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Contents Photoshop 32 bit HDR editing – The Crypt .............................................................. 3

Keeping Your HDR Brackets Organized .................................................................... 7

Using Tonal Contrast to Make Street Scenes “Pop” ................................................ 9

The Problem of Deghosting in Photomatix ............................................................ 13

HDR Without a Tripod ............................................................................................ 14

No Tricks just Treats; How to add Halloween Wow to your HDR photo! .............. 17

Manually Blended HDR .......................................................................................... 27

Comparing Chromatic Aberration and Sharpness in 5 HDR Programs .................. 29

Photography in China – Kung Fu, Dim Sums and HDR ........................................... 31

Using Topaz Adjust to Finish Your HDRs ................................................................ 36

Results Sep/Oct HDR One Competition Sponsored By NIK .................................... 41

....................................... 42

Facebook’s Failure for Page Owners and Fans ...................................................... 47

.................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

About HDR One ...................................................................................................... 50

Copyright notice: Content found in HDR One Magazine is the property of HDR One and the accredited photographers/authors. This cannot be reproduced, edited, sold, or used in anyway other than for personal use, without express permission from HDR One and the accredited photographers/authors.

What to Expect HDR One editor, Jimmy McIntyre reviews this month’s issue.

It’s been an exciting month on HDR One. Not only did we announce the winner of the NIK photo contest, our readers also decided the winner of this year’s HDR blog of the year. Well done to Blake Rudis of everydayhdr.com for topping this year’s poll.

We have an all-round collection of tutorials and general guidance articles this month.

Jim Nix explores two important plugins to give your images a bit more life: Color Efex & Topaz Adjust. While Kim Zier, who was our very first female contributor, got into the Halloween mood with a playful HDR tutorial.

Justin Brown, as wonderfully as ever, talks about life in HDR without a tripod; while Ben Fewtrell talks about places to visit in China.

In preparation for the HDR reference book to be released in a few months, I showed a comparison of how well 5 different HDR programs handled chromatic aberration and sharpness.

I also discuss deghosting problems in photomatix with a young photographer, and chat about the seeming decline of facebook’s pages.

Before all of that, we start with a great tutorial by Andrew Steel at Gloucester Cathedral.

Don’t forget that you too can feature in this magazine as a contributor. Read more about it here

All the best

Jimmy McIntyre

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Photoshop 32 bit HDR editing – The

Crypt By Andrew Steel - http://www.darkart.co/

In the last article I covered general things that I do when photographing churches and cathedrals, and how easy it is because generally I am just trying to portray the beauty that is already there. This time were going down into the depths of the crypt at Gloucester cathedral and what I am looking to do here is convey a feeling of eeriness and a sense of being there.

So let’s start with the first exposures: tripod mounted, f9, ISO200, normal exposure 13 seconds, brackets +2,0,-2.

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Photoshop HDR Pro + Lightroom 4.1 + Silver Efex Pro 2

File – Automate – Merge to HDR Pro…

And follow the instructions

When the images are blended at the top right hand side of the display there are some sliders and boxes where you can make adjustments, go to the mode box and select ’32 bit’, the sliders will now all disappear, select ‘OK’ this will create the 32 bit HDR file and will take you to the standard Photoshop interface, from the ‘file’ menu on the top ribbon bar select ‘save as’ the format needs to be ‘TIFF’, give your file a name and destination directory, this should now save a 32 bit TIFF file.

Open the file in Lightroom (it needs to be version 4.1 or above)

Adjust Highlights down -100 Adjust Shadows up +100 Adjust clarity up +100 Saturation pushed high Yellow and orange saturation reduced back down Export as ‘Colour.psd’

Re-open the file in Lightroom

Edit in Silver Efex pro Select preset ‘Wet Rocks’ Save Clarity adjust up to about +20 Blacks adjust down slightly Export as ‘Mono.psd’

Open both file in Photoshop

Create the images as layers with the colour version being the top layer

With top layer selected choose ‘Hard Light’ as the blending mode Adjust ‘Opacity Slider’ to 73% ‘Flatten’ layers’ Copy colour layer and paste onto working layer to create two layers

(colour layer on top) With top layer selected choose ‘Normal’ as the blending mode Adjust ‘Opacity Slider’ to 30%

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‘Perspective Crop’ to correct verticals Save as ‘Working.psd’

Open ‘Working.psd’ in Lightroom

Adjust ‘Clarity’ up +100 (this gives the final texture) Adjust ‘Highlights’ down -20 (brings out detail on bright areas) Adjust ‘Saturation’ down -20 Adjust ‘Green Luminance’ down -80 A little brush work to eliminate some unwanted light Export as final image.

I have made the original files available and they can be found here:

File 1 – File 2 – File 3

Please feel free to use the files to follow this workflow, or generate your own version, I would be happy to see the results.

If you have any questions please use the ASK forum on this site and I will be happy to respond

Although I first started using this workflow for images where I was trying to add a sense of darkness, I have since found that by going through the same methodology but varying the tones in the b&W image and where the sliders are pushed to that this can work on a range of images.

You can follow the comments on this article here - http://www.hdrone.com/2012/10/15/photoshop-32-bit-hdr-editing-the-crypt/

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Keeping Your HDR Brackets

Organized By curt Fleenor - http://www.curtfleenor.com/

If you have been shooting for any length of time you probably have hundreds of images stored somewhere on your computer. If you are bracketing to create HDR images the number of files in your catalog quickly multiplies and can get out of control pretty fast. In this article, I’m going to show you how I keep my HDR brackets organized.

When I first started shooting HDR I gave no consideration to storing my images in any organized fashion. It wasn’t long before my catalog was full of random brackets that were completely disjoined from one another. I was still learning how to process HDR and now I was having trouble just finding the brackets that I wanted to process. What I needed was a plan, an organizational system that would help me keep up with the tons of images I was now bringing home.

What I found was a two step method that I still use today, it’s simple and it fits my needs.

Where To Start

At the beginning of every year I create a new folder to hold the photos that I will shoot over the next 12 months. As the year progresses, I create a sub-folder for each location I shoot. Inside each location folder I add a sub-folder for the dates I shot that location. The date folder is completely optional but it does help keep the clutter down, especially if I visit the same location several times throughout the year.

As an example, here’s what my 2011 image folder looks like:

Importing Into Lightroom

To keep my folders and catalog in sync, I create all of the location and date folders during the Lightroom import process. Adding the folders during import creates the physical folders on your computer and the folders within your Lightroom catalog.

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Clean Up Your Grid

The first thing I do once my images have been imported into Lightroom is place each set of brackets into groups called stacks. Stacking lets me keep each bracket sequence linked visually so they are easier to locate. More often than not, I will shoot the same composition many times during a visit. The result is that I end up with multiple brackets that look very similar. Stacking helps me keep similar bracket sequences separated.

Another advantage to using stacks is that any edits you perform in external applications, like Photomatix or Photoshop, are automatically added to the stack when you return to Lightroom. Every step of the edit process is saved and organized into one place. To create a stack select the desired images, right click on one of them and choose “Group Into Stack”.

Keeping your HDR brackets organized is an essential part of your workflow

and the first step to making the rest of your processing experience much

more enjoyable. How you organize your image folders and catalogs is up to

you and there is no right or wrong way to do it. The key is to find a system

that works and stick with it.

You can follow the comments on this article here - http://www.hdrone.com/2012/10/11/keeping-your-hdr-brackets-organized/

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Using Tonal Contrast to Make Street

Scenes “Pop” By Jim Nix - http://www.nomadicpursuits.com/

(disclaimer: this HDR image is somewhat heavily processed, and is borderline surreal, and there’s nothing wrong with that)

I am a huge fan of Color Efex Pro from Nik Software. If you are not familiar with it, the high-level summary is that it is a collection of various filters which you can apply to any photo, and then within the filter you can customize the intensity of various settings. It’s very powerful.

It’s an essential piece of software for me – in fact, literally every HDR that I process, and most other shots, get some sort of treatment with Color Efex Pro. It’s that powerful and versatile.

One of my favorite filters in the product is called Tonal Contrast. I use it quite a lot – it’s part of my standard HDR workflow. It really does a great job of bringing a scene to life.

I recently posted an HDR of a street scene from Brussels, Belgium and had some questions about the shot from various folks. It was shot under drab skies, and since it was a street scene there was a lot of “texture” in the photo – cobblestones on the street itself, bricks in the building, etc.

So, I thought that I could use that as an example of how I use the Tonal Contrast filter in Color Efex Pro. Just to be clear – this is not a full tutorial, and I am not going into the Photomatix piece of it at all. I figured people might find it interesting to dive into this filter a bit, and see how it works.

