blended exposures (maybe) CC

[Abby Rose]

I'm not sure if this is the proper name for this, but I took a photo exposed for the sky and a photo exposed for the ground and blended them together on GIMP. I've never tried anything like this before, and I'm thinking now that these may not have been ideal to practice on because of the light between the trees....? Or maybe I was doing it wrong.

I found it rather difficult, and now as I'm looking at the full size versions (which dont fit on my computer screen, of course ) I'm seeing that I missed the top of the sky when I was darkening it and that there are some weird circle-y things by the trees, I think from me trying to blend some sort of mask. :blushing: Whoops!

Anyway, please tell me how I could have improved. Besides missing the sky up there on top, of course. I guess I'll have to crop that out. :er:

Exposed for the sky (A)

Exposed the the ground (B)

My attempt at blending (C)

 

[PhotographyPool]

Looks good but you could bring out more detail in that foreground and I don't like the halo on the horizon, that could be toned down maybe.

 

[cpolaris502]

What you tried to do is called an HDR photo. Check out the HDR section here or even google it to see what some really good one can look like.

 

[Abby Rose]

Ok, I posted yet another edit here, but it was so bad I took it down. I just hope nobody saw it.

As for HDR photos, I did not realize that this is how they are made! I guess you learn something new every day, eh? That's not really the look I was aiming for, though, and it's not as though it turned out looking HDR at all. I wonder what else is involved? I just wanted a picture of the nice sunset that didn't have either a white sky or that mass of wintery trees underneath it.

 

[myfotoguy]

If you discover you really like doing HDR, you might consider Photomatix. I have read a little bit, but am wanting to get into it mroe myslef. One thing if I recall correctly is that for HDR images with the sun, you need several exposures to blend to get the full effect (you can also over do it and make it look wierd too). I tried one last weekend, not totally pleased with the results.

Anyway, all that to say nice shot. From what I read this is one of the more challenging exposure blend situations and it probably required more shots to blend to pull more out of it. BUT, hopefully someone with more real HDR experience can correct me or let us know if that's correct or not.

So anyway, I like your shot, it looks good.