Photowalk 34 - HDR Black & Whites (and some Blackberries...)

At last we had a break in the rain, and some interesting clouds were along the horizon, so with HDR's in mind I headed back down to my favourite photo haunt, Priddys Hard, to snap some photo's.

The clouds weren't perfect for HDR - not defined enough and there wasn't enough sunlight to create the massive difference in contrast that I prefer, but it was worth a shot.

Priddys Hard Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, Processed To HDR With 3 Images (Varying Shutter Speeds) +1 ev, 0ev, -1ev, 0ev: F13.6, ISO 64, Focal Length 6.3mm, hand-held

Best viewed big.

If there's one place I love to shoot, its Priddys Hard. It's only a few hundred yards from my front door, has the sea, ships, woodland areas, and sometimes great skies too.

All of these shots (apart from the grapes) are created from HDR's (High Dynamic Range). This is a technique where you take three photo's of the same scene, all at different exposures, then combine them in software like Photomatix, then edit them in Photoshop / Elements. The goal is to retain detail in the highlights (the sky) and the shadows (the ground), and it can be quite effective.

Here's a post about making HDR's with Photomatix.

On The Slip-Way Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, Processed To HDR With 3 Images (Varying Shutter Speeds) +1 ev, 0ev, -1ev, 0ev: F6.8, ISO 100, Focal Length 6mm, hand-held

After creating the HDRs in Photomatix, I next edited the image in Photoshop Elements. Here's a diagram of the adjustment layers I used on this photograph:

First up I always run Noise Ninja - especially on HDRs which can be particularly noisy.

Next I add a levels adjustment layer, hue / saturation, and final levels - this is pretty much the same for all my editing.

I strip the colour out with the hue / saturation layer (just take the master saturation slider all the way down). I wanted the warships to stand out a little more, so I used the bottom levels adjustment layer to brighten them up, then I painted that adjustment out with a black brush on the mask, then inverted the mask (ctrl-I) to get what I wanted.

In this image I really wanted to lighten the ground and darken the skies - so I added a gradient adjustment layer, white to black, sliding it up and down to match the horizon, then changing the blend-mode to overlay.

Then I fiddle with the levels in the top adjustment layer to increase contrast and add dynamism.

If i feel it needs it I'll add a vignette - in this case by using the oval marquee tool to select the insides of the whole picture, feathering it to 150 pixels, inverting the selection, adding a new layer via copy, changing the blend mode to multiply, then lowering the opacity.

Finally I'll zoom in to 100% and have a look round the pic, cloning out things that annoy me, then I'll zoom back out and have a final play with the levels and sometimes the levels blend modes.

Sounds like a long process, but in reality it only takes about 10 minutes and is a nice work-flow for me.


Concorde Engines: 25,000 Horse Power Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, Processed To HDR With 3 Images (Varying Shutter Speeds) +1 ev, 0ev, -1ev, 0ev: F5.6, ISO 100, Focal Length 31mm, hand-held

Don't think this is really a keeper, I pushed the sky a bit hard and it looks a bit odd, but I want to keep a record of these old warships that have seen so much service.

All of these HDRs were shot hand-held - I was being lazy and had to play around with the merging settings in Photomatix, but they do show you the power of that software to get rid of movements between frames.

Calling Custard! Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/400th, ISO 200, Focal Length 63mm, Hand-held

Back to normal photo's! These Black-berries aren't ready yet, but I wanted a nice Depth of Field Effect.

I set a wide aperture (F3.5), then stepped back a few steps so I could zoom in and decrease the DoF even more. Because of the zoom I had to use a higher ISO and shutter speed to avoid blur.

I swapped to spot metering and took a reading off the red berries to stop them becoming too under-exposed because of the bright background. I also went a step further, taking a test shot, then I checked the histogram and blinkies, and saw that some of the back-ground was blowing out to white. To stop this I used exposure compensation to darken the shot slightly. Few!


I really enjoyed this Photowalk - though I gotta get to a different location!

Thanks, Rob.