Pseudo HDR with ACR? Bringing out the foreground in tropical photos

I've just gotten back from a tropical holiday where I took some pretty standard snaps, but I want to make them look nice. I didn't have a tripod so I didn't do multiple exposures, I figured I'd bring out the dark foreground details in raw later.

There's plenty of information in the raw file, as you can see by the attachment. My question is how do I bring it out without using brushes? Brushes don't work well for trees and such, they make halos in the sky. The shadows slider doesn't do enough, and I don't want to blow on the sky.

I'd prefer to use ACR if possible, but if I need to use something else, so be it. I've used Oloneo in the past, when it was free/beta, but for the once every two years I want it I don't want to buy another piece of software.

RAW file here (D700 Nikon RAW file, zipped, a .nef). Image editing ok on this post, if I don't have it turned on already. Please use the XMP if possible, to remove the people in the images, for their privacy (I have no idea who they are).

How about something like this?
The basic tab looks like this in CS6

Brightness: +2.00
Contrast: +63 (I think I left this one alone)
Highlights: -100
Shadows: +100
Whites: +0
Blacks: -50
Clarity, Vibrance and Saturation are all set at 0.

The 2nd picture adds some brush work with +100 saturation. I just painted the sky and erased around where the buildings are (because they turn blue).

EDIT: Looking at it again, the trees are a little too saturated. I would probably erase the added saturation for the trees on the left, next to the pavilion/gazebo thing, trying to keep the saturation in the sky as much as possible though. Also maybe setting the blacks to 0 instead.
EDIT 2: 2nd pic has been re-uploaded to add these changes.

I resized to 1024 (using bicubic) and did no sharpening. Oh, also removed the sharpening from the detail tab (set it to 0).

Everything else should have been untouched.

Used LR for this, so its pretty close to ACR.

temp: 5950
tint: -7
recovery: 28
fill: 100
black: 5
contrast: 25
clarity: 34
vibrance: 32
saturation: 27
aqua saturation: 5
blue saturation: 21
noise reduction: 18

RawTherapee. Everything you need to know how I did are in the zip-file.

This took four clicks in Lightroom:

1. Apply one of Matt Kloskowski's pseudo-HDR presets.
2. Increase overall exposure by 2.26 stops.
3. Add a -1.52 stop NDGrad filter from the top left (just above the sun).
4. Brush over the pavilion with a +1.52 stop brush.

I would think you could mimic the Lightroom preset in ACR.

http://lightroomkiller​tips.com …resets-hdr-effect-part-2/

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Done completely in ACR other than the resize.

Rimmer....Thanks for the link....nice presets

Layer blending via luminosity masks is probably the best way to get a reasonably realistic HDR effect out of ACR without having to use brushes:

1. Open the file into Photoshop as a Smart Object.
2. Use the New Smart Object via Copy option (right-click the first layer and choose from the context menu) to create a new Smart Object that can be edited independently.
3. Click on the first Smart Object to open it back into ACR and process it for Shadow details
4. Open the second Smart Object into ACR and process for Highlight details
5. Select the first layer, press CTRL + ALT + 2 to create a luminosity selection.
6. Select the second layer, and use the luminosity selection to create a layer mask.

After that its simply a matter of tweaking the combined image to taste. And the advantage is that you can always click on the Smart Object icon and reprocess each layer independently. At the end use Content Aware Fill to remove the people in the foreground.

I didn't process this aggressively but this should give you an idea. You can see that highlight (sun, sky and clouds) and shadow details are retained; its just a matter of adjusting the midtones at this point.

Thanks all Ohata and Peters look most like I'm trying to achieve, I'll have a play with them tonight

PixelMagic wrote in post #14881731
Layer blending via luminosity masks is probably the best way to get a reasonably realistic HDR effect out of ACR without having to use brushes:

1. Open the file into Photoshop as a Smart Object.
2. Use the New Smart Object via Copy option (right-click the first layer and choose from the context menu) to create a new Smart Object that can be edited independently.
3. Click on the first Smart Object to open it back into ACR and process it for Shadow details
4. Open the second Smart Object into ACR and process for Highlight details
5. Select the first layer, press CTRL + ALT + 2 to create a luminosity selection.
6. Select the second layer, and use the luminosity selection to create a layer mask.

