Natural Looking HDR

i have big time trouble with ghosting even when manually blending in photoshop. the only work around i know is to start cloning the ghosting out or make sure that your image is taken when the wind is not blowing. this is an issue when dealing with trees against sky.

cloning is too time consuming. what i do is load up one of the bracketed photos as a layer mask. auto align, then fill with black. Next, I use the eraser at 50-70% opacity and brush over areas with ghosting. this method works very well with trees and things with textures/patterns. heres a sample of mine, i took this on a windy day. spent about 15 mins cleaning the ghosting. not a fun task. but a good learning experience.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …s/jfchanphoto/7​075559043/

boerewors wrote in post #14365090
i have big time trouble with ghosting even when manually blending in photoshop. the only work around i know is to start cloning the ghosting out or make sure that your image is taken when the wind is not blowing. this is an issue when dealing with trees against sky.

you can click the "Remove Ghosts" button in CS5

ianxxxchua wrote in post #14365273
you can click the "Remove Ghosts" button in CS5

its not 100% accurate. i still get a fair amount of dark edges.

photomatix is pretty good at removing ghosting too if you want to give that a try.

There are definitely tricks and procedures you can use to minimize ghosting and articfacts along the edges of moving things, but I have yet to find a solution which always resolves all issues. Depending on the proximity of the moving object, the amount it's moving between shots, the difference in light/color between the object and the background will all play into the degree of problems. When you have a difficult scene with these circumstances the only way (I've found to date) to resolve the problem is with cloning.

One thing which makes a big difference to the amount of blending proficiency needed is what you're going to do with the photo. Many times I'm able to get away without cloning for a shot which is going to get posted online, but if I'm going to be printing the shot large it's another story.

If anyone has a way to fix these types of blending issues without resorting to cloning, I would be very interested in hearing them.

while cloning works, the most natural looking method (imo) would be through the use of the layer masks, then you can use the clean original image. The only problem is that you have to tweak the original image so the HDR effect is not lost.

not a plug for trey ratcliff or his style of HDR, but this is his prefer method for images with large amounts of ghosting such as urban hdrs with people.

No cloning on this one:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …kephotography/6​995879174/

Had to share this one with you guys!! While its not a traditional multi image HDR, it is a long single exposure that I added some texture to to give it an "HDR" look. This is the first lightning strike I have ever caught on camera, so Im definitely stoked about it!!!

Lightning Strikes

A huge lightning bolt fills the sky over Lake Michigan in Chicago, Il. I was heading home from shooting a corporate event for the Network of Executive Women when a thunderstorm was passing over the city. Lightning filled the skies and even though I was exhausted from shooting for 6 hours, I had to stop for a bit and enjoy the show.... It was definitely relaxing to sit back and relax with my camera, trying to time my exposure just right to capture these beautiful bolts of lightening. I couldn't think of a better way to end the day!!!

IMAGE LINK: http://www.jamielinkph​otography.com …166348&k=mTrpC3​R&lb=1&s=A

first attempt, two shots one at f5.6 and one at f9 but both 1/400.
C&C's very welcome
need to work out a hosting site for bigger picture to be posted on here, what do you fellas use?

^^ Nice shot, good rich color but not over done.
I haven't tried bracketing (for HDR) where I kept the shutter the same and varied the f/stop; it just seems logical to me to keep the f/stop the same so that all component images are as similar as possible.

Many here use Flickr, for hosting their work, but you will be surprised how large of a picture you can squeeze into 150k (the POTN size limit for local attachments) when you turn that compression slider all the way (or nearly) to maximize compression, and the loss of quality when you do that is surprisingly minimal.

hairy_moth wrote in post #14378888
^^ Nice shot, good rich color but not over done.
I haven't tried bracketing (for HDR) where I kept the shutter the same and varied the f/stop; it just seems logical to me to keep the f/stop the same so that all component images are a similar as possible.

Many here use Flickr, for hosting their work, but you will be surprised how large of a picture you can squeeze into 150k (the POTN size limit for local attachments) when you turn that compression slider all the way (or nearly) to maximize compression, and the loss of quality when you do that is surprisingly minimal.

i was just going through some old pics on my HD and wondered if photomatix would do the job on them, they were very out of line and it coped very well with it with a minimal amount of ghosting, when i exported it at 16 bit tif the pic was massive then i touched it up a little in lightroom and than experted it and it turned out at 6.5mb, will try the flickr hosting cheers

popsandme wrote in post #14378529
first attempt, two shots one at f5.6 and one at f9 but both 1/400.
C&C's very welcome
need to work out a hosting site for bigger picture to be posted on here, what do you fellas use?

usually you would want to bracket photos with a fixed aperture so you wont have depth of field issues.

for example: many hdr photographers would take a landscape at f11 in Av mode that way the only value that changes is the shutter speed. depth of field will remain constant.

imjason wrote in post #14379885
usually you would want to bracket photos with a fixed aperture so you wont have depth of field issues.

for example: many hdr photographers would take a landscape at f11 in Av mode that way the only value that changes is the shutter speed. depth of field will remain constant.

Im not sure why you would want to shoot in Av mode... If your advanced enough to be processing HDR photos, you should be advanced enough to shoot in Manual so you have total control... Just my .02

Akrobatiks wrote in post #14379936
Im not sure why you would want to shoot in Av mode... If your advanced enough to be processing HDR photos, you should be advanced enough to shoot in Manual so you have total control... Just my .02

true, i shoot in Manual too. however, its easier for beginners in HDR to go with Av first as I was responding to a photo with different aperture values.