Tag: sunset

Ohio River Sunset

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Ohio River Sunset
Ohio River Sunset

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This is a three exposure HDR using NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 for the merger and tonemapping as well as some exposure and structure adjustment. The three kayaks in the scene are from the middle value exposure which is the default frame for NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 when anti-ghosting is applied; I used a 60% setting which seems to work very well for preventing ghosts when objects in the scene are moving in one direction. The anti-ghosting also worked very well for the women walking along the landing at this 60% setting. After completing my NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 adjustments I returned the image to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the separate color channels to get the image I wanted.

Beautiful May Evening

Posted on by Nick Roberts
May Sunset on the Ohio River
May Sunset on the Ohio River

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This image is from a photo shoot I did last Thursday evening after shooting at the Pegasus Parade earlier in the afternoon. I wasn’t ready to go home yet so we headed down to Waterfront Park to explore it further and capture some images with Derby Festival goers using the park. We walked around the park for a couple of hours and wound up on my favorite place to shoot Waterfront Park from, the Big Four Bridge. I had been up there the prior afternoon and evening to photograph the Great Steamboat Race but I really wasn’t happy with a lot of the landscapes I shot after the race ended. I wanted to capture the dramatic sky that was visible Thursday so we hung out on the bridge waiting for sunset.

I shot my normal three frame bracket set of -2, 0 and +2 EV for this HDR image. Today I made a change in my processing and started my post processing in NIK Sharpener Pro 3. I allowed the program to determine the amount of RAW pre-sharpening to apply and then I opened the sharpened RAW files in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. I merged the three frames in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and kept the anti-ghosting set at 20%. I then applied the Deep #1 preset which I tweaked slightly to improve contrast and accent the highlights and shadows. Once that was finished I returned the HDR image to Aperture 3 where I spent some time adjusting the individual color channels as well as the vibrance and saturation of each one. Finally I applied my sharpening and a very light vignette to the image.

 

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.