Blue Mountain- Revisited
©Joe Bridwell
I love it… you never know when something new is to be learned! Last night, we discussed retouching in our Lightroom 2 class; at one point, Bob Weber asked why I used Virtual Copy v Snapshots for retouch steps? Retouching is a repetitive process – later, you realize a Develop mode step created an image change which took your image toward a ‘final’, yet, on later review, not final point. You want to go back to the particular step, make a different change, then continue working to a new final image. So, what did I learn?
What About Snapshots
Immediately, I went to Kelby’s Lightroom 2 book; pages 188-189 discussed snapshots – somehow, I missed them. When using Ctrl-‘, I was doing retouch on different copies while retaining the same name. But, I was not able to rename these copies to indicate each important step change.
In the Develop mode, Snapshots is the 3rd region from the top on the left panel. Plus (+) means add Snapshot. A dialog box comes up asking you to name that particular snapshot. In what follows, Bruce Fraser’s Real World Adobe Camera Raw for Photoshop CS4; Basic, Tone Curves, Sharpen, and then Final provides a workflow… I would give each snapshot an image name followed by which panel step was applied to that image (eg, BlueMountain-Basic, etc.). Then, I would apply appropriate sliders to work my way through to the final step. Snapshots will create a more ordered environment among the thousands of images and snapshots/copies which seem to permeate each digital shooter’s many drives…
What Use Is Photomatix
Our 2nd discussion point was Photomatix v Lightroom 2 and CS4. When I began HDR 2 years ago, Photomatix was touted as the way to go. After working with it, I realized:
HDR in Lightroom 2 and CS4
John Doogan’s hour long videos on Landscapes and HDR were put together showing careful steps using LR2 and CS4. In essence,
Retouched Blue Mountain Final
Our interim Blue Mountain sunset was presented a few days ago; on further examination, it was created too hastily – highlights above the mountain were actually partially blown out.
We show a Before and After for 16 bit Development from Photomatix thru CS3 to LR2 above. The final result is shown at bigger scale as our entry image in this blog.
Enjoy…
Immediately, I went to Kelby’s Lightroom 2 book; pages 188-189 discussed snapshots – somehow, I missed them. When using Ctrl-‘, I was doing retouch on different copies while retaining the same name. But, I was not able to rename these copies to indicate each important step change.
In the Develop mode, Snapshots is the 3rd region from the top on the left panel. Plus (+) means add Snapshot. A dialog box comes up asking you to name that particular snapshot. In what follows, Bruce Fraser’s Real World Adobe Camera Raw for Photoshop CS4; Basic, Tone Curves, Sharpen, and then Final provides a workflow… I would give each snapshot an image name followed by which panel step was applied to that image (eg, BlueMountain-Basic, etc.). Then, I would apply appropriate sliders to work my way through to the final step. Snapshots will create a more ordered environment among the thousands of images and snapshots/copies which seem to permeate each digital shooter’s many drives…
What Use Is Photomatix
Our 2nd discussion point was Photomatix v Lightroom 2 and CS4. When I began HDR 2 years ago, Photomatix was touted as the way to go. After working with it, I realized:
1. Photomatix only allows global Tone Mapping.
2. Photomatix defaults to Details Enhancer (DE) for Tone Mapping; DE can rebuild a Magic Hour bimodal histogram, making a histogram unlike the original. So, you loose the dawn dusk bright sky-dark foreground effect in such histograms.
3. Enhancing 32 bit HDR images in Photomatix usually creates very noticeable halo’s between sky and ground.
2. Photomatix defaults to Details Enhancer (DE) for Tone Mapping; DE can rebuild a Magic Hour bimodal histogram, making a histogram unlike the original. So, you loose the dawn dusk bright sky-dark foreground effect in such histograms.
3. Enhancing 32 bit HDR images in Photomatix usually creates very noticeable halo’s between sky and ground.
HDR in Lightroom 2 and CS4
John Doogan’s hour long videos on Landscapes and HDR were put together showing careful steps using LR2 and CS4. In essence,
1. Merge to HDR from LR2,
2. Perform Local Adaptation in CS4, then
3. Finalize Tone Mapping in LR2 with local, non-destructive brushes.
May I suggest you take time to carefully view Doogan’s excellent video presentations! A thorough review will create a definite elevation of your HDR workflow…2. Perform Local Adaptation in CS4, then
3. Finalize Tone Mapping in LR2 with local, non-destructive brushes.
Retouched Blue Mountain Final
Our interim Blue Mountain sunset was presented a few days ago; on further examination, it was created too hastily – highlights above the mountain were actually partially blown out.
We show a Before and After for 16 bit Development from Photomatix thru CS3 to LR2 above. The final result is shown at bigger scale as our entry image in this blog.
Enjoy…
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment