Monday, May 23, 2011

Couple of HDRs and Component Pre-Processing Tips

Bridge shot from Lightroom, Photomatix Pro, Photoshop, and Topaz
Lens is a 400mm f/2.8L AKA "killer glass"

I showed a Nik HDR Efex Pro processed ice cave the other day and wanted to balance that with a couple of Photomatix Pro HDRs.

Both images started in Lightroom where I processed the components.  My workflow includes removing any of the default settings in the Develop Module that effect tonality.  From top to bottom I do the following: Blacks-0, Brightness-0, Contrast-0, Tone Curve's Point Curve-Linear, Detail's Sharpening Amount-0, and Lens Correction to remove vignetting and chromatic aberration.  I will warn you here, after you make those adjustments the components will not look good.

You can easily make a Preset and the process goes much quicker.


Once the image returns from Photomatix I will go through my normal optimization workflow.  This often returns the above sliders and options to near their default. 

In the case of these two images, I processed them twice in Photomatix, adjusted in Lightroom, and then combined the two in Photoshop.  For the interior shot I also used Topaz Detail to add some shape and form.

Fiat Lux!

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