Chancery St (and Lane) I have always loved this architecture

[Jim A]

Return to this place when I can, though not recently. I feel that I could do better justice to this place. Have straightened the buildings, done in HDR (not in this example), etc, etc. How can I improve?

Chancery Lane by Jim A, on Flickr

[Shadowman]

Nice effort, that's quite a noisy image and lots of CA.

[MrB]

The image doesn't look quite right to me as it appears to have been over-corrected for vertical perspective. I think I would prefer the middle and higher tones to be just a bit brighter (there is nothing on the right of the histogram). The top of the building on the left looks as though it has been cut off. There are some odd edge effects in places leading me to wonder if the street scene has been layered over a different sky.

Philip

[Manfred M]

Jim - I agree with Philip - there are lots of signs of image manipulation so things seem to be "not right". The missing top of the building on the left and edges that look too sharp or have bits in the scene where the cut was not clean are quite evident.

All that aside; the biggest issue I see is uninteresting lighting. The lighting is quite flat (no shadows) and it does not match the sky. I don't know the orientation and other issues in trying to get the shot, but shooting at Golden Hour or the beginning of Blue Hour would definitely help here.

[Geoff F]

My first thoughts have already been mentioned. I am inclined to ask 'what did the straight from camera image look like' ?

Either too little or too much of the left side building. Probably best to exclude it totally. Odd problems with some edges particularly with the roof lines.

Maybe a touch more highlight brightness, carefully applied, would give a scene a bit more impact. But, remember that some scenes under the 'wrong' lighting conditions will never be totally successful.

You mention straightening the verticals in HDR; which isn't the method that I would have used.

[Tom Barry]

If we had the original image, it would help, as Geoff said. My guess is that it was shot under overcast skies and with a wide-angle lens held slightly out of kilter. The poster noted that HDR was not used in this version, but it certainly shows the effects of image manipulation, as Manfred noted.

[Jim A]

Thanks guys, lots of good and helpful comments. I did replace the sky - but as you say, the lighting does not match. Was aware of the chromatic aberration, however was trying to fix things more globally, before getting rid of it. The best overall thing seems to be for me to make another trip over to the city with my tripod and take a shot much earlier or later. I will need to check first somehow, with all the building going on around that location at present, that there is a good space for me to put my tripod.

Many thanks again for all the very useful feedback!