Old Barn of King county

[PotatoEYE]

Original



How I do it:

1. Find a cool place and apply the rules of photography to get a good starting point, shoot RAW.
2. Take multiple exposures for further processing.
3. Import into Lightroom, fix white balance and minor touch-ups (contrast, blacks, saturation etc).
4. Export multiple exposures to Photomatix and merge into HDR with details enhancer. Make sure it looks almost real. Process it.
5. Get back to Lightroom, take processed HDR file and export it to Photoshop
In Photoshop I remove noise if necessary, applying masks to places I need details in or simply erase the de-noised layer in those spots. Retouch if needed (remove garbage and unneeded trees/bushes).
Duplicate layer and apply Shadows and Highlights adjustments if needed. Make sure it still looks real, blend the adjusted layer with the underlying to make it more transparent.
6. Reload back in Lightroom, add Gradient layer on the sky (same as ND filter in a way), vignette if needed, even brush in some adjustments with the magic brush. Go to HSL and partly remove saturation from colours I don't need. Boost the ones I like. Add Split toning (highlights get a green-yellow tone at around 10-25% saturation).
7. Export with sharpening for screen.
8. Enjoy comments on Flickr

Zenfolio | Scapevision and find me on Flickr

[statichash]

Sounds like a whole lot of work - but great results.

Cheers!

[Matthew_Scullion]

PotatoEye - many thanks for that. It was an action packed post but I reckon I learnt something from pretty much every line of it.

Many thanks indeed and great final result.

[abarickman]

Nicely done. I really like the end result.

[KagoGrl]

That's fantastic! Love the final result!

[mschaning]

Well done.

[Miss Sara]

i love the final result

[mschaning]

Why isn't there any software that can do all these steps in one? Or is there? It seems like most of the really great HDR pics like this one require a minimum of two photo editing software packages, if not three. Is it because some tools/filters are patented and only accessible with certain software? Just a matter of preference?

[windrider86]

I use only Paint Shop pro. In this and in Photoshop if you do these steps a lot you can create a script/action that will duplicate the steps for with one push of a button

[PotatoEYE]

Originally Posted by mschaning

Why isn't there any software that can do all these steps in one? Or is there? It seems like most of the really great HDR pics like this one require a minimum of two photo editing software packages, if not three. Is it because some tools/filters are patented and only accessible with certain software? Just a matter of preference?

You can get pretty close with just photomatix, but I prefer to add personal touches and address issues at hand. It's not necessary to have many packages