Problems with ghosting - any ideas?

I'm having problems with ghosting. I've tried just about every setting in Oloneo and Photomatix with no luck. The movement in the shot set really isn't that bad. I'm wondering if anybody has hints or tips or workaround ideas to deal with ghosting.

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Looking at the bottom left corner, it appears to be lined up properly. Everything else is pretty far out of alignment. Was a tripod used? Was there any wind?

If you don't have CS5 and don't mind, how about posting a small version of your bracketed shots and I'll see what I can come up with.

As Jill mentioned, it might be a rotational issue that's causing the ghosting. Maybe you could superimpose each image on it's own layer, reduce opacity temporarily so you can rotate to align then crop. That might give you images that are better aligned to begin with before importing into photomatix.

In taking another look at your merge, the leaves appear to be different in shape and position which leads me to believe now that the issue is probably wind.

I think CS5 is by far the best in the ghosting removal side of things.

Jill-of-all-Trades wrote in post #11042202
Was a tripod used? Was there any wind?

navydoc wrote in post #11042429
In taking another look at your merge, the leaves appear to be different in shape and position which leads me to believe now that the issue is probably wind.

Yes, shot with a sturdy tripod. As you can see by the samples, everything is in registration.

There were little puffs of a breeze, but the inset image shows that not only were the interior branches of the tree unmoved, but even the delicate fern was not moved. Only the outermost periphery of the tree was affected.

I guess my frustration is that in the past, I had better luck with the ghosting feature. Scenes with stronger wind and movement came out ok.

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I run into this a lot, and since I haven't upgraded to CS-5 yet am stuck with manual tools to deal with it. The best method I've found so far is to insert the closest EV shot as a layer underneath the HDR layer and mask the HDR layer in the areas of the ghosting. Some tricks to help this include:
- Mask as small an area as possible.
- Open the single shot as a smart layer, which will allow you to double click it and adjust it in your RAW processor live to best match the base layer it's blending with after it's masked.
- You may even want to run that single shot in PM first to better match the processed shot. Don't worry about any part of the image which is not going to show. Try to get the parts which are going to show as close as possible.
- Depending on the shot, it may take several different EV shots, or the same shot with different processing for different areas.

Another option is to clone out the ghosting with other parts of the non ghosted subject. When faced with the type of shot you posted first, if I were going to do this I would probably select the sky surrounding the leaves using the magic wand set on pretty low, say around 5, and make sure it's on noncontinuous. Keep selecting until all the sky around the leaves is selected, but none of the leaves are. When that's done, inverse the selection so the leaves are selected and then clone from the nonghosted areas. Be sure to pick a source which has similar leaves and branches or as close to similar as you can find.

It is a bit of effort, but if the shot is worth saving each of these do work.

Photomatix 4.0 with the ghost removal option. works like a friggin' champ

edited to add a link to my boy Brian Matiash's short tutorial using the new ghosting feature in Photomatix
Brian Matiash

@ polarbare
You can't be serious. In CS5, it's just tick the little box, agree with the frame selected & bingo!
Save it out to .tiff (or whatever) then tone map or mod with whatever prog. you like.

I am serious. If you prefer CS5, no sweat off my brow; I prefer Photomatix.

J-Blake wrote in post #11044626
I run into this a lot, and since I haven't upgraded to CS-5 yet am stuck with manual tools to deal with it. The best method I've found so far is to insert the closest EV shot as a layer underneath the HDR layer and mask the HDR layer in the areas of the ghosting. Some tricks to help this include:
- Mask as small an area as possible.
- Open the single shot as a smart layer, which will allow you to double click it and adjust it in your RAW processor live to best match the base layer it's blending with after it's masked.
- You may even want to run that single shot in PM first to better match the processed shot. Don't worry about any part of the image which is not going to show. Try to get the parts which are going to show as close as possible.
- Depending on the shot, it may take several different EV shots, or the same shot with different processing for different areas.

Another option is to clone out the ghosting with other parts of the non ghosted subject. When faced with the type of shot you posted first, if I were going to do this I would probably select the sky surrounding the leaves using the magic wand set on pretty low, say around 5, and make sure it's on noncontinuous. Keep selecting until all the sky around the leaves is selected, but none of the leaves are. When that's done, inverse the selection so the leaves are selected and then clone from the nonghosted areas. Be sure to pick a source which has similar leaves and branches or as close to similar as you can find.

It is a bit of effort, but if the shot is worth saving each of these do work.

Thanks. Great suggestions. What I was looking for.

At one time I did try mask/brushing in branch tips from one image of the set. The hdr app toned the foggy sky blueish (which I prefer) but the single image had the correct fog color and it didn't work well. The white fog brushed into the blueish sky actually made it look like a classic photomatix halo image. However, you've generated some new ideas to try. Appreciate it.

Polarbare, I'm planning on giving PM 4 a shot.

Canned, the nice thing about Photomatix 4 is that you select ghosted areas before processing, and you can pick from any of the frames that make up the HDR. That helps with the fog problem you experienced, since you're choosing the replacement before processing, it all gets processed the same.

Of course there is ghosting! You are looking at leaves that have moved a high percentage of their size between each shot. Without "special handling", it would need to be DEAD CALM for that shot, or you are going to be duplicated shifted items. From all the talk, CS5 or PM4 have that special handling available.