Creative Effects Challenge No. 129 - RAW Let's Go Inside

There are some excellent sumbissions here. i have enjoyed this challenge. Here is my take.

First some basic adjustments in ACR to increase exposure, brighten shadows and darken highlights.
Then on to PS Elements. Brightened the doors, darkened the windows. Added a Topaz AI bright and detailed filter. Then on to Lightroom to decrease saturation, add a vignette, a little barrel distortion and slight crop.






Kind regards
Chris

Glad you are enjoying the challenge, Chris. You have certainly brightened up the entrance area in your first submission. The vintage look was a good editing choice for your second image.
I think the photographer was correct in thinking that our members would provide a variety of options for editing the original file.

It appears like the vibrant tones of the opera spilled out to the entry foyer....a most original edit, Lillias!

All your work seems to have paid off, Maurice. You have lightened the interior nicely. What did you use for noise reduction?

Thanks, Maurice. I don't detect any noise in your image and your details don't seem to be compromised.

Please let me begin by thanking you all for spending the time to play with my image.
As Helen outlined at the start, my aim on taking it was to show the beauty of the interior of this historic building (the Coliseum theatre in London for those that hadn't spotted the clues). Unfortunately I was never very happy with it, mainly because I had clipped too much from the ceiling, which also meant I couldn't straighten it without losing even more of the arch. But anyway, I was facinated to see what this community would come up with.
But first, I did a fairly straight processing of what I had in mind, using Luminar 4.
I used the Luminar AI Accent to lift the lighting inside, then removed chromatic aberation and defringed. Then dropped the highlights right down to see as much as possible outside (although the street is a bit messy I still wanted it to look like a street), then lifted the shadows further until I could see the door panels more clearly.Then had a think about the crop. Although I loved the side lines, I did feel they distracted from the actual door and stopped you looking up so cropped it square, which happily got rid of my camera bag. I de-noised sufficient to retain the detail of the wood grain. And then spent a bit of time tidying, deleting bits and bobs and changing the hue of the barrier.


London Coliseum foyer by AlexR!, on Flickr

So, looking at your great versions I am struggling to select a favourite 3, they are all so good, but I do have to. I love how so many of you have brought out the textures of the building and show it in a different light. But my particular mentions have to go to the following:

fotofrank  (colour version) as this is closest to what I had in mind, and as I tried to create as described above.
Peterj for being so brave as to cut the door and really focus the eye upwards. And I love how the monochrome treatment works, again I would never have done it and lost the coloured panelling.
Lillias (psychedelic version) for just such a mad explosion of colour. I truly love it.

Thank you again all.

Thanks for submitting this challenging image, Alex. Thanks also to our members who took on this challenge and shared their vision for his photo. Congratulations to Frank, Pete and Lillias for making Alex's final cut.

I will also take this opportunity to again ask for a submission for the next RAW Challenge which will begin on October 17th. Please PM me if you would like to submit an image.