Category: HDR

Waterfront Park Sprayground

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Waterfront Park Sprayground #1
Waterfront Park Sprayground #1

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One of the wonderful features of Waterfont Park is the Sprayground feature. The Sprayground is busy all day long with kids squealing and splashing under the water fountains or climbing on the playground equipment. One of the features that I really like is the fish fountains that have water pouring out of their mouths creating beautiful waterfalls on the kids heads.

I chose to shoot this scene in HDR so I shot a three bracket set of -2, 0 and +2 EV to capture the details in the sun and in the shade under the trees. I first took the three RAW frames into NIK Sharpener Pro and applied adaptive sharpening globally. I then merged the three sharpened frames in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I applied a 60% anti-ghosting setting. The anti-ghosting allowed me to capture the many moving people and kids without showing any ghost artifacts. I also used the Deep 2 preset but I tweaked it to bring down some of the over-saturation in the foliage while still showing the vibrant blues in the sky and water. I finished the image in Aperture 3 where I adjusted individual color saturation and luminance. I applied my final sharpening and a small vignette to complete the image.

Louisville’s Downtown Bridge Is Underway

Posted on by Nick Roberts
The first phase of construction on the Downtown Bridge is underway.
The first phase of construction on the Downtown Bridge is underway.

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This is another HDR image of  Waterfront Park looking west toward the crane that will be part of the skyline for the next couple of years. I shot this from the ramp to the Big Four Bridge overlooking the Swing Garden. I shot a handheld bracket set of three frames +2, 0 and -2 EV. I was able to hand hold the shots because it was mid morning and the light was high which resulted in relatively short exposures.

I first took the three RAW frames into NIK Sharpener Pro and applied adaptive sharpening to all of them. I then opened them in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I merged them and applied  the Deep 2 preset which I tweaked a bit to reduce some of the luminance and saturation. I then returned the merged image to Aperture 3 for final adjustment, sharpening and added a small vignette. In Aperture 3 I also adjusted the exposure and contrast as well as tweaking the individual color channels in the green, yellow and blue areas.

Louisville’s New Downtown Bridge

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Waterfront Park during the Downtown Bridge construction, June 27, 2013
Waterfront Park during the Downtown Bridge construction, June 27, 2013

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Work has begun on the Downtown Bridge carrying I-65 across the Ohio River from Louisville. The impact on Waterfront Park should be minimal because the Waterfront Development Corporation had the foresight to prepare a place for it to cross the park. The Waterfront Development Corporation made sure to keep any major component of the park out of this area in an effort to accomodate the bridge and still have a world class park along the Louisville waterfront. This type of forward thinking is the hallmark of the Waterfront Development Corporation which has returned the waterfront to the citizens of Louisville as the “Commons” that the city’s founders envisioned.

As with the Big Four Bridge project I am excited to see and photograph the changing face of Louisville as it continues it’s march into the future. Over the course of the next two years I will be following the construction and the people making it happen. After shooting the Big Four Project I have discovered how much I enjoy construction projects and will certainly be following this latest engineering feat as the work progresses.

I shot this image in the part of the day that most photography “experts” would say to put the camera away. The conventional thinking is that midday light is too harsh and the only time to shoot landscapes is during the “golden hours” or the “blue hours”. I don’t think that is necessary and subscribe to the belief that even when the sun is high in the sky there are plenty of good photo opportunities if one will only open one’s eyes and mind to the possibilities. This particular day the sky was full of interesting cloud formations as a low pressure front was pushing in from the south and colliding with a high pressure front from the north. Had the sky been empty I might have chosen another framing to show the park and construction project.

The image was created from a three frame bracket set using +2, 0 and -2 EV. I first took all three RAW images into NIK Sharpener Pro where I applied some initial sharpening. I then merged the three shots in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and applied the Deep 2 preset before returning the merged image to Aperture 3 where I applied several adjustments to saturation and luminance in an effort to tone down the colors slightly. I then straightened and cropped the image and applied the final sharpening.

Topaz Clarity vs Topaz Adjust Comparison

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Topaz Adjust Version
Topaz Adjust Version

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I wanted to see how Topaz Clarity would compare to Topaz Adjust in terms of rendering a more realistic faux HDR image so I went back in my library to some work I did at the Bonneville Salt Flats during the BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials.

The image above was processed in Topaz Adjust 4 and shows a lot of halos as well as a very surreal rendering of the racers themselves. I reprocessed the original file using Topaz Clarity which really improved on the result as you can see in the second version below. There is a lot less noise in the sky and the skin tones are more realistic though the shadow areas are not as open as in the earlier version. All in all Topaz Clarity made a smoother version while still compensating for the extreme lighting conditions of shooting at midday on the salt flats.

Topaz Clarity Version
Topaz Clarity Version

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Below is another image of a sunrise over the entrance to the Bonneville Salt Flats that I used Topaz Clarity to process. It has fewer problems with halos and noise while still extracting a great deal of information from the single frame exposure I used to create it.

Bonneville Sunrise
Bonneville Sunrise

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I like the way that Topaz Clarity handles these types of images and suggest that you give the Topaz software a trial of your own to see if it is something you want to add to your processing tools and techniques. Topaz is running a summer sale offer of the entire Topaz Bundle for $199 until July 7, 2013 which makes it a really good deal. If you want to trial or purchase any of the Topaz products please use the link below which credits me with your purchase and pays me a small commission.

http://www.topazlabs.com/705.html

 

A Path Through The Woods

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Enchanted Wood
Enchanted Wood

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Today I am sharing an HDR image that has been processed with Aperture  3, NIK HDR Efex Pro 2, Adobe Camera Raw, Photoshop CS5, Topaz Clarity and OnOne Perfect Effects. I shot the scene along Floyds Fork in the new Parklands Park that is being developed in eastern Louisville. My bracket set was -2, 0 and +2 EV which gave me three versions to work with for my HDR merger and tone mapping.

I first took the three bracket set into NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I merged them and applied the Balanced Preset. After that I made some adjustments in Aperture 3 before opening the HDR image in Adobe Camera Raw where I adjusted color saturation and luminance and then saved it in Photoshop CS5 as a tiff file. I then used Topaz Clarity to add micro-contrast and further refine the colors in the image. After returning the image to Aperture 3 I adjusted the sharpening, definition and added a vignette. I then opened the image in OnOne Perfect Photo Suite 7 and used Perfect Effects where I first applied the Vecchio filter at approximately 75% opacity to warm the image even further. Next I added the Holga Filter to another layer in OnOne Perfect Effects before returning the image to Aperture 3 for final sharpening.