Tag: composition

U of L Women’s Rowing Team

Posted on by Nick Roberts
U of L Women's Rowing Team
U of L Women’s Rowing Team

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Yesterday morning I was in Louisville Waterfront Park for some early morning shooting. I was trying to find fresh points to view the park and had been in the kid’s playground trying to see the park from their viewpoint. As I walked toward the river I caught sight of the U of L Women’s Rowing Team practicing. They were just downriver heading back upstream. Their support boat was with them as well but I didn’t want it in the shot so I waited until the scull just passed the observation deck and shot a three frame bracket set. A moment later the support boat entered the scene and I wound up with only three exposure of this scene.

I processed the three images in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 but I needed to deal with some ghosting that the boat’s movement was causing. I first applied 20% anti-ghosting but that didn’t fully eliminate the ghosts; I went through 40% and 60% settings but at 60% the trees in the foreground began to halo badly. I settled on 40% anti-ghosting which was all I needed. I also changed the reference image in several versions before settling on the 0 EV frame. The other frames exhibited more ghosting than the 0 EV exposure.

I find the anti-ghosting adjustment to be one I spend a great deal of time experimenting with whenever I am dealing with images that have a lot of movement between frames. The tendency is to only look at the section where the movement is the greatest and work to minimize that issue. What I am discovering is that it is also important to look at the objects that are static too and watch out for haloing around them as I balance how much anti-ghosting to apply.

I applied the Deep 1 preset and them nade some minor adjustments there to Tonality before returning the image to Aperture 3 for my final adjustments.

Lover’s Sunset

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Lover's Sunset
Lover’s Sunset

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This is another three exposure bracket set merged in HDR Efex Pro 2 using the Deep #1 preset. After merging the images I returned the image to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the Contrast, Exposure, Vibrance and finally Sharpened the image.

Out For an Evening Spin

Posted on by Nick Roberts

Kids Out For an Evening Spin

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Sunday evening I was down in Waterfront Park to shoot the sunset and the people out enjoying the park. As I was heading back to my truck I saw the children’s playground was getting a little attention too. It was well after sunset and the light was very low so I thought I would experiment with some long exposure brackets of the kids playing on the merry-go-round. They were all ages from toddler up to five or so and they were having a great time. I knew that the figures would be blurred by movement so I decided to capitalize on that.

One mother, whose two children were the smallest on the ride, stood nearly motionless as she watched over them. I hoped that she would show up in the shots and was well rewarded. Even though there were eight or ten kids on the ride and several more parents in the scene they all stayed in motion and appear as faint ghosts in the final image.

I merged the three frames in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 using a 100% setting for anti-ghosting. I also applied the Deep #1 preset and made some very slight adjustments to the tonality before returning the image to Aperture 3 for final adjustments. In Aperture 3 I adjusted each color channel separately in order to compliment the blue tone that the twilight sky cast over the scene. I was still bothered by the way the kids were being rendered as simply a blur though; I decided to add some mid-contrast and voila their small figures appeared inside the merry-go-round. A little sharpening and some further tweaks to the Exposure and Enhance sliders and this final image emerged.

Sunday Evening Strollers

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Sunday Evening Strollers
Sunday Evening Strollers

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I shot this last night on the Big Four Bridge Ramp as the sun was setting. The evening was balmy and people were out enjoying the sunset and strolling along the bridge.

Processing was done on NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and Aperture 3. There are three frames here that were merged at 100% anti-ghosting setting which eliminated the problem of shooting people moving during the three exposures. I also had to use the underexposed image as the reference image before I managed to get the people de-ghosted. I learned that when applying anti-ghosting it may take several tries before I can get the results I’m looking for. In this case I first used the  0 ev exposure at 20% anti-ghosting but it didn’t stop the ghosting. I then ran through the rest of the settings 40%,60%, 80% and finally 100% but there were still ghosted figures I then switched my reference image and that eliminated the problem.

Cold Steel Morning

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Cold Steel Morning
Cold Steel Morning

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This was a three frame bracket set -2, 0, +2 EV merged and tone mapped in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 starting with the Deep 1 Preset. I made some minor changes to the amount and method strength. I also dropped a control point on the sky in the background where I adjusted the exposure and contrast. I then returned the image to Aperture 3 and adjusted the overall exposure, cleaned up some dust spots, and enhanced the vibrance slightly.