The Dual Laser Plasma technique has been employed in order to investigate the time and space resolved photoabsorption behaviour of laser generated Ba, La, Ce, Eu and Au plasmas in the giant resonance energy region. For the first time, photoelectric based photoabsorption cross sections of Ba+ , Ba2+, La3+ and Au have been measured. The study of the 4d photoabsorption behaviour of the Xelsoelectronic sequence has been extended beyond Ba2+ to La3+ and atomic Au has been investigated m the 5p excitation region following previous results for the 5d transition metals W and P t Selected results for Ba2+, La3+ and Au have been discussed with use of L S -term dependent Hartree-Fock, (R)TDLDA/(R)LDA, RPAE/MBPT many body theories.