Panoramic HDR, High Dynamic Range, photograph of a beautiful Louisville sunset and the Ohio River in January.
Category: Sunset
Sunset in Louisville
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This HDR image was captured using a three exposure bracket set of +2, 0 and -2 EV exposures. It was then merged in NIK HDR EFex Pro 2 where I applied the “balanced” preset before returning it to Aperture 3 for final adjustment of the color channels, contrast, definition and sharpening.
Saturday’s Sunset on the Ohio River
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This HDR image was taken from the Big Four Bridge in Waterfront Park Saturday evening just after sunset. I shot my usual three frame bracket set of +2, 0 and -2 EV which I merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 to create a HDR image. I started with the balanced preset and from there I built my own preset for this image as well as several other bracket sets that are from the same shoot. After merging the three images I adjusted contrast and exposure sliders. I then added a  -2 stop gradient filter to the sky to lower the brightness level there. I then returned the image to aperture 3 where I made a few small adjustments to contrast and adjusted the red, yellow, blue and magenta color channels. Finally I applied sharpening and cropped it to give it a more panoramic feeling.
Forecastle Fun
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Saturday evening I went down to Waterfront Park for the Forecastle Festival. I wanted to capture the frenzy and activity that Forecastle is known for. I opted to shoot bracketed shots of -2, 0 and +2 EV for eventual creation of HDR images of the crowd. I expected blur and indistinct faces due to the slow shutter speeds that were entailed and I was pleasantly surprised by this bracket set that left one man in the scene without his head. I played around with the anti-ghosting setting and finally applied 20% which rendered his head as a faint blur. After tone-mapping the initial merged shots in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 I returned the file to Aperture 3 for final color, contrast and sharpening adjustments.
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I applied much the same processing to this image too. I especially like the way the purple light from the water feature illuminated the underside of the bridge and added color to the shadows on the figure in the foreground.
Big Four Bridge Silhouette
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Not much to say about this image except that I like the bridge silhouette against the remnants of a summer storm that was passing through Louisville. I captured the image from the east side of the ramp leading up onto the Big Four Bridge. It’s from a single frame and simple processing in Aperture 3 was all that it needed to finish it.
