Processing
Results with HDR Efex Pro
18/Oct/10 12:14
Tweet
Last year I fell in love with Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro and tried out the Complete Collection of their apps and decided to buy all of them as a Christmas gift to myself. I’ve been using them a lot since then and got really excited when I heard that they were working on an HDR plug-in. Of course, the big question that I asked myself, as I am sure countless others did as well, was: how was it going to compare to Photomatix?
I got an early peek at HDR Efex Pro when Nik offered a webinar showcasing the beta version of the app during the summer. I really liked what I saw, especially since it offers you a huge number of visual presets with a lot more options than Photomatix does. Photomatix is the app you process your HDR in and then go into Photoshop or some other collection of filters to get your final results. This got so out of hand for me in the last few months that I, literally, spent hours perfecting a single photo. Granted, the photo was worth it but when you get home with several hundred photos you like from a summer vacation, there is just no time to spent hours on each individual photo.
Another thing I really got to appreciate is the U Point Technology, which is a faster way for changing settings for just an area in a photo without changing the overall look (similar to masking in Photoshop) - this is especially helpful with an HDR where you are almost bound to have some areas you would like to change a bit (e.g. the clouds).
Something they did not show in the webinar, was their Ghosting Technology and I was therefore really looking forward to seeing what they had done in that area, since I am tired of having to go into Photoshop to somehow rescue people strolling through my images. In the new Photomatix you simply highlight the area you have ghosting to reduce or eliminate it, with HDR Efex you get several options for Ghosting (youtube link) and I was really amazed at the results so far, people really were in one piece and they had a subtle HDR effect applied to them - something you lose with masking in from the original image.
I also enjoy the interface with the presets on the left and all your options on the right. Besides the strength of the tone mapping you also get a drop down with several options for the tonemapping, like sharper details or extra halo reduction, which gives you countless options for the look of your HDR. It also gives you the ability to do some advanced editing like adding a cross-processed look to the photo or going B&W in the app. You can even add a vignette in there (which I think is super handy).
I processed several photos these last few days with the new app, simply to get a feel for the options and I really, really enjoy using it. It’s very different from Photomatix but I like the added options and the ease of use of HDR Efex. I’m suddenly plowing through edits again after spending hours to get a similar result before, which is really great for the number of photos I tend to take.
If you want to try it yourself, there is a 15 day trial available for Aperture, Photoshop CS 5 and Lightroom.
(As always, click any photo to see a larger version)
Last year I fell in love with Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro and tried out the Complete Collection of their apps and decided to buy all of them as a Christmas gift to myself. I’ve been using them a lot since then and got really excited when I heard that they were working on an HDR plug-in. Of course, the big question that I asked myself, as I am sure countless others did as well, was: how was it going to compare to Photomatix?
I got an early peek at HDR Efex Pro when Nik offered a webinar showcasing the beta version of the app during the summer. I really liked what I saw, especially since it offers you a huge number of visual presets with a lot more options than Photomatix does. Photomatix is the app you process your HDR in and then go into Photoshop or some other collection of filters to get your final results. This got so out of hand for me in the last few months that I, literally, spent hours perfecting a single photo. Granted, the photo was worth it but when you get home with several hundred photos you like from a summer vacation, there is just no time to spent hours on each individual photo.
Another thing I really got to appreciate is the U Point Technology, which is a faster way for changing settings for just an area in a photo without changing the overall look (similar to masking in Photoshop) - this is especially helpful with an HDR where you are almost bound to have some areas you would like to change a bit (e.g. the clouds).
Something they did not show in the webinar, was their Ghosting Technology and I was therefore really looking forward to seeing what they had done in that area, since I am tired of having to go into Photoshop to somehow rescue people strolling through my images. In the new Photomatix you simply highlight the area you have ghosting to reduce or eliminate it, with HDR Efex you get several options for Ghosting (youtube link) and I was really amazed at the results so far, people really were in one piece and they had a subtle HDR effect applied to them - something you lose with masking in from the original image.
