Tag: hdr image

Using OnOne Perfect Photo Suite 7.5 with HDR Images

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Old School Hotrod
Old School Hotrod #1

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I took an HDR image that I created in NIK HDR Efex Pro and started experimenting with it in OnOne Perfect B&W to see what I could get from it. The OnOne Perfect Photo Suite is very powerful. It allows me to work in layers so that I can turn on and off each individual layer to see whether I like what it does in conjunction with other layers. For the first image here I applied the Ambrotype preset and then made several adjustments to the paper tone and silver tone, added an Emulsion border and adjusted the contrast and sharpening. Using the HDR image as a starting point helped render the interior details while still maintaining the surface textures on the car.

Old School Hotrod #2
Old School Hotrod #2

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This is the HDR image I started with. As you can see there is a lot of color in the image due to the patina of age. Most of the color in the glass and the wooden steering wheel was too muted for my taste until I adjusted the separate color channels in Aperture 3 after merging my bracket set in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2.

Old School Hotrod #3
Old School Hotrod #3

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For this last image I used the Perfect Effects application and applied a preset that changed the overall color of the image yet allowed me to emphasize the yellow and red in the window sticker. I can’t recall which preset I started with but I’m sure that I adjusted it’s effect to get the result I was looking for. I seldom stop with the base settings in these presets as I consider them to be starting points rather than end results.

The point of this post is to show that digital image processing opens the door to many options when creating art photography. It’s no longer necessary to spend hours in Photoshop building an image only to discover that it doesn’t convey your vision for the piece. By applying plug-in presets the artist is able to look at variations rapidly and decide what they want final result to be. Once a preset has been selected the artist can then make their own changes to it and emphasize the aspects of the image that are important for their vision of the image.

More Handheld HDR

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Supercharger #1
Supercharger #1

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Yesterday I talked about shooting HDR brackets handheld; today’s image is another example of that technique. There are many occasions or situations where a tripod is out of the question. Often those same situations present difficulties due to the extremely broad dynamic range of the subject; that is when a bracket set can assure that the entire dynamic range is covered.

In this image the light on the polished metal was extreme and a single exposure would have left the sky overexposed while the shadows would have been underexposed. By shooting a three frame bracket at +2, 0 and -2 EV I was able to capture the clouds in the sky, the details under the carburetors, the reflected light on the black drive belt in the lower right of the frame and the reflections in the windshield. By combining the three exposures in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 I was able to bring the broad dynamic range under control.

One of the features of NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 that really helps with handheld images is the Align Images feature that can be applied at the initial merging of the brackets before any other processing takes place. I keep this feature checked for all my HDR work because even on a tripod there can be slight movement between frames; of course when shooting handheld there is bound to be some movement and this feature along with a 20% Ghost Reduction application usually solves that issue.

Finally I used the Balanced preset in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 as my starting point to tone map the image. A little tweaking there opened up the shadows and tamed the highlights while bringing the clouds out in the sky. I then returned the image to Aperture 3 for final adjustments to exposure and some enhancement of the red and yellow color channels to saturate the brown on the car. A little adjustment to the blue channel saturation and luminance further strengthened the contrast between the clouds and sky. Lastly I sharpened the image and then took it into Photoshop CS5 and used Content Aware fill to remove a small patch of white at the edge of the photo that was there from the corner of the event sticker in the windshield.

Funnel Cake Fourth

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Fourth of July Funnel Cakes
Funnel Cake Fourth

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This past week I attended the Fourth of July event in Louisville’s Waterfront Park to capture some fireworks images. While waiting for the fireworks show to begin I wandered around the park looking for images that spoke to the idea of festivals and the attendant support services that are needed whenever large groups of people gather for a celebration. The sky was leaden with the remnants of our unrelenting week of rain and thunderstorms so I went in search of some color to shoot.

As I strolled through the park I came upon the food vendors area and was immediately drawn to the scene you see here. I liked the graphic quality of the signage and the lights on and in the funnel cake vendor and decided to create a composition that incorporated it. I found a place behind the food wagons that also held some promise of a strong foreground element. I set my tripod up and shot this image because I enjoyed the strong diagonal lines and the contrast of colors between the booths and the park’s water feature. I also liked the way the stainless steel rails contrasted with the concrete and the angles that they created.

I shot a three frame bracket set using +2, 0 and -2 EV to be sure that I had a wide dynamic range to work with. Back at my computer I first took the three RAW frames into NIK Sharpener Pro and pre-sharpened them. I then opened the three images in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I merged them into a HDR image. I applied the Deep 2 preset and then adjusted the amount of tone mapping and contrast to suit my taste. After the initial tone mapping was completed I returned the HDR image to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the individual color channels to bring out the reds and yellows of the signage. I also added some additional adjustments to the contrast and sharpened the image before adding a small vignette to it.

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.

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