After that its simply a matter of tweaking the combined image to taste. And the advantage is that you can always click on the Smart Object icon and reprocess each layer independently. At the end use Content Aware Fill to remove the people in the foreground.

I didn't process this aggressively but this should give you an idea. You can see that highlight (sun, sky and clouds) and shadow details are retained; its just a matter of adjusting the midtones at this point.

do you mind sharing the basic sliders for both smart objects? Do you have to manipulate the luminosity mask at all?

Whenever i try it (luminosity masking), the mask ends up weird, or there's some odd ghosting around the high contrast areas, like the trees next to the sun.
Also, is your first "shadow" layer on top or on the bottom? If it's on the bottom, are you hiding the top layer before doing a luminosity selection (that seems to affect the luminosity selection, at least on mine).

I'm hoping to get this luminosity masking thing down using a shared example, because, like I said, whenever I tried using my own files, following an example on youtube, for example, it never comes out right.

ohata0 wrote in post #14885955
do you mind sharing the basic sliders for both smart objects? Do you have to manipulate the luminosity mask at all?

I don't have the file any longer and I can't remember the settings I used. What I typically do is first open the file in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom; enable Lens Correction, crop if necessary, and set the White Balance (sometimes I select the appropriate Camera Matching Profile in the Camera Calibration tab if the file wasn't shot with one of my profiled cameras).

Then I open the file as a Smart Object in Photoshop, and make another independent layer of the Smart Object by using the New Smart Object via Copy option. This allows me to now double-click on the Smart Object icon and process each layer in ACR.

Yes, you do manipulate the mask. Reading over what I wrote originally I realized I omitted some information... I'll detail that info below.

Here's the step I omitted...after using the luminosity selection to create the layer mask, select the mask by clicking on the mask thumbnail and apply some Gaussian Blur. The amount varies according to the size of the file you're working on but typically you want to add Gaussian Blur to obscure the defined edges of the layer mask. Its best to ALT+click on the layer mask thumbnail so the mask now shows up in the large editing window and you can see exactly how much Gaussian Blur you need to apply. Adding the blur will take care of any ghosting.

ALT+click on the layer mask thumbnail again to revert to normal view; then you can apply a Levels adjustment (Image > Adjustments > Levels) using the Gamma (center) slider to brighten or darken the shadow details.

The layer processed for Highlight detail, i.e. the "dark" version, goes above the Shadow detail or "light" version. It might be helpful to click on the "eyeball" of the "dark" version to temporarily turn off its visibility before selecting the "light" layer and creating the luminosity selection CTRL + ALT +2). Then turn back on the visibility and use the luminosity selection to make a layer mask on the "dark" layer.

Its not that difficult; once you do it a few times you'll get the hang of it. If you're really interested we could possibly start a new thread specifically on this subject.

Here's a version where I used the NEF in ACR to maintain as much dynamic range as possible, and then used PS to restore contrast and add final moves to get the look I wanted.

Here is the output from ACR:

Thanks Kirk. ACR is way better than it used to be, but it's still not quite there.

I tried RawTherapee, it's a bit of a pig to try to control, probably because I don't understand all the sliders and controls. It looks very capable though.

Tim - I agree. ACR and LR are for performing raw conversions, not finishing images, in my opinion. Raw Therapee is a raw converter on steroids, and has so many controls and options, you can get dizzy real quick. It is very powerful, but, again, it is a raw converter. I don't really subscribe to using a raw converter as a one-stop shop for making images. It is the starting point for raw files.

kirk

99.9% of my images go direct from ACR to finished... very very few go into Photoshop.

I may have to play with RawTherapee, one good preset would probably do most of what I need. I may take Peters and use that, with tweaks, if I can work out how to import it.