Tag: HDR Efex Pro

Blue Moon of Kentucky

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Blue Moon of Kentucky
Blue Moon of Kentucky

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I went down to the riverfront yesterday morning to shoot the arrival of Hurricane Isaac in Louisville. Usually after a Gulf Coast hurricane moves inland it comes up the Mississippi River and then drifts east through the Ohio River Valley. I expected the sky to be rather dramatic and I was really hoping to capture the sunrise. I shot several images from Waterfront Park looking east and liked what I was getting. I applied my adage of “looking behind myself” to see if there was anything going on in the western sky when I saw the blue moon, a second full moon in one month, just above the Kennedy Bridge. The clouds were moving in from the southwest and I really liked the way they were drifting past the moon. I immediately shot a bracketed set of images from EV +2 through -2 in one stop amounts to capture as much detail as I could even though it was still at least 30 minutes before actual sunrise.

Back in the studio I opened the bracket set in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and merged them with the Ghosting Adjustment set to 20% which allowed the sky to stay as I envisioned it when I captured the scene. I started with the Deep 2 preset and adjusted the tone map and tonality until I had what I wanted. By boosting the Highlight and White sliders I got the moon to pop out of the clouds which was how I had originally envisioned the scene. I then took the image back into Aperture 3 where I cleaned up some sensor spots, subtly boosted the Vibrance slider and applied sharpening. I also cropped the final image into a panoramic framing to accent the linearity of the bridge before exporting it for the web.

A Postcard From Louisville

Posted on by Nick Roberts
A Postcard From Louisville
A Postcard From Louisville

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I took this photo this morning from the Big Four Bridge looking southwest into Louisville. After cropping and adjusting the image in Aperture 3 I took it into NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I applied one of the Realistic presets, Deep 2. I adjusted the tonality as well as the black and white points before applying the Graduated Neutral Density filters. I dropped the sky approximately 1 stop and opened up the lower part of the image approximately 1/3 stop before adding the vignette to the final image.

Between the Bridges

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Between the Bridges
Between the Bridges

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This shot is a single frame that was first edited in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 to adjust the tone map and tonality. I also added the vignette while in there. I then took the image back to Aperture 3 to sharpen it. I thought the preset added too much noise so I applied the Aperture 3 denoise adjustment and softened it slightly. I also boosted the vibrancy and detail a small amount to make the sky pop.

Back to the Distillery Again

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Horizontal old taylor springhouse_Panorama1_HDR
The Old Spring Revisited

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I got up this morning and all I could think about was going back to the abandoned distillery I found last week. I had some ideas I wanted to try out using my 12-24 mm lens to shoot a panorama of this structure. I think I’m beginning to become obsessed with this place and the other unique buildings on the property but that may be coming to an end. Today I was discovered by one of the caretakers of the property who asked me to leave. Since I was trespassing I didn’t argue with him and to be fair he was very polite about the situation. He explained that a couple of weeks ago some vandals had set a fire in the road outside the property and the owners had instructed him to call the police and have anyone found there arrested. He said he wouldn’t do that today but he did let me know that I had been warned about trespassing and that he might not be so understanding if he found me in there again.

I shot this panorama as a four shot bracket set at five different camera angles horizontally. The 12-24 mm lens has a little too much distortion for this technique so if I ever get back in there again I think I’ll shoot it at 50 mm. I merged the five frames in Photoshop CS5 and then cropped the final image before taking it into NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 for tone mapping. I then took it back into Aperture 3 when I slightly reduced the saturation and boosted the vibrancy and structure before sharpening the final image.

I also rendered a copy in Black and White using an orange filter in aperture 3. Please take the time to comment and let me know which version you like best and why.

Horizontal old taylor springhouse_Panorama1_HDR - B&W Version 2

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1956 Chevy

Posted on by Nick Roberts
1956 Chevy
1956 Chevy

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I had a tough time shooting this year at the Streetrod Nationals due to the weather and time constraints of my own. The opening morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so the light was very harsh which as most photographers know makes things difficult. The second morning it was raining almost the entire time I was there which left me pretty much consigned to shooting closeups and detail shots with waterdrops on everything. I threw in the towel by noon and wrote off the event for this year.

I di manage to get a few images that I liked and this is one of them. One of the toughest factors I face when photographing at this event is what I refer to as the “visual pollution” that is created with all the tents and popups that the participants erect. Due to the tents and the folding chairs that are everywhere; it is nearly impossible to isolate the cars from the clutter. Another problem arises when the owner decides to open the hood on the car to show the engine; this act usually destroys any hope of getting a decent shot of the car no matter how interesting the car is.

Today’s image is from the first morning I was there and even though the whole car was incredibly well done, the place where it was parked was so cluttered with tents and the attendent items such as BBQ grills, lawn chairs, coolers and stacks of “stuff” I could not cet a clean shot of the whole car. I opted to shoot the front end and framed it as well as I could to remove those distractions. I shot a five exposure bracket set that I then edited in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and Aperture 3 to produce this image.