HDR Photography Processing – Sunset Example

Capturing sunsets prior to HDR was a difficult task and often required some fancy expensive lens filters such as a graduated neutral density filter. I recently found a great article by Galen Rowell from 1992 which outlined why ND Grads were so critical to capture the desired exposure. HDR provides a new method of dealing with the sunset / sunrise exposure challenges. I’ve heard some photogs say Ansel Adams was essentially one of the first HDR photographers because Ansel used dark room tricks to overcome exposure challenges which is very similar to the HDR process we can do digitally today. The HDR bracketed series of captures can be processed and blended into a perfect exposure that maintains all of the highlights and shadows in a sunset / sunrise image.

In the spirit of sharing and collaborating openly, I’m going to share the processing workflow I used to create my latest sunset HDR:

Full disclosure – As I stated in my prior HDR Photography Processing Workflow Review, I’m not a professional photographer rather I’m an hobbyist who greatly enjoys the creative world of photography. I find it a great way to let the logical side take of my brain take a break from the definitive engineering / technology world I live and work in daily. I also enjoy learning many Social Media tips and tricks from photographers who I consider the Social Media pioneers as they’ve always been in the business of self promoting, contributing and collaborating openly within the larger community.

Tools Used

• Adobe Lightroom to import and organize the images
• Photomatix Pro to merge the three bracketed images into a composite HDR photo
• Adobe Photoshop to edit and enhance the HDR photo
• Nik Software Color Efex Pro 3.0 plugin to enhance the photo
• Noiseware to remove unwanted noise from the final HDR image

Let the fun begin!

• Select the 3 bracketed images in Lightroom.
• Navigate to > File > Plug-in Extras > Export to Photomatix Pro

1. I typically unselect “Align images” when I captured with a tripod. If I’m hand holding, then I’ll go ahead and select.
2. I always uncheck this option because some times I like to use the “Tone Map Twice” trick to give the image a little extra pop.

Tone Mapping Settings

• Strength – I typically push this to 100%
• Color Saturation – Be-careful here not to over do it. It varies greatly depending on the image.
• Luminosity – This setting will help make sure you have a good exposure with a nice hump in the middle of the histogram
• Microcontrast – helps enhance small details
• Smoothing – This is where the HDR magic happens. The right side is used for a more realistic result and the left side is used for a more psychedelic result. I typically prefer the right side for lanscapes.
• White Point – Is used to help with the exposure. I typically adjust this to ensure a good hump in the middle of the histogram
• Black Point – Same as White Point. I’ll adjust as needed to ensure good result in histogram.

• I elected not to tone map twice this image so I just saved and imported into Lightroom.
• The tone map image will be the foundation of my final image. I’ll use Photoshop to mask in details from each of the 3 original images into the new tone mapped image.
• Select the 3 original images and the new tone mapped image and edit in photoshop.
• I like to select “Open as Layers in Photoshop”. This saves me some time instead of manually copying later in Photoshop.

• I like to arrange the layers so the new tone mapped image is the top layer followed by the original bracketed images.

• Now it’s time to begin masking in details. In this series, I elected to start with the normal exposure under the tone mapped layer.

1. Select the top layer, then click on the create mask icon.
2. This creates a white layer mask on the top layer
3. I’m going to use the brush tool to bring back details from the layer underneath the top layer. To do this, I need to make sure my color is set to black.
4. Adjust the opacity of the brush. I typically start between 20-40%. In this situation, I was looking to make very subtle changes to the tones in the sunset thus I started with 20%.

• After the mask edits are complete for this layer, select the two top layers and merge together.

1. Now I’m going to repeat the same process by creating a new layer mask on the top layer so I can bring in some details from the next layer which was the darkest image of the original bracketed series.
2. I’ll uncheck and check the top layer visibility option several times to determine what details I’m going to mask in  from the layer under the top layer.  Once I’m done with the masking, I’ll merge the two layers together.

• Now I’m going to repeat the same process to mask and merge in details from the lightest image.
• Once I’m done with the masking, I’ll merge the two layers together.

