image post processing

[ElizK]

Thank you! Unfortunately, I don't know what Topaz'd is. Here are the directions I used to do these, so you can tell me if this is closer to the Topaz process (oh, I guess it does mention Topaz... I'll go find out what that is):
Open a suitable image in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). If you are shooting JPGs you'll need to use "File>Open As" instead of "File>Open" and don't forget to select Camera Raw from the file format (Open AS) drop down (even if you are selecting a JPG).

With the image open in ACR, do the following...

Push Recovery to 100
Push Fill Light to 100
Push Contrast to 100
Push Clarity to 100
Push Vibrance to 100

Now push Blacks up as much as you like unitl you get rid of any "milkiness".

If Exposure needs to be adjusted at this point, push or pull (gently) as needed, but do this after all the other adjustments are made.

Lastly, you can try dropping the saturation a bit, usually to -20 or so. You can also wait and do it in Elements...

Now "Open Image" in Elements Editor.

Depending upon the image you selected, there may be one or more colors that are now "out of control", e.g., way too much blue. If that's the case, add a Hue/Saturation Layer, select the appropriate channel (e.g., Blue or Cyan, you may need to hit both) and desaturate as needed.

If necessary, or to yield a desired affect (e.g., Lomo-effect), you can desaturate any individual colors or all of them at the same time using "Master".

Now you can make any other adjustments you feel compelled to try...

Add a dark vignette (ala, Holga) using Filters>Correct Camera Distortion... and set Vignette Amount to -100. Do this twice to double the effect.

Try Reducing Noise...
Try sharpening...

Try a adding a soft glow, duplicate the pixel layer, apply a Gaussian Blur to the top pixel layer and then set the blend mode to Overlay. Also try different blend modes, such as Soft Light and Multiply.

If you need to adjust levels, or curves, then have at it. I usually wait and do this last.

There it is, pseudo-HDR, a Topaz-like effect without Topaz.

 

[Experiment_626]

Depending upon the image you selected, there may be one or more colors that are now "out of control", e.g., way too much blue. If that's the case, add a Hue/Saturation Layer, select the appropriate channel (e.g., Blue or Cyan, you may need to hit both) and desaturate as needed.

Or, you can do that step in Camera Raw as well. Just go to the Colors tab and adjust the hue, saturation, and/or brightness there. I prefer it there because you have more colors to choose than in Photoshop proper -- you can fiddle with orange, aqua and others in Camera Raw.

SSB

 

[Master Mason]

Here is my latest attempt, not as good as yours but I'm still very much a newbie

 

[RBennett]

Here is my latest attempt, not as good as yours but I'm still very much a newbie

VERY nice!! It's very natural looking and the colors look really great! For a "newbie" I'm highly impressed; heck, for an expert I'm impressed. I wish I could get into HDR. Maybe later on.

- Robby

 

[klmall]

Gregg - Your three Yosemite pictures are beautiful! If you are are a newbie I can't wait to see what more experience brings! It looks like you are using HDR to bring pictures to what the eye sees or at least what the mind thinks the eye is seeing.

 

[klmall]

When I shot with my G5 and G9 I used ReDynaMix and Topaz to bring out the colors. Here are a couple examples:

Maury River along Goshen Pass in VA

Yellowstone River, Yellowstone NP

 

[boBQuincy]

Here is my latest attempt, not as good as yours but I'm still very much a newbie

These are *really* good Greg! Yosemite photos respond well to HDR.
I bet Ansel Adams would have loved to have such a tool since he spent so much time finding ways to fit a large dynamic range into the small range of printing paper.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Nice shots, Gregg. Welcome back.

Just to warn you, landscape shots of environmentally sensitive areas can generate controversy. It would be best if you restricted your photo postings to celebrities and pets. We don't want any trouble here.

 

[saturndb]

Greg nice shots, they look very natural and really draw you into the picture

Dave

 

[boBQuincy]

Fix those blank skies and muddy shadows without taking three exposures!

http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/surprised.shtml

This is not really new and many of us have seen it done before but it is always worth looking at again, and with a slightly different method.
A "hopeless" photo may not always be as hopeless as it looks, especially if we capured it in RAW.

 

[zackiedawg]

Quite true...I've been playing with tons of 'throwaway' photos in the past few months, and with newer processing tools, it can be very surprising what one can get out of an otherwise junk photo.

BTW - don't dismiss JPEGs either - I know the RAW folks have come to love how much recoverable range there is in a RAW file, but it can be downright shocking how much info a JPEG can be hiding too.

