Blog Archives
Practical HDR or natural high dynamic range
Friends, we have all seen the garish images created with high dynamic range tool in photoshop, but here is a real life situation where this tool was necessary to achieve my goals. The water is high key and has some details and the rocks are very dark but contain some details and i wanted to retain both sets of details in the same image. Enter high dynamic range tool. First of all one needs to plan ahead while in the field, and shoot three exposures of this scene. One exposure is 1 stop over-exposed and one shot in under- exposed 1 stop, and a third image is shot with exposure compensation at zero. So three exposures, bracketed around zero by 1-2 stops. Now to photoshop where the three images are combined with the HDR tool. Now the image has retained details in both the water and the rocks in a single image. til Tomorrow MJ
Around the Bend
Friends, working hard to process some images for a contest, found this scene in among my old images. It was taken as an HDR capture and two images wide to incorporate the trees on the left and the whole island in the mid-foreground, lots of computer processing to get all the details in the dark areas on the left and the bright yellow areas in the middle. do you like??, til Tomorrow MJ
Top of the Falls
Friends, not sure that i liked this image, but i will post it to see if anyone likes it. This is the top of Big Manitou Falls in Pattison State Park in northern Wisconsin. It is an HDR image so the water is rendered very blurry, but the rocks and background trees are sharp. I like the control that an HDR image gives me, so enjoy. til Tomorrow MJ
Back At It
Friends, I thought that returning to my images of Big Manitou Falls might help to refresh my creativity that has been a bit lacking lately. I guess after photoing the Whooping Crane, I thought “I can’t do any better and everything else is boring”, but i need to push onward. Winter is coming and all the boys are thinking deer hunting, so the orange clothing is lying about the living room, the guns are cleaned, the rifles sighted in and Saturday morning all the Wisconsin hunters will be out. This image is an HDR that was made from three images, just to show that HDR can have a natural look. til Tomorrow MJ
Footbridge
Friends, again at Amnicon Falls State Park and this time under the foot bridge with a very mixed bag of light, some of the water in shade and some in bright sunlit spots. A perfect situation for an HDR work. I couldn’t get all the shaded rocks and the sunlit water proper exposures without the HDR tool. HDR stands for high dynamic range and combines the exposures of three images, the first image is shot with optimum exposure, then one image overexposed for dark detail, and the third image with underexposure for the water highlights. I like this, i might hang it on the wall. til Tomorrow MJ
