HDR 2.0 Tests
In my last post I talked about an alternative to HDR that I discovered. I dug up a couple old photos to try it out, and used some flashy gif animations to prove my point.
The first photo is a river in RMNP at sunset. In the original below (with some exposure, shadow, and contrast correction), the sky looks awesome, but the foreground is too dark. You can tell there are mountains there, but not much else.
I followed the steps outlined in yesterday’s post and came up with this:
I was able to keep the sky dark, lighten up the mountains, bring out the valley, and darken some of the highlights in the water. It took me less than 5 minutes, and the results are better than Photoshop’s HDR script could do.
For the next example, I found a picture of a climber on top of the Church of the Lost and Found boulder in Sherwin Plateau. It was really sunny, so the shadow’s on his face are harsh, and his jacket lacks any detail in the shadows. Boosting the exposure kills the blue sky and the mountains in the background. The original, with my usual minor edits:
After applying my new trick…
and zoomed in for better detail…
Not perfect, but I think it is an improvement. It almost looks like I was using a fill flash from climber’s left. Anyway, I’m adding this to my arsenal.
