Tag: tone mapping

HDR at Night

Posted on by Nick Roberts

 

Big Four Bridge Ramp at Night
Big Four Bridge Ramp at Night

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This HDR image is a three frame bracket set +2,0 and -2 EV. I merged it in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and finished it in Aperture 3. The flares around the lights are from the f8 aperture which adds a star burst to almost all artificial lights; the way around it is to shoot with as wide an aperture as possible which will reduce it greatly.

Louisville at Night
Louisville at Night

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This HDR image was created using the same procedure as the first. I was shooting from the Big Four Bridge looking  south west from a vantage point close to the Indiana side of the Ohio River.

Construction Cranes

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Cranes are the backbone of the construction process.
Cranes are essential to the construction process.

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One of the most iconic pieces of heavy equipment on any major construction project is the crane. These monsters are essential to the Ohio River Bridges Project. Wherever I see cranes I can be sure there is some heavy work being done. They are used to move the massive steel beams, heavy timbers, sheet piling, concrete forms and other large items on the ORB. The crane operators have to be able to move their loads into very precise positions in order for the people on the ground to perform their tasks. The hand eye coordination required is incredible especially when you consider that almost all communication with the crane operator is done via hand signals. The more I am around them the more respect I have for their skills moving items that weight in the tons safely and precisely.

The difficulty I face when shooting cranes is my desire to include their long booms in the composition. Unless there is something else in the sky they can become nothing more than tall vertical elements. When I shoot them I look for mornings when the sky is filled with clouds or the sun is rising behind them. In this image I was able to include the heavy clouds for a background. I used the cranes themselves as repeating forms that provide strong diagonal lines within the composition and convey the scale of the scene.

This image is a HDR created from my standard three frame bracket set of +2, 0 and -2 EV. I merged them in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and did my initial tone mapping there. I then returned the file to Aperture 3 where I adjusted contrast, color channels, saturation and vibrance. Finally I applied my sharpening and added a small vignette to focus the viewer’s eyes within the frame.

onOne Software Announces Perfect Photo Suite 8

Posted on by Nick Roberts

boxes_3 editions

OnOne Software Announces Perfect Photo Suite 8, a complete photo editor for every workflow. The new Perfect Enhance module, Perfect Eraser, Perfect Batch utility, and re-engineered Perfect Effects module create a complete photo editing solution that seamlessly integrates into any workflow.

OnOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative and timesaving solutions for digital photography, today announced Perfect Photo Suite 8—the photographer’s choice for photo editing. Perfect Photo Suite 8 is a full-featured, standalone photo editor that integrates seamlessly with Adobe® Photoshop®, Lightroom®, Photoshop Elements, and Apple® Aperture® and it includes all the best tools a photographer needs to create extraordinary images. Key new features include the Perfect Enhance module for essential photo adjustments, the Perfect Eraser with content-aware fill technology, the Perfect Batch processing utility for applying workflows to multiple images at once, and a re-engineered Perfect Effects module with twice as many filters, customizable presets, and integrated FocalPoint™ technology.

The new tools and capabilities alongside Perfect Photo Suite 8’s eight modules—Effects, Enhance, B&W, Portrait, Mask, Layers, Resize, and Browse—allow photographers to enhance, retouch, and stylize images in a layered workflow, replace backgrounds, create high-quality enlargements, prepare images for output, and batch process workflows. The modules share a unified interface, each targeting a specific image processing task. Each module provides only the tools necessary to complete the job at hand, eliminating screen clutter and confusion for the user.

“We listened intently to the digital photography community about what they wanted for their image processing in today’s world of plug-ins, online apps, and subscriptions,” said Craig Keudell, president of onOne Software. “We made it a priority to respond quickly and design a cohesive new product that continues to focus on photography and is built for photographers of all levels, from enthusiasts to professionals. We’ve leveraged our extensive experience as a plug-in company and evolved the Perfect Photo Suite into a complete and powerful photo editor that, unlike existing plug-in collections, works as one, elegantly designed product that seamlessly integrates into any workflow.”

New in Perfect Photo Suite 8:

• Perfect Enhance module – Perfect Enhance provides essential tools for basic enhancements. Use it to adjust brightness and contrast, remove a color cast, remove dust spots and power lines, and add sharpening and vignettes. It is an ideal module to start with when using Perfect Photo Suite 8 as a standalone application or when quick corrections are needed.

• Perfect Eraser – Using content-aware fill technology and simple brush strokes, the Perfect Eraser removes objects and automatically reconstructs the image with realistic results.

• Twice as Many Filters – The Effects module now includes new adjustable filters including: HDR Look, Dynamic Contrast for tonal clarity, Vintage, Grunge, Antique, and more.

• Customizable Presets – All built-in presets included in Perfect Photo Suite 8 may be deconstructed by their filter settings and personally customized.

• FocalPoint is now in the Effects Module – The best parts of FocalPoint technology to create bokeh, tilt-shift, and selective focus effects after the shot, are now in the Effects module as the

Lens Blur filter.

• New Browse module – Images can be browsed and directly accessed from Perfect Photo Suite wherever they are stored—on the computer, an external drive, a connected network, and even on a cloud-based storage service like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Apple’s photo stream.

• Perfect Batch Utility – Powerful batch processing of actions from one or multiple modules, including the insertion of a watermark.

• Multiple File Handling: As a photo editor, you can now open and work with more than one image at a time. Move between images to edit or copy layers from one file to the next.

