Monument lake

[windrider86]

I shot this Sunday while driving up to a place called the Dog Bar for lunch. Used the HDR effect. So far I'm quite pleased with the resulting image.
Can you make any suggestions to improve or anything I might have done differently?
Thank you in advance.

[matthewchj]

Not bad! Love the colours and the contrast.

[peeperita]

it's a lovely shot, windrider....and i envy your hdr technique.....do you think that maybe sometime in the near future i could pick your brain on how you do it?.....

peeper

[GaryMoffat]

Hi Peeper,

You can use HDR very easily with one image.

Choose one of your pictures you have taken and completed post processing and are happy with the final results and have saved as a keeper.

Now open up this picture and save it with 0 appended to the end.

Now in PS use adjust exposure and take the exposure to +2, save picture with +2 appended.

Undo changes so you have your first image and adjust exposure to -2.

We now have three pictures identical except we have -2, 0 and +2 exposures which we can now run through Photmatrix and render the Highs, Mids and Darks.

Open up Photomatrix, Generate new HDR and load in your three images, Manually input the exposure ranges. You can see the values as you save with the 0, -2 and +2.

Un-check Align images as you know they are all the same image and will line up correctly.

Once images are imported choose Tone Mapping.

Click on Defaults to bring Photomatrix to its default settings.

Increase the viewing area to maximum.

Now start adjusting the buttons and sliders and it now comes down to personal choice. Just play about till you like what you see.

I like to adjust the White and Black points these make a big impact then go back up and adjust the sliders and buttons again.

Take the strength settings to lowest and highest values, Low setting makes subtle changes.

Again its a matter playing around till you like what you see.

Some images don't suit HDR so choose something to play with that could be a good candidate, Images with lots of midtones work well - Rusty objects and mountain scenes for example.

Buts just play around with the buttons and sliders and you will begins to know what works and what dose not.

Regards,

Gary.

[windrider86]

of course you can, if you like email me at windrider86@comcast.net. I use PSP 12 so it may be different than your program, but its so easy

[peeperita]

gary, thanks for taking the time to put a tutorial together for me....it's as plain as day.....i do have one question....after reading a bit on hdr.....i came across a tip that it matters what order you stack your photo.....which exposure do you put on top?...

thanks again...

peeper

[Griggs]

Great shot!