The Speed of Light - Redux

Roy Hubbard · Mar 23, 2010

Revival of a photo I took last year while I was dabbling with HDR. I didn't do much retouching beyond HDR conversion last year, but this is a more accurate representation of how it felt to me at 2 in the morning last June.

8 exposures between 30sec and 1/2sec @f/5.6 ISO 100

Combined and processed using Photoshop CS3's native Merge to HDR function.

USM IS · Mar 23, 2010

Looks neat to me.....wish I could do stuff like that......MIke

da1nonlymikeo · Mar 23, 2010

nice, what filter did you use during edit in ps if you dont mind me asking? the lights look great.

Roy Hubbard · Mar 23, 2010

da1nonlymikeo said:
nice, what filter did you use during edit in ps if you dont mind me asking? the lights look great.

Glad you like it!

The processing was mostly a bunch of curves adjustment layers set to different blending modes with lots of masking. I used a high pass filter for sharpening, and applied a technique called the Orton Effect. The lights are able to look the way they do because of the detail preserved by the darker exposures.

I just realized how much I suck at explaining my workflow :meh:

Gaerek · Mar 24, 2010

I'm usually not a huge fan of HDR, but I really like this shot. I wouldn't have thought to use Orton here, but I think it works really well. Nice job.

Roy Hubbard · Mar 24, 2010

Gaerek said:
I'm usually not a huge fan of HDR, but I really like this shot. I wouldn't have thought to use Orton here, but I think it works really well. Nice job.

Thanks very much for your thoughts.

Yeah, HDR has picked up a certain stigma with all the wild tone mapping it's often associated with. The pure technique itself is a very effective means of pushing the limitations of the medium.