I also enjoy the interface with the presets on the left and all your options on the right. Besides the strength of the tone mapping you also get a drop down with several options for the tonemapping, like sharper details or extra halo reduction, which gives you countless options for the look of your HDR. It also gives you the ability to do some advanced editing like adding a cross-processed look to the photo or going B&W in the app. You can even add a vignette in there (which I think is super handy).
I processed several photos these last few days with the new app, simply to get a feel for the options and I really, really enjoy using it. It’s very different from Photomatix but I like the added options and the ease of use of HDR Efex. I’m suddenly plowing through edits again after spending hours to get a similar result before, which is really great for the number of photos I tend to take.
If you want to try it yourself, there is a 15 day trial available for Aperture, Photoshop CS 5 and Lightroom.
(As always, click any photo to see a larger version)
Comments
Cleaning up a HDR image
25/May/10 19:55
Yesterday I made a small photo excursion to my home town castle ruins because we have some big festivities there at the moment. The weather was faboulos, so i decided to do some HDRs, including some of our old carousel that is being put up for the week. Due to the number of people (and quirks of photomatix) I had to do a lot of work after making the HDR, that I thought might be interesting for beginners in the HDR area.
I started out with these three images (shot handheld):
Like you would expect, the sky is the best in the -2 shot, he people and the ruins in the background look best in the normal exposure photo and the details of the carousel look best in the +2 shot since they are in the shadow due to the roof of the carousel.
Since I had handheld the shots, I decided to use the HDR function of Photoshop 3, which I mainly use for overlaying the images and then used the Photomatix Tone Mapping plugin on the image Photoshop supplied. The result looked like this:
There was A LOT of ghosting since people were moving around and one part of the carousel revolves around itself, so that had been in movement, too - and the noise in the carousel was awful as well, so I decided to do some cleaning of the photo using the lighter two exposures. I added them as layers in Photoshop and aligned them with the tonemapped image so that I could paint in parts of those layers using layer masks. Since I knew I needed several areas of each photo, I decided to keep the original layers untouched and simply duplicate them for the cloning. This has the bonus that you don’t have to mess with your old layer mask when adding a new layer.
As a first step, I decided to get rid of the ghosting of the people in the foreground (all the moving parts etc. are referred to as ghosting) so I duplicated the normal exposure layer and added a black layer mask and used a soft edge brush to reveal the parts of the layer I wanted to use for the people. The result looked like this:
Unfortunately the stone ground lost some of its texture but the people look ley they are supposed to and the foreground looks way less busy, even though there are sill a ton of people. If you look closely, you can see that there were people moving in the carousel as well, so those had to be replaced, too. For this I decided to use the +2 layer, since I wanted the people (and even more the paintings) to be visible. So I duplicated that layer and worked with a layer mask again to paint in the non-moving people, which improves the picture again:
Since you can’t really see it from the zoomed out photo, I did a zoom into the area where most people were standing & moving. This is after cleaning up this part of the image.
As you can see, the people are clearly visible now but the paint job looks like it has been out in the weather for decades because the noise is soo bad. This is mainly due to Photomatix, which introduced a lot of noise into your photo. So you should sometimes clean up very dark or very light areas to get a more even look - and less noise. For this I used the +2 layer, too, since that one had the most details for the paintings.
I think the difference in the zoomed in images speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Here is how it looks like zoomed out:
A lot more details are visible now in the paint job but the trimming on the roof was too dark, so i painted it in from the normal exposure photo to get an even look and, since it is its own layer, I was able to increase the brightness a bit of just that layer to match the overall brightness of the carousel.
As a last step, I cleaned up the lower floor and the horses on it, using the normal exposure photo to get to the final image:
(Links to Flickr where you can find a larger size)
Here is also a look at the different layers I ended up with for the final image): The Cleanup took longer than I usually take the time for my images but I think the results are clearly worth it. I hope this little guide helped you see how some little cleaning up can improve a HDR image. If you have questions - hit the comments!