For starters, this is a 7 exposure HDR, and for comparison purposes here is the 0 exposure which is straight from the camera:

And since I am skipping the building of the basic HDR image, here is the result that Photomatix gave me:

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So as you can tell, the Photomatix output is way more interesting than the original 0 exposure, which makes a lot of sense. But to my eye the HDR still lacks any real “punch”. It’s pretty flat, though that is exactly what I want Photomatix to give me. I want the output to be flat, so that I can control what adjustments are done, and where. Let’s get into Color Efex Pro and use the Tonal Contrast filter now.

Here’s a screenshot of the menu (note that the settings currently selected are from my last photo that I adjusted with Tonal Contrast – I will change it for this photo). As you can see, you have the option to adjust Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows. It is a sliding scale. You literally just slide it around until you get it looking the way that you want it to look. It’s a simple menu, and frankly a simple filter to use. That’s all good!

There is also Saturation, though I rarely make saturation adjustments here, preferring instead to make them in Aperture, which I use for those sorts of

things. And if you use any Nik products, you will recognize the Control Points which are always an option.

Also, there is a dropdown menu for choosing the Contrast Type: Standard, High Pass, Fine, Balance, or Strong. For this photo (and in most cases, though not all) I am choosing Standard.

So, onto the sliders.

For no reason other than it is at the top, I start with the Highlights slider. This one I find very important for keeping your skies clean. Since skies are often the brightest part of a photo anyways, if you slide too far to the right with this one, you can get some seriously blown out spots in the sky, not to mention some weird clouds. For this photo, I experimented and ultimately landed on about -18%. That gave me enough interest in the sky (and it was a cloudy day, so that helped emphasize the clouds) and a little more “texture” in the clouds too.

Next up is the Midtones slider. This one is probably my favorite (and most powerful), because it typically has the most impact on how a photo looks (there are lots of midtones). As I mentioned above, I went somewhat surreal on the processing here, so after some experimentation I ended up with the slider pretty high up there to the right, at 74%. This gave the photo a lot of “punch” in terms of bringing out the textures in the cobblestone street and the brick wall. It also tends to punch up the highlights a bit, so just be careful. Likewise, if you slide way to the left, the entire photo starts to look flat again. Like I said, this one is powerful, but to me it’s the primary reason I use this filter on these types of shots.

This one also had the nice benefit of casting a little brightness onto the mid-right of the photo – basically, the area around the restaurant on the right of the photo, with the man standing in front looking towards me. I liked that effect, as it was the focal point of the shot for me anyways. So that put some additional emphasis there.

Lastly, there is the Shadows slider. I like this one a lot too, but it does not have as much of a dramatic impact on the shot that Midtones has. In this case, I slid it to the right to 52%. Much further than that and you start to get overly shadowed shadows, if that makes sense. In other words, if I go too

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far, the little shadows around the windows, door, and the chairs start to really get big and dark – too dark for me, even in an image that is pushing the edges of reality a bit. So I kept that one in check a bit.

The other nice thing about Color Efex Pro is the histogram at the bottom. As you can see, this one is mostly balanced at this point, which is nice.

Also, another great thing about Color Efex Pro v4 (which is the current version) is that now you can “stack” filters. In the older versions you had to Save and then re-open the product again to use another filter. Nowadays you just click on “+ Add Filter” and then select your next filter from the lengthy list on the left.

For this photo, I also went back and added a little Pro Contrast, Brilliance/Warmth, and Glamour Glow to finish it off. Below is the finished product. While I have skipped over the settings for the other filters that I used, I feel like the majority of the “look” of the finished product is due to using the Tonal Contrast filter. It’s a very powerful filter, and when put to good use can produce some dramatic results!

Here’s the finished photo:

Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions!

You can follow the comments on this article here - http://www.hdrone.com/2012/10/08/using-tonal-contrast-to-make-street-scenes-pop/

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The Problem of Deghosting in

Photomatix By Jimmy McIntyre - https://www.facebook.com/JimmymcintyreHDR

Last month a promising young photographer emailed me with a problem he had while deghosting his brackets in Photomatix.

“Hey Jimmy, I need some help with regards to Photomatix and processing some shots I got yesterday, hopefully you can help! A couple bracket sequences I shot yesterday seem to majorly overexpose in Photomatix after ‘de-ghosting’, im not sure why but a large part of the sky just turns bright white after de-ghosting? It’s hard to explain but if that makes sense can you give me any pointers? I can send you the shots if you want to play around with them yourself.”

