Kaleidoscope
©Joe Bridwell
From Albuquerque, there is an entire land of enchantment north of Lake Powell. One hundred forty years ago, Charles Dutton conceptualized the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as a huge stairway ascending out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon northward with cliff edge of each layer forming giant steps.
In the Escalante, there are some truly remarkable images of hoodoos, arches, and land which stands on its end. No wonder the Anasazi loved this country...
©Joe Bridwell
From Albuquerque, there is an entire land of enchantment north of Lake Powell. One hundred forty years ago, Charles Dutton conceptualized the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as a huge stairway ascending out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon northward with cliff edge of each layer forming giant steps.
In the Escalante, there are some truly remarkable images of hoodoos, arches, and land which stands on its end. No wonder the Anasazi loved this country...
Getting There Ain't Easy... For, you see, some 90 miles of Lake Powell is really in the way. On the other hand, dramatic charm of some of these images may change your mind. For all you know, the exquisite Escalante may lie in your photographic future.
HDR Processing Even with one of the newer DSLR camera bodies where the sensor captures less noise, Magic Hour shots, those shots in the hour before and after dawn and dusk, (-2, -1, 0, +1, and +2) can be noisy. Photomatix 3.1.3 may not necessarily remove all blue sky noise.
I typically process five high dynamic range (HDR) shots using Tone Compressor at default in Photomatix. If you're using Lightroom 2 (LR2), Photomatix has provided a plug-in so that you can process HDR images from Lightroom and return a 16-bit tiff.
The resulting 16-bit tiff may show considerable noise at 1:1. So what do you do to get rid of it?
Photoshop LR2 and CS4 Processing
Once the HDR image is back in LR2, I usually click Ctrl-+ twice to scale it to 1:1. The Home key takes me to the upper left-hand corner. After that, sequential Page Downs move me vertically down the left-hand side, return me to the top of the next column, move me down, etc..
This way, I perform an initial image scan, with first objective to remove any dust spots.
Photoshop CS4 Processing In CS4, a similar scan can be created at any scale. The Home and Page Down keys perform the same function as LR2. To move laterally to the right, use CTRL-Page Down. To move laterally to the left, use CTRL-Page up.
I load the tiff image, press CTRL-J to duplicate, then begin a second scan.
This scan also allows me to evaluate precision of sky-land interfaces. If I select the Quick Selection tool, I can rapidly create an initial sky selection. The sunlit sections of my HDR images usually lack accuracy in the selection. I use the scan technique and an initial brush size of four pixels. If the Quick Selection tool has missed an area I can either add or subtract from that area to get the mask line in an initial position.
But the critical step is at a scale of 800%. At 800%, I can see how many pixels are off in the noise mask outline I'm trying to create. For this step, I press the Q key to enable Quick Mask, set my brush size to 3 pixels, make my foreground color Black, and carefully paint the red Quick Selection mask until it exactly matches the sky-land boundary.
When I'm done, I go to the Channels palette, make a mask (press Save Selection As Channel-second button from the left), and name it Sky. I then press the first button from the left (Load Channel from Selection) and am ready to create a mask in the Layers panel after returning the masks to RGB.
On choosing the Layers panel, I convert the Background copy to a Smart Object, and label it Noise. I then press the Add Layer Mask button to put the sky-land mask on the Smart Object.
Finally, We Can Filter that Pernicious Noise... Filter> Noise> Reduce Noise brings up a dialog box where you manipulate the sliders to remove noise. Basically, you can see how much noise will be created in the window the dialog provides at 100%. Reduce Noise is a situation where you get to roll your own (move the sliders as you like)...
Rigmarole?
Seem like a lot of rigmarole?
Maybe… or Yep...
But, try getting a noisy sky HDR photo in competition past a judge to become a winner. Forget that!
Here’s a layer panel for the entire Tone Mapping process.
Of course, after I complete noise resolution, I want to sharpen the entire image (only after removing noise), provide a spatial 3-D effect through individual customized sharpening brushes from Pixel Genius’ Photokit Sharpener, then work on additional 3-D Dodge and Burn dramatic enhancements before final Selective Coloring. This entire process is called Tone Mapping.
Finale
I was kidding you; the gorgeously dramatic aspects of Escalante memories attest to the remarkable vibrancy Dutton's Escalante creates.
