@fluffybunny
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I just got done processing a bunch of stuff from our annual trip to Big Bend NP. I figured something out in doing so that seems relevant here,…
I almost never bracket and have never really played with HDR let alone fallen into the hole. I took several landscapes under less than ideal lighting conditions (bright overhead sun, clouds and/or blue sky) and was trying to find a way to improve them. Standard raw processing (“fill light”, exposure and so on) was either too dark in shadow, or blown out in the sky.
I’ve tried graduated ND filters in the field and I really don’t like the look. I’ve tried dodging and burning with limited success. I’ve tried masking with curves, exposure and so on which left artifacts (like “outlines” of mountains where the mask was). Still no joy.
Here’s the best I’ve got thus far. Start with a single under exposed (maybe 2-3 stops) RAW file (remember, I don’t generally bracket in the field and if I do it’s usually hand held so the HDR software has to do alignment trickery and with wide lenses this can lead to its own issues). Using your favorite RAW processor, make two more copies, one adjusted so that you like the sky and the other adjusted so that the shadows look better. None of the three will look good. Run them through an HDR tool and voila, no alignment issues, improved sky/shadows/mids.
This one is at the extreme of the technique:
This one doesn’t seem HDR’d to me at all but is greatly improved over the other techniques I generally use:
Somewhere betwixt:
I suppose that someone has already “invented” this or perhaps there’s an easier way, but it’s new for me.
