There are so many photos out there where you can tell it is HDR. To me, now the trick is to use it as a tool to help set light levels without giving away the process. Sort of like magic? Analogy works for me.
Maybe the last time I shot real HDR, you know the three image merge type, was in May 2016 on a vacation week in Williamsburg, VA. I may have 25-30 sets of all sorts of scenery. Totally forgot about them. Until today.
There is a plantation museum, Hope Plantation, just north of classic colonial Williamsburg. One of the exhibits is a shed with a few barrels. Great setup for HDR. There is just enough light coming though the space between the logs to screw with the metering on the camera. Not that I was any good at figuring that stuff out at the time, or now some would say, but I was kind of lucky here.
But this is the perfect setup for HDR, and my goal is to make the image look 'natural'.
I don't have the accompanying Nikon JPG, but I did process the neutral image of the three image set as I normally would for comparison. To be fair, without HDR, I would have spent more time on the image to get the light levels right, or moved on to the next image. The edits here were done in ACR. Not too bad, if I say so myself.
ISO 400, f/11, 1/15 sec, 22 mm
NIKON D7200 Ver.1.00 /18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6
But...... Still a little dark. And the barrels look, well odd.
There is so much wood in this shot. This shot is crying out to be different. It deserves a bit more time. And creativeness. I have to see the wood.
There are three shots I put through Photomatix. All are at ISO 400 and f/11. The times are 1/15, 1/60, and 1/4.
Coming out of Photomatix, I liked the Creative and Painterly pre-sets. They were a little on the dark side, but nothing that couldn't be adjusted. Read the term pre-sets. It's legal.
This is the creative pre-set. The Painterly had just too much 'warmth' for me.
That's pretty close to what I'd like. Still needs a bit of sharpening or contrast, but the light levels are good. Aside from the ceiling rafters being at a high light level, there aren't any real HDR tell tales. We're getting closer.
To me, there is still a bit too much 'warmth' color. I tried to cool it off a bit, but then the barrels looked like they came from the north pole.
One of the filters I tried was of the B&W variety. This is my right brain kicking in, and I need a B&W image for club night.
I think the light levels here are really what I'm looking for. Shifts the light a little to the right.
What if......
I bet I can neutralize the overall warmth with a little monochrome?
I overlayed the B/W shot at 50%. (And finished up the other edit I do.)
This works. One might say that there should be a bit more color in the wood. I could be swayed a bit, but this to me is in the shade. It is not supposed to be 'colorful'. To me, the wood grain and definition is everything. There is good balance of light inside and outside.
My standard crop cuts out more than I like, but for consistency sake I'll do it.
I can live with this one. And a new idea to boot. Good day.
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