the B/W conversion. I had one version where I had it B/W but the lights showed in color, I loved it even though the B/W was not perfect but I cannot reproduce. So does anyone have any pointers for a 'punchy' B/W conversion?? Also I know the crop needs to completed, but that was last on my list.

Thanks

[zona5101]

First off, real nice pano.
For the sky I would use a really light dodge brush and lighten the exposure a little at a time doing several passes rather than try and get it all in one swipe. Also your corners can be filled in. Photoshop can do it pretty easily. I am not sure how much effort another tool would be...
For snappy B&W conversions, try using a gradient map: set your foreground color to black and your background color to white - Then tweak in curves (or levels) for a bump in contrast if necessary.

there are tons of other ways too. Here is a link on DPS that I saved. it looks like the accompanying images are gone but the tutorial is still good...
Making black and white photos with punch

[dlambert]

I'm not sure what you're using to stitch the pano, but you might be able to do a little straightening, too. I've used Hugin for panos, and one of the things I like about it is that you can tell it where the straight lines are in your photo, and it'll use that to help with alignment. Your horizon, for instance, would end up being a straight line, I believe. If I'm not mistaken, it's also got some exposure tools that might be able to help even out the lighting across the pan.