Here is his HDR and the original exposures:

3 of the Original images

Essentially the photographer was running the auto deghosting function on his images.

In an attempt to help him, I quickly ran his brackets through photomatix. Here’s the resultant image:

Once he agreed that this was the result he was looking for, I replied with my suspicions of the cause of the problem:

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“The problem is the deghosting in photomatix. Firstly, this image is fine. You shouldn’t need to deghost anything since there aren’t any moving objects, and when you do deghost anything you should do it manually.

Basically, when Photomatix deghosts an image it uses the normal exposure as its base and anything that doesn’t match up with that it strips out. So the for this image photomatix has stripped out the lower exposures in that part of the sky presumably because the clouds were moving, causing Photomatix to see them as ghosts. How do I know it’s the lower exposures?

Simply because the sky doesn’t have the lovely details that come with lower exposures. It may have also stripped out the higher exposures too but we can’t know that from this picture. It looks like the base picture was 7787 since the two skies are almost identical.

Remember that every time Photomatix strips out an exposure from a particular area, you lose some range of light from that area. The more range of light you lose the worse it gets, of course. That is why I almost never use the deghosting function, and if I have to, I do it manually. Very rarely will you need to for skies, unless the clouds are moving incredibly quickly. If that’s the case, simply grab the middle exposure in Lightroom or something similar and create two extra exposures so Photomatix has a bit more range to work with.

In this picture, have a look to the left of the image on the river, that is blown out as well. Again, water is a tricky one sometimes but I generally don’t deghost it.”

This problem isn’t unique to Photomatix, it’s universal across all HDR software I’ve tried. Ultimately it’s something every HDRist should be aware of – deghost at your own risk!

You can follow the comments on this article here - http://www.hdrone.com/2012/11/01/the-problem-of-deghosting-in-photomatix/

HDR Without a Tripod

By Justin Brown - http://www.flickr.com/photos/justininsd/

When it comes to HDR photography gear, a tripod is arguably the single

most important piece of equipment, but sometimes situations arise where it

is just not possible to use one. I recently went on a two week trip to the

Eastern US, and I did not have space in my luggage for my main

tripod. Instead, I packed a smaller travel size tripod, and I brought my

GorillaPod. In this article, I want to discuss these, and also some other gear

and techniques that can be used in place of a full size tripod.

Before my trip, I went on a search for the smallest tripod I could find. I had

a few requirements that needed to be met, but I really just wanted it to be as

small as possible. My first requirement was that the tripod would be rated

to support the weight of my camera plus the heaviest lens I expect to use

(70-200mm). Next, I wanted the fully extended height to bring the camera

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close to eye level, so I would not have to crouch down to use the

camera. Finally, I wanted something of decent build quality that would last

for at least a few years, and would function reliably without breaking the

bank.

The tripod I ended up choosing was the Sirui T-1005X. Its folded length is

just 13.4 inches (340mm). There are a few trade-offs compared with my

normal tripod, but ultimately they are insignificant when it means I can fit

this into my suitcase. Using this tripod I am sacrificing on maximum

height, which is just 51.4 inches (compared to 67” with my Manfrotto), but

it is still high enough that I can see my camera without having to

uncomfortably crouch down. Also, the legs have 5 segments, which adds to

the setup time, and reduces the overall stability. The tripod is rated for

22lbs, which is more than I will need, and was a selling point for a tripod

this compact. I found a few other products that also met my needs, but

ultimately I chose the smallest option. While I was on my trip I did not

carry the tripod with me everywhere, but having it available was really

helpful, like when I went out in Times Square at night.

When I go out with more to do than just take photos even the small size and

weight of a 13.4” tripod is often more than I want to carry around. For

these situations, I always have a GorillaPod stashed in my backpack. The

GorillaPod is extremely compact, flexible and lightweight. If you have not

seen one, it is a small, tabletop sized tripod with flexible legs. The legs can

be straightened for use like a normal tripod, or they can be bent to grab onto

objects like fences or trees. I really like using it for all day outings like

Disneyland, where I am not really comfortable carrying the weight and bulk

of a full size tripod all day. It also came in very handy at the Top of the

Rock in New York, where tripods are not allowed, however they had no

problem with my small GorillaPod resting on top of the fence. The

GorillaPod gave me the freedom to compose the shot I wanted where other

tripods were against the rules.

