Now there is another tool available free of charge. Understanding what techniques are available to you can help you overcome the shortcomings of technology and allow you to express your creativity to the fullest.Last year in my article 4 options for an HDR image i compared a couple of tools to generate HDR images. Every scene will be different, and will lend themselves to different processing techniques. But I believe in using any tool available in order to express what I felt when I looked upon the scene as it happened. I know there is a lot backlash against HDR, and I understand it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Looking at the two images, the HDR blend seems to have a smoother transition from lights to darks, as well as a richer overall look. You may need to run the gaussian blur more than once to get it just right. How much will depend on what the mask is like. One way to ease the transition is to run a gaussian blur filter on the mask to soften the edges. This takes a lot of patience since with the exposure difference, it’s very easy to see halos if the masking isn’t done carefully. Then, using white, I painted the arch back in to reveal the arch at +2 against the sky at even exposure. I then apply a layer mask to the +2 layer, and paint the entire mask black to hide the layer. Then, I took the +2 exposure, and processed in the same way, dropping that image on a new layer in photoshop over the even exposure. I first processed the even exposure and adjusted for color and saturation. I try to minimize any halos, and keep the tones fairly smooth.īefore I processed the HDR image, I also tried a simple two shot blend in Photoshop. I don’t like the over the top look that some get, but I do like the image to pop a bit.
Nik HDR Efex Pro offers a variety of presets, but I always try to keep the HDR processing fairly subtle. I use Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 for my HDR processing to blend the exposures, and then finish in Photoshop, adjusting color, saturation, etc. The -3 exposure really didn’t add anything to the HDR, so that was dropped from my processing. I bracketed for 7 exposures, but ended up only using six. I shot in Av mode, at f/16, with the EF 14mm f/2.8L II lens. So I bracketed my shots using the auto exposure bracketing mode on my EOS-1D X. And sitting there in the desert, I didn’t want to place any bets on it. I really wasn’t sure which processing technique would give me the best results. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, meaning an image where the range of tones is higher than what the camera can accurately record. If I wanted to bring down my highlights and keep detail in the shadows, I was going to have to either blend two shots, or use an HDR program to get the result I was looking for. Because of the way the landscape was laid out before me, graduated neutral density filters were not going to work for this shot. But ultimately I wanted some detail in the rock, I wanted detail in the sky, and I wanted to maintain the drama of the spectacular desert sunset that I was witnessing. This may have been fine had I intended a silhouette shot- which I did capture and intend to use. With the sun setting directly behind it, exposing for the sky would have rendered the rock a silhouette.
I also used the even exposure, and the +2 exposure, for the two image manual blend I did in Photoshop. These are the six shots I used for the HDR blend.