Tag: hdr image

Sunrise Over the Ohio River Bridges Project

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Ohio River Bridges Project Morning
Ohio River Bridges Project Morning

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Today’s HDR image is from the Ohio River Bridges Project, Downtown Span, being built by Walsh Construction on the Ohio River in Louisville Kentucky; they are now working on the foundation for every pier across the river. This view is from the Indiana shore in Jeffersonville looking east. There are cranes on barges across the river; each one doing some piece of work essential to the foundation prep work. Looking south there are also cranes along the horizon where work is also progressing on the rebuilding of Louisville’s Spaghetti Junction which will tie the existing freeways into the new Ohio River Downtown Span.

I used my usual three bracket set of -2, 0 and +2 EV to capture the broad dynamic range in the scene. In my processing I first merged the three images in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I tone-mapped it before bringing the HDR image back into Aperture and into onOne Perfect Layers where I used some adjustment layers to intensify and enhance to colors in the scene. I also applied my sharpening in onOne Perfect Effects before saving the image for the web from Aperture 3.

Construction Cranes in HDR

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Walsh Construction Cranes on the Ohio River Bridges Project.
Walsh Construction Cranes on the Ohio River Bridges Project.

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Cranes are the workhorses for Walsh Construction on their Ohio River Bridges Project. In this view from the Indiana landing there are two large cranes on barges in the river and if you look along the horizon you can see at least six more cranes. They are being used to move material and to set the pile drivers in place on the Kentucky side of the river where there are going to be over fifty structures erected in the reconstruction of Louisville’s Spaghetti Junction.

This HDR image is another three frame bracket set +2, 0 and -2 EV at f8. I merged them in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and finished the merged image in Aperture 3. After that I took the HDR image into Photoshop and applied some lens correction as well. I’m starting to limit my use of the structure slider in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 because I think it is introducing graininess into the skies. I still use a little to punch up the details but not nearly as much as I have in the past. When in Aperture 3 I have also limited the use of the details slider for the same reason.

Saturday’s Sunset on the Ohio River

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Saturday Sunset
Saturday Sunset

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This HDR image was taken from the Big Four Bridge in Waterfront Park Saturday evening just after sunset. I shot my usual three frame bracket set of +2, 0 and -2 EV which I merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 to create a HDR image. I started with the balanced preset and from there I built my own preset for this image as well as several other bracket sets that are from the same shoot. After merging the three images I adjusted contrast and exposure sliders. I then added a  -2 stop gradient filter to the sky to lower the brightness level there. I then returned the image to aperture 3 where I made a few small adjustments to contrast and adjusted the red, yellow, blue and magenta color channels. Finally I applied sharpening and cropped it to give it a more panoramic feeling.

HDR Image of the Ohio River in Black and White

Posted on by Nick Roberts
B&W HDR Image of the Downtown Span Construction Sites on the Ohio River in Louisville, KY.
B&W HDR Image of the Downtown Span Construction Sites on the Ohio River in Louisville, KY.

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This image was taken from the Big Four Bridge looking west over Waterfront Park and the Ohio River in Louisville Kentucky. It was a busy morning on the river, the construction tug was moving barges for the Ohio River Bridges Project, the Belle of Louisville was headed upriver and a tugboat was pushing the largest size tow downriver, five barges long and three barges wide, that can go through the McAlpine Locks at one time. The Ohio river carries more traffic than any river in America delivering cargo from Pennsylvania in the northeast to the Mississippi River in the west and vice versa.

I decided to make this image Black and White after merging it in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. I first took it into Aperture 3 after merging my three frame bracket set where I applied some additional contrast and a vignette to the HDR image before opening it in Topaz B&W Effects 2.1 where I chose the Platinum preset. I adjusted the paper tone slightly as well as adding some additional contrast adjustments that the Topaz B&W version seemed to need.

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

While there consider purchasing the entire Topaz Suite of programs. Topaz has done a lot of improving in the past few years and offers a very good line of software plug-ins that work well with Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture 3.

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HDR of Robyn Keith at Work

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Robyn Keith #2
Robyn Keith #2

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The woman in this image is Robyn Keith. Robyn is a carpenter and I wanted to capture her at work with the rising sun behind her. The light was really rich the morning I shot this and the sparks flying from her cutting wheel also caught me eye. I also liked the way the morning sunlight was reflecting off the surface of the concrete form that she was working on and tying the sparks, the sunlit sky and the reflections together.

This HDR image was created in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 from my standard bracket set of +2, o and -2 EV. Because she was moving slightly while cutting off the rebar, I had to apply 80% anti-ghosting to eliminate some ghosting around her head. When applying anti-ghosting I always strive to use the smallest percentage possible to avoid creating other artifacts in the image. In this case 80% was the lowest amount I could use; anything less than that amount left ghosts of her head and hands. I could have dealt with that issue inside Photoshop but the anti-ghosting settings in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 usually are a much simpler approach and work very well in most cases.After merging the three frames I applied the Balanced preset to do my basic tone-mapping. I like to use that preset because it adds a small amount of contrast to the initial merger and sets the stage for me to adjust the shadows and highlights without adding too much of an over-processed HDR feel to the merged files. As usual I returned the merged files to Aperture 3 where I completed adjusting it and sharpened it.