• Now I’m done masking in the details from the original 3 bracketed images and I’m left with a single layer.

• Now I’m going to make some tweaks to the image starting with a “Polorization” filter from Nik Software Color Efex Pro 3.0 which helps bring out some of the tones in the image.

• Next, I applied a Nik Software Efex 3.0 Graduated Density Filter which brought out the sunset tones even more.

• I wanted to bring out some extra detail in the foreground so I applied a Nik Software Color Efex 3.0 Tonal Contrast layer.

• Tonal Contrast layer added some unwanted detail to the sky and water so I used another layer mask to make sure the effect was only applied to the lakeshore.

• Next I added a Nik Software Color Efex 3.0 Glamour Glow layer to give the image a nice soft look and feel

• Again I use layer mask to balance out the filter effect such as bringing back the detail in the drift wood on the lakeshore.

• Created a Hue/Saturation layer to correct some of the increased saturation from the Glamour Glow effect.

• First I adjusted the “Blues” saturation

• Then I adjusted the “Reds” saturation.

• Lastly, I applied Noiseware “stronger color” filter to remove some of the noise introduced by the HDR process.

• Now its time to close and save the image.
• Lightroom will automatically import the new saved image.

• It’s always fun to compare the final HDR image to the original normal exposure.
• Now it is very evident how the HDR process brought out details and tones that would have not been possible without the use of complex and expensive manual lens filters.

• I’ll often make a few last adjustments in Lightroom before publishing.

1. Increased exposure by 25%. I’ve found what looks bright on my calibrated monitor often looks a tad dark on other non-calibrated monitors and my printer always prints a tad dark so I’ll kick up the exposure just a little bit.
2. Increased the blacks just a tad to counter some of the exposure increase effect.

• You probably noticed by now, my horizon line wasn’t straight because I never worry about it in the field since I know that it can be easily adjusted in Lightroom.
• To fix, I selected the crop tool which has a rotate feature and adjusted as needed.

• The crop tool in Lightroom also has a “rule of thirds” ruler overlay to help compose the final image.
• I prefer to compose my images to the “Golden Ration of Phi“.
• I use a very cool tool called PhiMatrix which overlays a Phi grid.

• Using PhiMatrix and Lightroom crop tool, I adjusted until my horizon was lined up with the Golden Ratio.

• Now for one of the most critical final actions – Keywording! This is key for search indexes to find your published image online.
• I’ll add in several keywords related to the image. If I need assistance looking up keyword ideas, I’ll use this handy keywording website tool.

• Finally, I’ll set the Caption and Title and verify the rest of my meta data is correct.

• I prefer to host my gallery images on SmugMug.
• I use the Jeffrey’s Export SmugMug Lightroom Plugin.

1. Select where I’m going to Export.
2. Set Filename to “title” which uses the Title name I assigned previously. This is another key trick to ensure search engines properly index the image.
3. Filetype “jpeg”
4. The Canon 7D 18 megapixel images are too large for SmugMug thus I’ll lower the quality to 90% to slightly reduce the file size.
5. Color Space “sRGB”. This will convert the image to sRGB which is the internet standard.
6. Resolution set to 240. If I was just publishing for internet use, I could lower this to 72 but I intend to order prints of my hosted images. The high resolution images also server as another backup resource in the event of a catastrophe where I loose all my local and backed up images.
7. Sharpen for monitor is selected.
8. Select gallery to display the new image.
9. Export to publish the image.

• Once the Lightroom upload is complete, a browser window will open to the gallery hosting the new image on SmugMug.
• It takes a few seconds / minutes depending size of the image to process before it appears in SmugMug.

1. I always verify the Caption and Tile names are set correctly. They should have been automatically created as defined earlier in Lightroom.
2. Also, it is equally important to ensure the prior defined keywords were properly exported. This is critical for Search Engine Optimization.

I hope there were a few tips/tricks of value to you in this HDR processing example. That’s all I have for now! I plan to create some additional HDR processing examples in the future.

Please leave a comment if you have any questions or feedback.

Thanks!

Ken Snyder