Archbishop's workplace

As my camera couldn't capture as much of this scene in one go as I wanted, I mounted it onto a tripod and split the scene into 6 separate zones (Top left, middle and right also bottom left, middle and right). As I knew my camera didn't have the exposure latitude to capture detail from the darkest and lightest parts of the scene at the same time I took 6 photos bracketed at 1 stop intervals (above and below the 'correct' exposure) to give me a good chance of capturing everything I needed.

At home I reviewed the photos and chose the three exposures from each set of 6 that I needed to give me a full brightness range. I then took the base (most correct) exposure and using a layer mask, added the correct exposure to the burnt out areas (windows mainly). I then saved this photo and opened it up with the lightest of the three exposures into software that enabled me to tone map them. It also lightened the areas of the photo that were too dark. I chose a basic setting as I wanted to keep a realistic feel and saved the resultant photo.

I then went through the same process for the other 5 zones of the scene until all 6 zones were lightly tone mapped and saved. I then used stitching software to knit the 6 tone mapped zones together to form a single photo. Unfortunately this photo was a very strange shape, so I had to use my usual post processing software's 'distort' tool to pull at the photo until the cathedral looked a much more natural shape and true to life.

All that was left to do then was to crop the photo how it looked best, clone out a few distracting details, a little burn and dodging, sharpen and re-size.
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