I started out with these three images (shot handheld):
Like you would expect, the sky is the best in the -2 shot, he people and the ruins in the background look best in the normal exposure photo and the details of the carousel look best in the +2 shot since they are in the shadow due to the roof of the carousel.
Since I had handheld the shots, I decided to use the HDR function of Photoshop 3, which I mainly use for overlaying the images and then used the Photomatix Tone Mapping plugin on the image Photoshop supplied. The result looked like this:
There was A LOT of ghosting since people were moving around and one part of the carousel revolves around itself, so that had been in movement, too - and the noise in the carousel was awful as well, so I decided to do some cleaning of the photo using the lighter two exposures. I added them as layers in Photoshop and aligned them with the tonemapped image so that I could paint in parts of those layers using layer masks. Since I knew I needed several areas of each photo, I decided to keep the original layers untouched and simply duplicate them for the cloning. This has the bonus that you don’t have to mess with your old layer mask when adding a new layer.
As a first step, I decided to get rid of the ghosting of the people in the foreground (all the moving parts etc. are referred to as ghosting) so I duplicated the normal exposure layer and added a black layer mask and used a soft edge brush to reveal the parts of the layer I wanted to use for the people. The result looked like this:
Unfortunately the stone ground lost some of its texture but the people look ley they are supposed to and the foreground looks way less busy, even though there are sill a ton of people. If you look closely, you can see that there were people moving in the carousel as well, so those had to be replaced, too. For this I decided to use the +2 layer, since I wanted the people (and even more the paintings) to be visible. So I duplicated that layer and worked with a layer mask again to paint in the non-moving people, which improves the picture again:
Since you can’t really see it from the zoomed out photo, I did a zoom into the area where most people were standing & moving. This is after cleaning up this part of the image.
As you can see, the people are clearly visible now but the paint job looks like it has been out in the weather for decades because the noise is soo bad. This is mainly due to Photomatix, which introduced a lot of noise into your photo. So you should sometimes clean up very dark or very light areas to get a more even look - and less noise. For this I used the +2 layer, too, since that one had the most details for the paintings.
I think the difference in the zoomed in images speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Here is how it looks like zoomed out:
A lot more details are visible now in the paint job but the trimming on the roof was too dark, so i painted it in from the normal exposure photo to get an even look and, since it is its own layer, I was able to increase the brightness a bit of just that layer to match the overall brightness of the carousel.
As a last step, I cleaned up the lower floor and the horses on it, using the normal exposure photo to get to the final image:
(Links to Flickr where you can find a larger size) Here is also a look at the different layers I ended up with for the final image): The Cleanup took longer than I usually take the time for my images but I think the results are clearly worth it. I hope this little guide helped you see how some little cleaning up can improve a HDR image. If you have questions - hit the comments!Making a HDR image with an iPhone?!?
13/Feb/10 14:12
Some of you might read the headline/question and immediately think: No way or not with good results. I’m going to try and show you that it is indeed possible and that the results look okay, too.
The HDR image I am going to show you in this post actually happened by necessity: I wanted to capture the sunrise over a snow covered field and was sitting in my car with only my iPhone at hand. I knew that the iPhone could never give me the dynamic range needed for such a shot - not by a long shot - but I also knew that I can influence the exposure through the autofocus system they introduced with the iPhone 3GS. With the new iPhone, you tap on anything on the display and it will focus on that spot and also adjust the exposure to be ideal in that part of the image. With that in mind, I decided to do three different shots with the focus on different parts of the picture: 1) the sun, 2) the sky, 3) the snow. In that minute I wasn’t even thinking of an HDR, just to get a good individual photo (I should add that I was standing at a red light while taking the photos, so I had to be quick).
Here are the three individual photos:
As you can see, this is close to being a row of different exposures you would take with the AEB feature (if I had had the time, I would have added an even brighter one). So what’s next you ask? Well, I know that there are „HDR“ apps for the iPhone but I’m very skeptical of these, so I decided to do all the editing on my Mac. I decided to do the HDR with Photomatix but the differences in alignment were to severe to get good results from Photomatix, so I opened up Photoshop and used its HDR feature to align the images, which did it perfectly. Then I used the tonemapping plugin of Photomatix to do the tonemap of the photo. The results really blew me away!