I once had a shot in Epcot that was basically an accidental shot - the camera was in my hand, down by my side, and I often walk with my finger hovering over the shutter...as I was preparing to take a photo, I was a little over-eager and fired off a shot with the camera still by my side. I ended up with this in my uploads:

I of course didn't bother with it initially, processed all the other photos, uploaded to my gallery...then when I had some free time, I became curious about what might be lying under all that shadow. I embarked on a project to see just how much I could pull out of that photo - even if it wasn't going to be a 'good' photo by posting standards, it would be a good practice and example of how much you could recover from a completely lost cause. After straightening, layering, dodging, running through noise reduction, and tone mapping, I was able to bring it up to this:

Is it a great photo? Gosh no, not my any means. But it is interesting in showing what was hiding in all that silhouette, and moreover, a great example of what could be recovered from a JPEG photo taken with a lowly P&S camera!

 

[WDWFigment]

That is a pretty decent tutorial, but no one is better at teaching this technique (in my opinion) than Scott Kelby. I learned a few methods in his newer 7 Point System for Photoshop books that really really help with this.

 

[jann1033]

that's amazing z.dawg. never would have guessed you could get that much back.
good tutorial as well.

 

[annnewjerz]

I have use the AE Bracketing mode on my D90 a few times when I'm just poking around, but since we'll be in The World in a few weeks I'd like to use it a little bit more. If anyone who does a lot of HDR (I'm talking to you, bOB! ) wouldn't mind answering a few questions---that'd be great!

1. How many shots do you use---3, 5 or some other amount? At home, I did 3 shots and used +/-2 EV.

2. If I do 3 shots, is +/-2 EV good or is there something that would work better?

3. During the day, how easy/difficult is handholding for HDR? I have done some bracketed shooting, but never processed them so I'm not even sure if the images all align.

4. If the images don't align, how easy/difficult of a fix is this in a photo editing program like PSE?

5. What software do you use? Photomatix seems to be the one most commonly mentioned, but are there any others out there that are reasonably user friendly?

Thaaaaaaaaaanks!

Ann

 

[Code]

3 shots at +/- 2 EV is generally enough, but not always.

Remember the goal when shooting HDR is to get the entire dynamic range of the scene covered, meaning no black shadows in the brightest shot (and preferably not close to black to minimize noise), and no blown highlights in the dimmest (the sun or other bright lights being the exception).

Thus, the perfect HDR requires a bit of thought. For instance, say I want to do an HDR of a scene, and I take a test shot without any exposure compensation and find that there are no blown highlights to begin with but many deep dark shadows. Well in that case, using any negative exposure compenstation is just a waste as I already have the top end of the dynamic range covered. In that case, I would probably set exposure compensation to +2 EV, then bracket +/-2 EV on top of that, so what I'd end up with is three shots at 0, +2 and +4 EV.

Handholding HDR is easy with auto bracketing, but you have to have software that aligns the images as it is impossible to perfectly line up all the images handheld. No matter how steady I try to be there are always a few pixels of correction to be made. The one catch is that you have to be sure your +2 EV shot isn't such a slow shutter speed as to cause camera shake blur.

As far as software goes, I've been using Dynamic Photo HDR ($55 and there is a trial version) and like it a lot, but I've never tried Photomatix to compare. It is user friendly enough and very good at aligning handheld images in my experience. The new version has options to reduce/eliminate the annoying halo effect in skies too.

Lastly, always try to consider WHY you are shooting a particular scene with HDR techniques. If you look at a test shot and find no blown highlights and no clipped shadows, then you don't really need HDR (though it can still be useful for minimizing shadow noise). The "HDR look" comes from the tone mapping techniques, NOT from the HDR itself. If you just want that "look" but the scene doesn't require multiple exposures, you can always just run a single file through the software just for the tonemapping.

Anyway, hope this helps rather than just adding confusion

 

[boBQuincy]

I typically take three exposures at +/- 2 stops, partly because that is the most my camera will do. If a scene looks like it has a lot of range (like a black steam locomotive on a sunny day) I will take three exposures at -2 compensation and three more at +2, giving me five different exposures to use. Btw, I usually use Aperture mode, a low ISO, and a medium aperture for sharpness.

Most of our cameras have a range of about 10 to 12 stops so I can't see much reason for using less than +/- 2. Maybe someone else has another idea on this.

Fortunately the software does a pretty good job of automatically aligning images so handheld works ok for the most part. Handholding should still be avoided unless it is our only option, the images are very unlikely to align well and I would think it is not as good as having nicely aligned images to start with. I try to use some kind of camera support and almost always have a monopod with me.

