Tag Archive for HDR

naturephoto | January 2, 2011
One comment

Winter scenes at Mer Bleue

Here are photos taken at a recent outing at Mer Bleue Bog in Ottawa.

Winter tree silhouette against blue orange sky-HDR

This photo is made up of 3 images that were merged with Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro. To put the finishing touches on the HDR tone mapped image, the file was saved as a tiff file in Photoshop and then opened with Adobe Camera Raw 6.3.  If you’re like me and like making the bulk of your photo adjustments using Adobe Camera Raw, did you know that you can make use of all those familiar adjustments on your TIFF or JPG files as well.  This is a great way to make final color/contrast adjustments to your HDR images.

Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) Tip:  You can set ACR to open JPG and TIFF images and be able to make use of the same adjustments that you use against your raw files.

From Adobe Bridge, to specify Camera Raw preferences, choose Edit > Camera Raw Preferences (PC) or Adobe Bridge CS5 > Camera Raw Preferences (Mac).  At the bottom of the dialog there are two menus under the JPEG and  TIFF Handling headings.  These two menus have the same impact on their respective files formats.

This is how the TIFF selections impact the TIFF files when doing a double-click on these files in Bridge.

Disable TIFF support: You will not be able to open TIFF files using Adobe Camera Raw. This is the default setting.

Automatiacally Open TIFF with settings: TIFF files which have previously been modified using ACR will be automatically open with ACR, and TIFF files which have not been modified with ACR will be open by Photoshop

Automatically Open all supported  TIFFs: All TIFF files will be  automatically open using ACR unless they contain layers in which case they will open in Photoshop.

Read more

Category: Photo Techniques, Photos, Photoshop | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
naturephoto | November 2, 2010
No comments

‘A World In HDR’ by Trey Ratcliff – quick book review

A World In HDR

A World In HDR


Like many photographers these days I have been experimenting with HDR photography (see previous post). I wanted to see if I could pickup some tips by getting Trey Ratcliff’s book on the subject titled: ‘A World In HDR’. Trey and his website; StuckInCustoms.com are known as an authority on the subject of HDR photography.

Unfortunately the book does not provide much in terms of tips and technique.

The bulk of the book (first 171 pages out of 208) is made up of a collection of HDR photos by the author with general commentary about the locations of where the photos were taken, his views on HDR photography, art, and life in general.

The remainder of the book covers what is basically the same tutorial that is available online at the author’s website: StuckInCustoms.com : HDR Tutorial – Everything you need to know about HDR Photography.

The print quality of the book does not do justice to the photos when compared to what is available online at StuckInCustoms.com either.

I can’t hide the fact that I was quite disappointed with this book. I would not recommend it for anyone wanting to learn anything more than the basics of HDR photography!

Category: Reviews | Tags: , ,
naturephoto | October 11, 2010
2 comments

Fall Colors at Mer Bleue with HDR

I was out catching some landscape photos of fall colors at Mer Bleue Conservation area in Ottawa. I decided that I would shoot some photos to process them as HDR.

HDR horizontal fall landscape Mer Bleue Conservation Area Ottawa

What is HDR? HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. As the name indicates, an HDR photo is a photo that has increased dynamic range compared to a regular photo. In a conventional digital photo, the sensor’s capture abilities cannot match what your eyes sees in terms of contrast ratio. Your eyes/brain can easily adjust and see the full range of information within a scene. For example, in a scene where you have part of the scene in full sunlight and part in full shade, your eyes/brain will adjust and allow you to see the part of the scene lit by the sun and also the part of the scene that is in the shade. Unfortunately you camera cannot capture that full range of information. You will have to compromise and decide between one of:

1) Exposing your image for the sunlit portion of the scene and loose information detail in the shaded portion of your scene.

2) Exposing your image for the shaded portion of the scene and loose detail in the sunlit portion of the scene.

That is where HDR processing comes to the rescue. It allows merging multiple images that were captured at different exposure settings into a single photo covering a larger dynamic range that can look more like the scene you wanted to capture.

Note that many camera models are now being released with the ability to capture in-camera HDR images. Meaning that multiple exposures are taken when you take the picture and they are processed in-camera. However the technique that is explained here can be used with any camera that allows exposure adjustments because the image processing is done on a computer.

There are two main steps in making HDR photos: Capture and Post-processing.

Read more

Category: Photo Techniques, Photos, Photoshop | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
naturephoto | April 12, 2010
One comment

Photoshop CS5 for photographers

Photoshop CS5

Photoshop CS5

Photoshop CS5 has officially been released today – April 12, 2010. It wasn’t a big secret, bits and pieces of the new features were available all over the web since the pre-announcement during the Orlando PhotoshopWorld in March.

According to many, this is one of the most significant Photoshop releases in terms of new and enhanced features in years.

Here is a list of new/enhanced features of interest to photographers compared Photoshop CS4.   All listed features are based on Photoshop CS5 (does not include Photoshop CS5 Extended features)

New in Photoshop CS5

  • Additive grain in Adobe Camera Raw (Who knew we needed to add grain to our photos!  Give your photos the film look)
  • Automatic lens correction (Will automatically make corrections based on some pre-defined Camera/Lens combinations that is extracted from your photo’s MetaData.)
  • Straighten Image tool
  • Truer Edge selection technology (You won’t have to pull your hair anymore when making selection that includes hair, fur or other fine details)
  • Color decontamination for selections (Part of new selection tool, will de-fringe colors that can show up at the edges of objects once removed from their background)
  • Selection and mask refinement tools
  • Content-Aware Fill/Healing (Deleted foreground elements in a photo automatically filled based on background.  With the right type of photo can be a huge time saver.  Healing brush also has content-aware options which looks like a great improvement for healing around well defined edges)
  • Puppet Warp (Allows movement of parts of a photo without having to worry about the background. Kind of allows a precise warp without distortions.)
  • New Adobe Camera Raw processing engine.  (Get better results when converting your old Raw files.  Icon indicates when image can be re-processed with new 2010 engine)

Enhanced in Photoshop CS5

  • Noise removal in Adobe Camera Raw (Looks like a major improvement in noise reduction.  Scott Kelby calls this enhancement, one of the biggest stars in CS5! )
  • HDR imaging (No need for Photomatix Pro anymore!  Can I get my money back?  Also included is a single image HDR Toning feature.  No need for Topaz Adjust either!)
  • B&W conversion
  • Post-crop vignetting (Added options to protect Highlights or Color, and better overall control)

References:
As always, to get great information on Photoshop, head over to the NAPP website. They have 17 videos at their free CS5 Learning Center
www.photoshopuser.com/cs5

Get a list of What’s new in Photoshop CS5 for photographers at Adobe.com

Feature comparison chart between Photoshop CS3, CS4 and CS5 at Adobe.com

Videos from AdobeTV on Photoshop CS5

Read more

Category: News, Photoshop | Tags: , , , ,
naturephoto | September 20, 2009
No comments

Old Rusted Stairs and Simulated HDR – – Before and after photos taken with iPhone 3GS

Picture taken in Old-Montreal of metal stair with small flower pots. Processed with PhotoForge’s ‘Simulated HDR’ option and curves adjustments.

Photos captured with the iPhone 3Gs and processed with the iPhone PhotoForge application.

After Photo:

Rusted staircase post-processed with PhotoForge iphone app simulated HDR filter

Unprocessed Rusted staircase in old-Montreal

Before photo of Rusted staircase in old-Montreal

Before Photo:

Category: Photos | Tags: ,