More often than I care to admit, I find myself being lazy, and I do not use a

tripod at all. In these situations, there are still some techniques that I use to

align my HDR brackets as much as possible. The alignment algorithms in

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HDR software have been getting better and better with each new version,

but there is still no substitute for perfection straight out of the camera. One

way I like to accomplish this, even when I am shooting during the day, is to

find a place to rest my camera. Resting the camera on top of a ledge, a

fence, a trash can, or any stationary object will hold the camera still much

better than even the most stable hands. If the available ledges are too

limiting, it is still beneficial to lean your body against a wall or stationary

object as you take your shots. The more contact you can make with a strong

base, the more stable your body will be, and the more stable the camera will

be as you shoot.

I like to shoot in high speed continuous burst mode so my camera rattles off

the bracketed images as quickly as possible. Depending on the situation, I

also use live view mode and the two second countdown timer. Especially in

situations where the camera is resting on a ledge, the countdown timer

allows me to remove the vibration of my hand pressing the shutter button.

I was recently in Grand Central Terminal in New York City, where tripods

again are not allowed. I was able to find a ledge that was perfectly centered

and had a great view over the main concourse. The ledge however, was

slanted down. I rested my camera flat on the ledge and found the camera

pointed towards the ground. Everything interesting that I wanted to capture

was at the very top of the frame. I needed to tilt the camera up, but if I just

lifted it I would lose the benefits of the ledge, so I took my camera strap and

folded it back on itself a couple times, and then placed it under the

lens. The strap added enough height to level out the vertical tilt, and it was

stable enough to take a 5 shot bracket with a 10 second exposure at +3EV.

Tripods are an important tool in the quiver of any HDR photographer, but

next time you find yourself without your tripod, think about how some of

these alternatives might improve your image quality and simplify post

processing. I am always looking for new camera stabilization techniques, if

you have any tips or tricks you use I would love to hear them in the

comments.

You can follow the comments on this article here -http://www.hdrone.com/2012/10/07/hdr-without-a-tripod/

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No Tricks just Treats; How to add

Halloween Wow to your HDR photo! By Kim Zier - https://www.facebook.com/kzimages

Hi all! My name is Kim Zier. Jimmy Mcintyre came to me and asked if I would write for the magazine. What a great honor! Just a little bit about myself before I get started. I began taking pictures 5 years ago and never stopped. I am new to the HDR One magazine. I stumbled upon it back in August and so glad I did. I am among so many amazing photographers. I am inspired every day by all of you. I am new to HDR photography, been experimenting with it for about 6 months and know I still have so much more to learn, but I plan to try to, hopefully. share with you something useful, interesting and fun.

This is my first tutorial, so please bare with me. The image I am going to share was taken in Furlong, Pa of abandoned rail cars. The day I had planned to go out ended up being a dreary dull overcast day, awful day to do HDR or any photography for that matter. So with this tutorial I plan to show you through Photomatix Pro 2 and Photoshop how I give an image that “wow” factor when it is not there from the start. I also sometimes like to add extras to my images to create a story. So in the spirit of Halloween…I am going to add a little macabre for effect.

Here we go…

I started by processing 6 images through Photomatix Pro 2 and made my adjustments to my liking. The images were shot in raw @ f/16 on Aperture Priority ISO 100 on a tripod.

Then I bring the image into Photoshop CS6 for post-processing.

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Now I find the perfect clouds to add to the image to give it a dark atmosphere for the Halloween theme I am going for. I have collected stock cloud images over the years, because in my opinion, every landscape need some clouds and when I’m out on a day where there are none…I just add them in Photoshop. Here is what I chose and I basically dragged, dropped the clouds from my pictures to Photoshop.

I position the clouds to where I think they should be with the “Move Tool” and change the blending mode to “Multiply” like so

Then I create a layer mask and with my Brush tool, set to black, begin erasing what I don’t want in the picture. I also adjust the opacity a little lighter to make them more believable. 3 images below to demonstrate

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Now to give the clouds a little more depth I duplicate the layer with clouds and change the blending mode to Hard light and re-adjust the opacity on that layer to my liking. I also had to tweak this layer and removed some unwanted clouds that were over the trees. I did this with the Brush tool set to black.

I have my clouds set…not so boring anymore. I flatten the image demonstrated below. It’s now time for spooky fun. I just recently purchased stock lightning images and they were worth the investment. The ones I have taken from the internet did not always work out well. I drag and drop my lightning image onto the background, which creates a new layer. With my move tool I place the lightning where I want it and adjust the size accordingly. Then I set the blending mode to “Lighten” and slightly adjust the opacity.