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This image is from a photo shoot I did last Thursday evening after shooting at the Pegasus Parade earlier in the afternoon. I wasn’t ready to go home yet so we headed down to Waterfront Park to explore it further and capture some images with Derby Festival goers using the park. We walked around the park for a couple of hours and wound up on my favorite place to shoot Waterfront Park from, the Big Four Bridge. I had been up there the prior afternoon and evening to photograph the Great Steamboat Race but I really wasn’t happy with a lot of the landscapes I shot after the race ended. I wanted to capture the dramatic sky that was visible Thursday so we hung out on the bridge waiting for sunset.
I shot my normal three frame bracket set of -2, 0 and +2 EV for this HDR image. Today I made a change in my processing and started my post processing in NIK Sharpener Pro 3. I allowed the program to determine the amount of RAW pre-sharpening to apply and then I opened the sharpened RAW files in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. I merged the three frames in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and kept the anti-ghosting set at 20%. I then applied the Deep #1 preset which I tweaked slightly to improve contrast and accent the highlights and shadows. Once that was finished I returned the HDR image to Aperture 3 where I spent some time adjusting the individual color channels as well as the vibrance and saturation of each one. Finally I applied my sharpening and a very light vignette to the image.
This is just.. wow. 🙂
Thank you Wolfy…
Reblogged this on thewolfmusic and commented:
I really cannot say much… this picture is gorgeous!!
Absolutely gorgeous, Nick. Did you feel that pre-sharpening the raw files made a difference in the finished image?
Thank you Lauren. Yes I am convinced pre-sharpening it helped. I plan to further explore this method.
good job congratulations
Thank you for commenting.
Stunning! Mind me asking what lens you used to get such a wide shot?
I was shooting my Nikon D90 with a Nikkor 12-24mm Lens. Due to crop factor that translates to an effective 18mm lens.
Gorgeous sunset.
Thank you David.
WOW! Worth the wait.
That’s nice to hear Phyllis, Thanks.
I am certainly not an HDR fan but your sunset images are beautiful. This is how HDR should be done. Thanks for visiting my blog.
Thank you that is my goal for HDR; it’s a tool that can be used like a sledgehammer or with the restraint of a jeweler’s mallet to produce something memorable.
I just wish I’d been sat next to you. It’s all about being their just at the right time and experiencing such wonders as much as it is capturing such an awesome image. Here in the UK we have had virtually 12 months of grey skies and continuous rain. For me sunsets like this are a rarity. It’s why I’ve considered emigrating. Global warming has made our climate even wetter than before. Can you believe it.
Thank you Simon. If you ever come to Louisville be sure to let me know and we’ll head up on the Big Four Bridge for a sunset.