This is the tonemapped image, which I edited a bit further in photoshop, by cleaning up the stripes in the sky with one of the three original images and by reducing the noise in the image (since it really, really brightened up some of the black parts).
So yes, you really can do a real HDR with an iPhone! Crazy, isn’t it?
(Btw, sorry that comments are currently not working, I’ll try to find a solution soon - the old comment system isn’t free anymore)
The HDR image I am going to show you in this post actually happened by necessity: I wanted to capture the sunrise over a snow covered field and was sitting in my car with only my iPhone at hand. I knew that the iPhone could never give me the dynamic range needed for such a shot - not by a long shot - but I also knew that I can influence the exposure through the autofocus system they introduced with the iPhone 3GS. With the new iPhone, you tap on anything on the display and it will focus on that spot and also adjust the exposure to be ideal in that part of the image. With that in mind, I decided to do three different shots with the focus on different parts of the picture: 1) the sun, 2) the sky, 3) the snow. In that minute I wasn’t even thinking of an HDR, just to get a good individual photo (I should add that I was standing at a red light while taking the photos, so I had to be quick).
Here are the three individual photos:
As you can see, this is close to being a row of different exposures you would take with the AEB feature (if I had had the time, I would have added an even brighter one). So what’s next you ask? Well, I know that there are „HDR“ apps for the iPhone but I’m very skeptical of these, so I decided to do all the editing on my Mac. I decided to do the HDR with Photomatix but the differences in alignment were to severe to get good results from Photomatix, so I opened up Photoshop and used its HDR feature to align the images, which did it perfectly. Then I used the tonemapping plugin of Photomatix to do the tonemap of the photo. The results really blew me away!
This is the tonemapped image, which I edited a bit further in photoshop, by cleaning up the stripes in the sky with one of the three original images and by reducing the noise in the image (since it really, really brightened up some of the black parts).
So yes, you really can do a real HDR with an iPhone! Crazy, isn’t it?
(Btw, sorry that comments are currently not working, I’ll try to find a solution soon - the old comment system isn’t free anymore)
Project Entry: Edit John's Photo
28/Sep/09 14:07
One of my favorite bloggers, Brian Auer, is doing another Photo Project. He asked users to send him photos they would be willing to share for another "Edit my Photo" contest. I wanted to participate in this part of the project - but of course, I forgot about it... But I did remember to vote on which photo should be used for the editing part of the project (You can find all entries here).
The winning entry by John Huson
I really liked the photo that got chosen, because I was drawn to the structure in the wall. I really wanted to focus on the wall for my entry for the project because I think it has a higher draw to it than the person pictured. Brian supplied me with the RAW version of the photo so I had a whole range of options at my disposal to play with the photo.
I started out by opening the photo in Photoshop CS3 and the Camera RAW editior. Next I tried the different outputs for changing the white balance. I decided to go with the results from the tungsten light, which gave the whole photo a nice blue tint.
The photo with white balance set to tungsten light
Next I decided to use a Lomo action for Photoshop I had downloaded some time ago and had gotten really great results from in the past (You can find this photoshop action here).
The photo with the Lomo action applied
I really liked the direction this was going and also how that yellow thingy on the ground was standing out of the photo but the guy in the photo had become too dark and the texture in the wall did not jump out at you, either. Due to this, I decided to keep playing with the photo.
