Tree on Mt. Scott

bazooka · Jan 13, 2011

I finally somehow managed to get some HDR's that started to turn out ok for me. I like how this turned out as it seems to be much more representative of what I saw with my own eyes, but I wonder how you all perceive it? Does it speak to you?

Higgs Boson · Jan 13, 2011

I can't hear anything but I think it looks nice.:thumbup:

altitude604 · Jan 13, 2011

very nice!

processed well, no halos so a thumbs up from me!

robertandrewphoto · Jan 13, 2011

i think it should be sharper, especially on the upper half

but its pretty good

PASM · Jan 13, 2011

Nice image!

Gruen Photo 7 Design · Jan 13, 2011

i like it
agree with the sharpness
very good framing of the subject

minpingurl1 · Jan 13, 2011

I like it. Looks beautiful

myshkin · Jan 13, 2011

As others have said its good processing but could use alittle sharpening. Overall a great start.

HDR generally needs more sharpening then a regualr pic once processed, also usually need a nice bump of contrast after processing. If you do no other post processing these 2 things should be done

WesternGuy · Jan 14, 2011

bazooka, nice shot, but agree with others, a little more sharpening and maybe a bit more contrast, but does look good.

Can you tell us a bit about the technical aspects, how many images (e.g., +2,0 -2) and what software did you use to get to the final image. Also, did you post-process the final tone mapped image in anything else such as Lightroom or Photoshop. As you can tell, I am trying to encourage people to post the technical aspects of their shots as well as their images because there are a lot of us that are relativley new here and HDR is still relatively new to a lot of people and the more posters can share the techncial side of what they do, then the more us noobies can learn from the experience of others. Thanks.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

bazooka · Jan 15, 2011

Thank you guys for the comments. Myshkin, I can't believe, I completely forgot to sharpen. I will say it was quite windy up there, and between the two exposures the tree tips were moving a bit, plus one of the exposures was about 1 sec, which accounts for some of the blur toward the top.

I'm at work so my tech details are pretty slim... it was only two exposures... I think probably 0 and -2, but I may have also used a 3 stop GND (don't have access to the RAW atm so I can't tell). After Photomatix, I went into PS and added some heavy saturation to the blues in the rocks and some light saturation to the sky. It was already fairly saturated from the higher altitude and CPL. You can see spots of the heavy blue in the shadows... I think I went overboard with it and plan on bringing that layer back a bit, but you can see the affect I was going for.... top 1/3 is blue, middle 1/3 is red, bottom 1/3 is blue.... like a color sandwich, with the roots and tree structure leading the eye all the way through.

Once I make some tweaks, I'll post an updated version here.