How do you get the style of color seen in these “urban decay” pictures?

Question

I have been trying to get this "look" and I am not even sure what to call it.

Here is an example:

And another:

Are they just doing selective color filtering, or is there something else that I am not grasping such as removing vibrance or playing with saturation? Thanks.

Answer 1

The top image is almost certainly HDR. Do a Google image search on HDR and you'll surely find others very much like it.

The bottom one is possibly HDR, although most people have trouble leaving as much solid shadow as is shown in that image. It kind of looks like what was there and from what I see there was light bouncing in through all kinds of doors and windows and reflecting off plenty of surfaces that could influence its color. I've been in settings like this and they photograph much like this with zero post-processing.

Answer 2

Yes these images are taken using a technique called HDR, this stands for High Dynamic Range.

you are effectively taking three frames, one is under exposed, one correctly exposed and one is over exposed. They are then blended together into one image with a high dynamic range.

You will see in the images that the lights are bright and the darks are dark and that the in between shades are very detailed. This is the effect you get.