My next idea was to make a new layer with the original photo on top of the lomo-rized version and try different blending modes. The one I decided on was "overlay"
The guy in the photo is looking even worse but the wall had gotten a really nice texture. Now that I liked the wall, I decided to see what I could do to bring the guy in the picture back to a look where you can see his face. For this I made two additional layers on top with the original photo. In the lower one I used the masking tool and only left his face visible and used the blending mode "Lighten", which brought back the details in his face but he still did not have enough contrast in comparison to the rest of the photo, so I selected the whole of him in the next layer and masked this and used Overlay again. This increase the contrasts in his clothes and his skin a lot. Lastly, I decided to use a curves adjustment layer and played around with it until I was satisfied. The result of this I liked to much, that I decided to enter it as my entry into the project:
My final edit
If you want to partcipate in the project, you can do so until October 16th
The winning entry by John Huson
I really liked the photo that got chosen, because I was drawn to the structure in the wall. I really wanted to focus on the wall for my entry for the project because I think it has a higher draw to it than the person pictured. Brian supplied me with the RAW version of the photo so I had a whole range of options at my disposal to play with the photo.
I started out by opening the photo in Photoshop CS3 and the Camera RAW editior. Next I tried the different outputs for changing the white balance. I decided to go with the results from the tungsten light, which gave the whole photo a nice blue tint.
The photo with white balance set to tungsten light
Next I decided to use a Lomo action for Photoshop I had downloaded some time ago and had gotten really great results from in the past (You can find this photoshop action here).
The photo with the Lomo action applied
I really liked the direction this was going and also how that yellow thingy on the ground was standing out of the photo but the guy in the photo had become too dark and the texture in the wall did not jump out at you, either. Due to this, I decided to keep playing with the photo.
My next idea was to make a new layer with the original photo on top of the lomo-rized version and try different blending modes. The one I decided on was "overlay"
The guy in the photo is looking even worse but the wall had gotten a really nice texture. Now that I liked the wall, I decided to see what I could do to bring the guy in the picture back to a look where you can see his face. For this I made two additional layers on top with the original photo. In the lower one I used the masking tool and only left his face visible and used the blending mode "Lighten", which brought back the details in his face but he still did not have enough contrast in comparison to the rest of the photo, so I selected the whole of him in the next layer and masked this and used Overlay again. This increase the contrasts in his clothes and his skin a lot. Lastly, I decided to use a curves adjustment layer and played around with it until I was satisfied. The result of this I liked to much, that I decided to enter it as my entry into the project:
My final edit
If you want to partcipate in the project, you can do so until October 16th
Not all HDRs are equal
16/Aug/09 21:08
As you might know, I really like to work with HDR files from time to time and I always prefer to keep them pretty close to natural looking (just with a higher dynamic range). Some time ago I spent a day playing tourist guide to friends in Frankfurt, which was kinda fun since you never look at cities you consider your home the same way as tourists would (in fact, this was the first time I had my camera with me in Frankfurt). During that photo shoot, I took almost exclusively three RAW files of every file to be able to make HDRs since the sky was super blue and I didn’t have an ND filter with me.
One subject was especially suited to HDR: a dark gate under an overhanging on which the sun was shining.
This is how it would have looked as a normal photo (totally unprocessed)
It’s really not too bad but the gate does not really pop and you can’t really see all the details in the structure. Therefore I took three shots with the AEB automation with exposure of +/- 2 to get extreme differences in exposure.
As I said, I had taken a lot of shots for HDR processing that day, so I decided to do a batch processing in Photomatix, which is pretty great, even though I can’t do much more with my Mac while this is running. I always let it do three versions of the photo (the two options you find under tonemapping and the fusion option with automatic lighting). The best version was this one:
As you can see, it is pretty close to the originall, just the gate itself is a lot lighter and the reflections in the glass are more pronounced. There is also more contrast in the stones. But I wasn’t totally satisfied with it, so I tried a few more ideas:
The first was a version for which I made the HDR in Photoshop CS3 and then used the tonemapping plugin of Photomatix in Photoshop. The result can be seen below and while I liked this version, the details in the gate do not come out at all, in fact, I have a lot of artifacts in the darker areas (remember, click any photo to see a large version).
Then I decided to try Hydra, a HDR app for Macs (I am still using the first version, though), which has pretty good results sometimes, too. This was the result from Hydra:
I didn’t really like this result because it did none of the things I wanted to accomplish, so I decided to fire up Photomatix once again and do a manual processing with it of the photo. I also decided to play a bit more with the levers in Photomatix than I usually do to get a bit more extreme results than usually. This is the version I finally decided on:
As you can see, its a much more moody picture than any of the other versions and the details look like they are supposed to look! It’s really amazing how different you can process an HDR and how different the results can look.