• Improved Masking Bug: Redesigned Masking Bug in the Effects and Layers modules make mask creation easier and more intuitive.

• Higher Quality Effects: Performance enhancements improve effects by minimizing artifacts without sacrificing processing speed.

• Improved RAW file handling: Open and process RAW files faster and with better quality. Support for new cameras also added.

Availability and Pricing

The new Perfect Photo Suite 8 will be available November 26, 2013. Pre-orders are available immediately at www.onOnesoftware.com/affiliates/idevaffiliate.php?id=459. Perfect Photo Suite 8 is available in three editions: Premium, Standard, and an edition for Adobe Lightroom & Apple Aperture. The Premium Edition works with Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop Elements, and as a standalone application. Owners of previous versions of Perfect Photo Suite Premium Edition can upgrade for $99.95. New users may pre-order the Premium Edition for $179.95. For a limited time, pre-orders of Perfect Photo Suite 8 Premium Edition will include a complimentary Essential Video Guide to Perfect Photo Suite 8, which provides a comprehensive collection of getting started training videos for Perfect Photo Suite 8 ($40 value).

Perfect Photo Suite 8 for Adobe Lightroom & Apple Aperture works with Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop Elements, and as a standalone application. It is available for $129.95 | $79.95 upgrade. The Standard Edition works as a complete standalone photo editor and is available for $79.95. New users who pre-order Perfect Photo Suite 8 will immediately receive a complimentary license for Perfect Photo Suite 7.5. Customers who pre-order Perfect Photo Suite 8 will receive all upcoming Loyalty Rewards that will be delivered monthly to owners of the Perfect Photo Suite 8. For those who have purchased Perfect Photo Suite 7.5 on or after August 1, 2013, onOne Software will issue a complimentary upgrade to Perfect Photo Suite 8 via download when it is available. For more information on Perfect Photo Suite 8, visit http://www.onOnesoftware.com/affiliates/idevaffiliate.php?id=459

About onOne Software

onOne Software, Inc., is a leading developer of innovative software tools and apps for digital photography and offers time-saving software solutions for photographers of all levels, from enthusiasts to professionals. Leveraging its extensive history as successful plug-in developer for Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Lightroom, and Apple Aperture, and continued development of cutting-edge technology, onOne publishes unified solutions that offer both full-featured photo editing capabilities and the flexibility of traditional plug-ins.

For additional information, visit OnOne using the link below:

http://www.onOnesoftware.com/affiliates/idevaffiliate.php?id=459

Using OnOne Perfect Photo Suite 7.5 with HDR Images

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Old School Hotrod
Old School Hotrod #1

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I took an HDR image that I created in NIK HDR Efex Pro and started experimenting with it in OnOne Perfect B&W to see what I could get from it. The OnOne Perfect Photo Suite is very powerful. It allows me to work in layers so that I can turn on and off each individual layer to see whether I like what it does in conjunction with other layers. For the first image here I applied the Ambrotype preset and then made several adjustments to the paper tone and silver tone, added an Emulsion border and adjusted the contrast and sharpening. Using the HDR image as a starting point helped render the interior details while still maintaining the surface textures on the car.

Old School Hotrod #2
Old School Hotrod #2

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This is the HDR image I started with. As you can see there is a lot of color in the image due to the patina of age. Most of the color in the glass and the wooden steering wheel was too muted for my taste until I adjusted the separate color channels in Aperture 3 after merging my bracket set in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2.

Old School Hotrod #3
Old School Hotrod #3

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For this last image I used the Perfect Effects application and applied a preset that changed the overall color of the image yet allowed me to emphasize the yellow and red in the window sticker. I can’t recall which preset I started with but I’m sure that I adjusted it’s effect to get the result I was looking for. I seldom stop with the base settings in these presets as I consider them to be starting points rather than end results.

The point of this post is to show that digital image processing opens the door to many options when creating art photography. It’s no longer necessary to spend hours in Photoshop building an image only to discover that it doesn’t convey your vision for the piece. By applying plug-in presets the artist is able to look at variations rapidly and decide what they want final result to be. Once a preset has been selected the artist can then make their own changes to it and emphasize the aspects of the image that are important for their vision of the image.

Avoid Cliches

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Chevrolet
Chevrolet

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A cliché or cliche (UK /ˈkliːʃeɪ/ or US /klɪˈʃeɪ/) is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, or effect, and even, to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.[1] (source Wikipedia)

Too often we photographers fall into the trap of shooting the same type of images that we have seen for years. With automobiles and car shows we will often shoot the entire car or some detail like a hood ornament, etc. I suggest you try moving beyond those cliched shots and approach the subject with an abstract approach that still speaks to the essence of the subject but isn’t so obvious.

In this image I fell in love with the bright yellow paint and the complimentary red and blue accents. I chose to use them as leading lines that reinforced the diagonal pattern of the clouds above the car. The blue sky is a direct compliment to the yellow color and also picks up on the blue pinstripes on the red louvers as it also provides background interest to the composition . While there is no question that the subject is an automobile the overall effect is to emphasize color and composition instead of being just another photo of a car.

I used my regular HDR brackets +2, 0 and -2 EV and processing with NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 which allowed me to capture and emphasize things such as the texture in the clouds and the reflections in the the door. I finished the image in Aperture 3 using some minor adjustments to the blue and yellow color channels, cropping and sharpening.