Before/After Slaughterhouse Backyard

Oh yes, another post-apocalyptic themed shot.
I looked through my stream to find shots about which I am thinking that they are qualitative and impressive and in which I used much photoshop to create them.
This one is definitely one which fills this requirements.
I used AEB(Automatical Exposure Bracketing) when I shot this.
This is a camera setting which makes the camera shoot not one but three shots in a row. The first shot is at the right exposure. The second one is under-exposed and the third one is overexposed.
If you blend them with a program i.e. photomatix you can get great results which have got an unnormal but terrific lighting and which have got a special charm.
This technique is called HDR imaging and is an often-used style in photography and expecially in the digital post-processing of it.

After I created this HDR out of these shots I had to do much other processing in photoshop. Same as always: all kinds of adjustment layers, layer styles and masks.
The special thing in this one was the smoke stack.
It looked like it would be curved to the left hand side.
I had to straighten this using the transform tool.
You see the big difference if you look at both images.

A little tip:

If you want to increase the contrast of an image you can try this.
Create a new adjustment layer "curves" and choose cross-processing from the dropdown menu on the top. Click OK.
Blend this adjustment layer with Luminosity.
This will increase the contrast in a way which is pretty effective and easy.
If the increasement is not enough you can duplicate the adjustment layer with CTRL+J
as often as you need.
This technique is easier to use than creating a curve on your own and you dont need any special knowledge.
You can also try the other menu items from this dropdown menu.

I hope this helps you with your work.
Thanks to everyone who reads this Blog.