Some people like to align the images in Photoshop, claiming it does a better job of aligning than the HDR software. Then they go to their HDR software for tone mapping. I have not seen much difference either way yet.

I use Photomatix. I had a copy of DynamicPhotoHDR and gave it to my brother, who likes it better than Photomatix. Ymmv... Photomatix had several methods of merging the exposures, some more dramatic, some more realistic. I find myself going for the more realistic look and mostly using HDR to extend the range but now and then I do like an extreme image treatment. It's fun!

 

[VVFF]

I'll add another comment. I went to Disney after just having learned and used HDR a few times. I was taking all sorts of HDR shots hand held(yes it works in really good light). Then I got home and realized a stupid mistake I had made. Disney has lots of....you guessed it....people. People tend to move. HDR does not like when people move. So make sure when you're taking your shot you are not getting anything in the shot that will move significantly.

Actually, this can still be useful by masking two images together "manually". If you just want to have sky with color you can take two shots. One with the sky exposed correctly, one with the foreground. Then mask the sky into the foreground image and adjust the layers to match. It works well in some situations and avoids the problem with "moving people".

I don't like the overemphasized HDR look though. Even people who post their images claming to have processed them in a way that "avoids" the HDR look is often too much for me. When I use HDR, my aim is to simply get detail exposed properly that would have otherwise been lost.

 

[Marlton Mom]

I was wondering.... What is the difference between bracketing exposures for HDR and the active d lighting on my Nikon D60?

I'm new to all the digital tech advances since the days of my Minolta XG7. I am now spending a great deal of time studying my camera manual and all the wonderful tips and info that you all are so kind to provide.

I have quite a bit of reading and understanding before I figure out how to set the camera up to bracket exposures for HDR but with this Active d lighting thing I was wondering if I needed to go through all of that....
As an example, I Love Figments "Shop at Sid's" black pick up truck shot, and that's sort of the color range that I am after when I come across possible shots that would be good for that sort of thing.

Also, another question...I figure that I will be shooting Raw but there is also a setting for Raw + Jpeg. I have Photoshop CS4 so post production won't be a problem (I think!... LOL, still learning that one too..) Do you think it would be worth it to burn the space on the memory card and do both Raw and Jpeg or just stick with Raw? Advantages, disadvantages anyone??

Smoochies and I love you all to bits for inspiring me to go for it with my equipment!

Marlton Mom

 

[Quicklabs]

I usually go for three shots at +/-2 EV on landscapes; six or more on interiors (Like church ceilings that soar a million miles up) using the guidelines that Code laid out so well. I use Photomatix for processing, but haven't bought the program yet! (I don't know why I haven't)
Ya wanna see one of my latest HDR? Here it is! Taken last week on my mini photo vacation by myself. I like to use a very light hand in the processing. I think it was three exposures.

On this one, (shot of a really huge cave), I might have worked a little bit more to expose the inside of the cave, and gone with 5 shots. THis pic would not have been possible without HDR. Live and learn.

 

[Quicklabs]

You really just have to pick and choose the look you want. Here's an example of one that I processed with just a touch of D lighting with a pretty decent exposure to begin with. It was raining so the light was pretty even, giving me quite an advantage in metering this scene.

Here's roughly the same shot in HDR.

My DH likes the "natural" look of D lighting better, but sometimes the dark is just too dark to pull up much of a range with d lighting alone.

I shoot only in RAW--there's really no reason for me to shoot JPEG anymore. I like to mess with my own stuff in RAW when I need to. I think Photomatix handles both.

I was wondering.... What is the difference between bracketing exposures for HDR and the active d lighting on my Nikon D60?

I'm new to all the digital tech advances since the days of my Minolta XG7. I am now spending a great deal of time studying my camera manual and all the wonderful tips and info that you all are so kind to provide.

I have quite a bit of reading and understanding before I figure out how to set the camera up to bracket exposures for HDR but with this Active d lighting thing I was wondering if I needed to go through all of that....
As an example, I Love Figments "Shop at Sid's" black pick up truck shot, and that's sort of the color range that I am after when I come across possible shots that would be good for that sort of thing.

Also, another question...I figure that I will be shooting Raw but there is also a setting for Raw + Jpeg. I have Photoshop CS4 so post production won't be a problem (I think!... LOL, still learning that one too..) Do you think it would be worth it to burn the space on the memory card and do both Raw and Jpeg or just stick with Raw? Advantages, disadvantages anyone??

Smoochies and I love you all to bits for inspiring me to go for it with my equipment!

Marlton Mom