Click on any image to open a slideshow and lightbox of the images in this post.

The images of these Ironworkers at work on the Ohio River Bridges Project in this post were all made about two weeks ago during the raising of another section of the Downtown Span. The captions should pretty much tell the story behind the photos.

The gallery below shows the HDR images processed using NIK HDR Efex Pro 2, Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CS5.

I initially processed each color image as a HDR image based on a three frame bracket set of +2, 0 and -2 EV exposures. After merging them into HDR images I then took them into Adobe Camera Raw for final finishing.

After that I took each HDR image into Photoshop CS5 and applied a layer with Topaz B&W 2 as the filter. I used a preset of my own creation that is based on an antique plate style of processing. In doing so I found that my preset was responding to the subject matter and emphasizing the subjects without any further input from me. I don’t know how it does this but I am very pleased with the way it affected the HDR images.