More HDR

Earlier, I posted an HDR photo taken at Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse near Acadia National Park. This was not actually my first attempt (in post) to create an HDR, although that picture was taken first. When I was shooting at Bass Harbor, I didn't set out to create an HDR. It wasn't until I was leaving the site that the thought hit me. I mistakenly thought I'd taken enough varying exposures of the same scene to get an HDR. It wasn't until I started looking at my shots that I realized that while I had several shots of a properly exposed sky and several other shots of a properly exposed lighthouse and cliffs, I did not have any framed the same way suitable to creating the effect I wanted just with the Photomatix HDR software. More on that in a bit.

I arrived at Pemaquid Pt a few days later, anxious to do things right. I scouted the site and found a couple of vantage points I liked. I then waited patiently for sun to "do it's thing". I was a little worried about the sky. It looked like it might be a complete dud. But luckily it kept changing and changing. The biggest challenge after that became all of the damn people. I got so tired of waiting for folks to get out of the shot that I decided to go ahead and take a few shots with a person in them.

In the end, the shots with the person created my favorite picture of the scene. I love the texture and the lines in the picture. And unlike many HDR pictures, it still remains faithful to reality.

I tried a different angle, which I ended up not liking quite as much. And the sky decided it wanted to start showing off. While I love the result, I can't help thinking that it just doesn't look quite as realistic as the first picture. Still, I really like the result, and have had some people tell me it is their favorite of the two.

After getting back home, I downloaded the (free) Photomatix trial. I don't think I lasted 24 hours before I was hooked and sending them payment for the key. I was slow to post -process the rest of my Maine and New Hampshire trip. I just have to be in the right mood to sort through hundreds of pictures and do the digital darkroom thing. But slowly it was coming together. I was really frustrated with myself that I hadn't gotten what I wanted at Bass Head. I tried to create an HDR with what I had. The results for the lighthouse and cliff was stunning. But the sky was blown in all the original shots, and the HDR of that was gray with weird lines in it.

I decided to turn to Photoshop. Now, I'm not very advanced in PS. Until Aperture came out, I used it heavily, but only for Adjustment layer sorts of things. Never anything complex. But I did a bit of research and decided to apply what I'd learned. (I also decided to sign up for an all day class in the new year).

I started with the tiff file output of Photomatix, then extracted the lighthouse, trees, and cliffs. Then I tried adding a dramatic sky from another picture I'd taken. It just didn't work. The trees on the left are heavily backlit and there was just no way to make things look natural. So I started over. I got a much better extraction the second time. And most importantly, I decided to use a sky exposure from the same shoot. It didn't match up with the picture, but that turned out to not be a problem. Using the free transform tool in PS, I was able to adjust the sky picture to the image. The sun matched up to the backlit trees. I adjusted the brightness slightly to match the trees on the right (and had to do a tad of burning in one spot).

I was very pleased with the result (see the earlier post). To me, the sky (as it should) looks very natural. And that helped make the overall HDR look more natural. Yeah, it may not be an overly dramatic sky, but that is probably for the best, as that could overshadow the lighthouse and cliffs.

All in all, the entire experience has been extremely educational for me. I can't wait to do this more. Really makes me want to travel back to the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley and try the HDR thing there.

-Rodney