I wrote this particular blog because each of these images is a ‘near’ Magic Hour HDR composite. Each also started with HDR noise.
Now, our skies are either quiet or dramatic, but clear and noiseless; nothing would be quite so debilitating as either getting low marks for your efforts or printing an image at 16 x 20 or 20 x 30 inches with a perniciously noisy sky.
Auto-stacking
Chromatic Aberrations
HDR Processing Even with one of the newer DSLR camera bodies where the sensor captures less noise, Magic Hour shots, those shots in the hour before and after dawn and dusk, (-2, -1, 0, +1, and +2) can be noisy. Photomatix 3.1.3 may not necessarily remove all blue sky noise.
I typically process five high dynamic range (HDR) shots using Tone Compressor at default in Photomatix. If you're using Lightroom 2 (LR2), Photomatix has provided a plug-in so that you can process HDR images from Lightroom and return a 16-bit tiff.
The resulting 16-bit tiff may show considerable noise at 1:1. So what do you do to get rid of it?
Photoshop LR2 and CS4 Processing
Once the HDR image is back in LR2, I usually click Ctrl-+ twice to scale it to 1:1. The Home key takes me to the upper left-hand corner. After that, sequential Page Downs move me vertically down the left-hand side, return me to the top of the next column, move me down, etc..
This way, I perform an initial image scan, with first objective to remove any dust spots.
Photoshop CS4 Processing In CS4, a similar scan can be created at any scale. The Home and Page Down keys perform the same function as LR2. To move laterally to the right, use CTRL-Page Down. To move laterally to the left, use CTRL-Page up.
I load the tiff image, press CTRL-J to duplicate, then begin a second scan.
This scan also allows me to evaluate precision of sky-land interfaces. If I select the Quick Selection tool, I can rapidly create an initial sky selection. The sunlit sections of my HDR images usually lack accuracy in the selection. I use the scan technique and an initial brush size of four pixels. If the Quick Selection tool has missed an area I can either add or subtract from that area to get the mask line in an initial position.
But the critical step is at a scale of 800%. At 800%, I can see how many pixels are off in the noise mask outline I'm trying to create. For this step, I press the Q key to enable Quick Mask, set my brush size to 3 pixels, make my foreground color Black, and carefully paint the red Quick Selection mask until it exactly matches the sky-land boundary.
When I'm done, I go to the Channels palette, make a mask (press Save Selection As Channel-second button from the left), and name it Sky. I then press the first button from the left (Load Channel from Selection) and am ready to create a mask in the Layers panel after returning the masks to RGB.
On choosing the Layers panel, I convert the Background copy to a Smart Object, and label it Noise. I then press the Add Layer Mask button to put the sky-land mask on the Smart Object.
Finally, We Can Filter that Pernicious Noise... Filter> Noise> Reduce Noise brings up a dialog box where you manipulate the sliders to remove noise. Basically, you can see how much noise will be created in the window the dialog provides at 100%. Reduce Noise is a situation where you get to roll your own (move the sliders as you like)...
Rigmarole?
Seem like a lot of rigmarole?
Maybe… or Yep...
But, try getting a noisy sky HDR photo in competition past a judge to become a winner. Forget that!
Here’s a layer panel for the entire Tone Mapping process.
Of course, after I complete noise resolution, I want to sharpen the entire image (only after removing noise), provide a spatial 3-D effect through individual customized sharpening brushes from Pixel Genius’ Photokit Sharpener, then work on additional 3-D Dodge and Burn dramatic enhancements before final Selective Coloring. This entire process is called Tone Mapping.
Finale
I was kidding you; the gorgeously dramatic aspects of Escalante memories attest to the remarkable vibrancy Dutton's Escalante creates.
I wrote this particular blog because each of these images is a ‘near’ Magic Hour HDR composite. Each also started with HDR noise.
Now, our skies are either quiet or dramatic, but clear and noiseless; nothing would be quite so debilitating as either getting low marks for your efforts or printing an image at 16 x 20 or 20 x 30 inches with a perniciously noisy sky.
HDR-Tips & Tricks
You might want to review some other HDR Tips & Tricks…Auto-stacking
Chromatic Aberrations
Kaleidoscope contains a few images I've worked up from recent Escalante ventures...
Enjoy...
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