What do you think, did I decide on the right version?
One subject was especially suited to HDR: a dark gate under an overhanging on which the sun was shining.
This is how it would have looked as a normal photo (totally unprocessed)
It’s really not too bad but the gate does not really pop and you can’t really see all the details in the structure. Therefore I took three shots with the AEB automation with exposure of +/- 2 to get extreme differences in exposure.
As I said, I had taken a lot of shots for HDR processing that day, so I decided to do a batch processing in Photomatix, which is pretty great, even though I can’t do much more with my Mac while this is running. I always let it do three versions of the photo (the two options you find under tonemapping and the fusion option with automatic lighting). The best version was this one:
As you can see, it is pretty close to the originall, just the gate itself is a lot lighter and the reflections in the glass are more pronounced. There is also more contrast in the stones. But I wasn’t totally satisfied with it, so I tried a few more ideas:
The first was a version for which I made the HDR in Photoshop CS3 and then used the tonemapping plugin of Photomatix in Photoshop. The result can be seen below and while I liked this version, the details in the gate do not come out at all, in fact, I have a lot of artifacts in the darker areas (remember, click any photo to see a large version).
Then I decided to try Hydra, a HDR app for Macs (I am still using the first version, though), which has pretty good results sometimes, too. This was the result from Hydra:
I didn’t really like this result because it did none of the things I wanted to accomplish, so I decided to fire up Photomatix once again and do a manual processing with it of the photo. I also decided to play a bit more with the levers in Photomatix than I usually do to get a bit more extreme results than usually. This is the version I finally decided on:
As you can see, its a much more moody picture than any of the other versions and the details look like they are supposed to look! It’s really amazing how different you can process an HDR and how different the results can look.
What do you think, did I decide on the right version?
Project: Edit my Picture
02/Mar/09 21:01
Another blog project: This time the project initiator, Phil Price, asks participants to edit his photo, which you see pictured here, and to submit their results to him. In this post you’ll find most of my edited versions of this photo, including what I did and what I liked and disliked about each one. Of course, at the end of the post you’ll also find the photo I am submitting to his projectReade More...
Playing with Textures
01/Feb/09 04:37
A lot of people are playing with their photos and textures to give their photos a slightly different feel. I always wanted to try this but for whatever reasons, I never did. After downloading a few textures last week, I decided to finally try it on one of my photos from last year.
The photo is an HDR of a church in the Smoky Mountain National Park and is very moody due to the heavy clouds with the light coming through. It’s a prime example for a photo that pratically begs to be made look like it was taken 100 years ago. There are several ways to achieve this but I decided to go with some dark, grungy texture and giving both the photo and the texture a sepia color overlay. Additionally, I lowered the opacity and the fill of the texture to make it look more natural.
In addition to that I also cropped the photo so that the cars are not visible in the photo since they would not fit with the mood of the photo. After I had done that I felt that something was still missing from the photo, so I decided to add some old-looking frame to it, which makes it feel more natural and lets the texture seem more like a natural part of the photo.
What do you think of my first try at textures? It definitely was easier than I thought it would be - so if you haven’t be sure to try it
The photo is an HDR of a church in the Smoky Mountain National Park and is very moody due to the heavy clouds with the light coming through. It’s a prime example for a photo that pratically begs to be made look like it was taken 100 years ago. There are several ways to achieve this but I decided to go with some dark, grungy texture and giving both the photo and the texture a sepia color overlay. Additionally, I lowered the opacity and the fill of the texture to make it look more natural.
In addition to that I also cropped the photo so that the cars are not visible in the photo since they would not fit with the mood of the photo. After I had done that I felt that something was still missing from the photo, so I decided to add some old-looking frame to it, which makes it feel more natural and lets the texture seem more like a natural part of the photo.
What do you think of my first try at textures? It definitely was easier than I thought it would be - so if you haven’t be sure to try it
Different apps, different results
21/Dec/08 21:35
In November I did a one-week road trip starting in Atlanta, going to Gatlinburg, Charlotte, Charleston and Savannah. As you probably can imagine, I took a ton of photos on the trip. The hardest thing for photographing was the weather: pure sunshine with no clouds. This meant that the dynamic range was too much for my sensor, so I decided to use HDRs a lot of times. In the past I have used Hydra for this but sometimes Hydra does not give me the results I would like to have. Since I had a ton of photos on my Mac with three different exposures, I decided to try out Photomatix again. This was mainly because one photo didn’t come out in Hydra like I wanted it to look.
This were the three starting photos:
As you can see the middle exposure is not as popping as it could be (remember to click on an image to see a larger version). So I decided to try Hydra on it. This are the two results I liked best:
The first one is a simple overlay of the images and the second one it tone-mapped - although it is a bit too saturated for my taste. But somehow neither picture really resonated with me (especially since I was looking for the best look for the mountains in the background. So I decided to try Photomatix. If you have ever tried it, Photomatix has a lot more options for customizing the results of your HDR, which is a good thing but also makes it more complicated to use. Because of the many options, among others I got these results:
Neither one is really perfect... I decided to also try Photoshop CS3 but I haven’t saved that one because it didn’t look at all like what I wanted to have for my photo So I decided to try Photomatix again after I had decided to buy Photomatix to have more options for my HDR projects. The final result I came up with:
This were the three starting photos:
As you can see the middle exposure is not as popping as it could be (remember to click on an image to see a larger version). So I decided to try Hydra on it. This are the two results I liked best:
The first one is a simple overlay of the images and the second one it tone-mapped - although it is a bit too saturated for my taste. But somehow neither picture really resonated with me (especially since I was looking for the best look for the mountains in the background. So I decided to try Photomatix. If you have ever tried it, Photomatix has a lot more options for customizing the results of your HDR, which is a good thing but also makes it more complicated to use. Because of the many options, among others I got these results:
Neither one is really perfect... I decided to also try Photoshop CS3 but I haven’t saved that one because it didn’t look at all like what I wanted to have for my photo So I decided to try Photomatix again after I had decided to buy Photomatix to have more options for my HDR projects. The final result I came up with:
Quick way to make your picture a Polaroid
09/Nov/08 19:18
Two weeks ago or so I read a post about a pretty cool software on TUAW.com that I immediately downloaded to try it. What software that was? An app called Poladroid (currently there is only a beta for Mac OS X but they are also working on a Windows version) that allows you to simple drag your photo onto the icon of the app and it will start processing your photo as a Polaroid. It will start out as a blank Polaroid, just as it would when you use an actual Polaroid camera and it will start processing from there, slowly revealing your photo, which you can speed up by shaking the Polaroid.
It really is a very fast and convenient way to transform your photo into a Polaroid. I also like how it affects the colors of your photos, making it feel so much more realistic. The most pressing thing that is missing right now is the ability to choose the area it should crop to for the square size of the Polaroid. Here are some more examples of my photos transformed by Poladroid:
and the originals:
If you want to see more, feel free to check out my flickr set.
Playing with potential
20/Aug/08 19:33
Summary: A post on how I took this picture and made it look a lot better using selective coloring and cropping. Additionally, the picutre exampes will give you a good example of how the composition of a photo will have an impact on the overall impression you get from the picture.Reade More...
Presenting a photo to its best advantage
18/Jul/08 16:01
Summary: Last week in my entry „make it POP“ I spoke about selective coloring as a way to make your subject stand out more. While browing my photos from the trip to the Berlin Zoo I saw another picture that I thought would benefit from selective coloring. As you can see (if you look closely), there is a reptile in that tree looking directly into the camera. The problem? Nobody will be able to see him hiding in that tree because he has the same coloring as the leaves around him! Click on „Read more“ to find out what I was able to do to improve this shot.Reade More...