Uprooted Photographer | Eastern NC Photography

Standing at the Edge of the World | Emerald Isle, NC

Here’s a shot of my friend and fellow photog Brad Styron taking in an awesome sunset on the coast. I thought I would use this shot to take a moment and explain some of my post-processing a little more in-depth than usual. My methods have changed recently and this adaptation in processing has helped to strengthen my images. Where I used to tonemap and create HDR images, I now manually blend exposures. Hopefully the workflow breakdown below can explain it better:

Gear: Nikon D90, 18-105mm VR Nikkor lens, tripod

EXIF: Three bracketed exposures @ f/22, ISO-200. (1/6 sec., 1/2 sec., 2.5 sec.) Manual white balance.

Step 1: I opened all 3 files in Photoshop. Adjusted the levels slightly in the lowest and middle exposures to bring out a little more brightness.

Step 2: Masking. How you do this is based on your preference. I like to layer my darkest exposure on top of the middle, work on it & flatten it, then layer that on top of my brightest exposure. I just like to work on a darker image and lighten it as I go.

There was only minor blending on the first two exposures, but on the final mask I brought in the water at 100% opacity. Using a brush of around 15%, I slowly lightened some of the highlights in the sky. That’s it. I then flattened the image.

Step 3: Using Nik Color Efex, I fixed the blue color cast in the image and added just a touch of contrast using the Pro Contrast Filter.

Step 4: With Nik Viveza, I selectively adjusted the structure in the foreground to add some extra sharpness. On a separate layer of Viveza, I dropped the               saturation in the foreground sand (again, using the selective area                         feature). After applying the layer, I then masked a bit of it away in                       Photoshop to get rid of some of the over spill of the adjustment.

Step 5: I duplicated that layer and used the Dodge Tool to lighten the foam of the surf and the highlights in the clouds. Mind you, the tool was set very low              (5-10%) and set to dodge the midtones. This was just a minor tweak to                bring the scene back to more of my taste.

Step 6: After this was all done, I flattened the image and added on final filter. Using Nik Color Efex, I added a Glamour Glow (set very low, at 8%) with a very low touch of warmth to bring a calm, minimal glow to the scene. I flattened again and saved.

If there was one theme that you noticed, it was the use of ‘just a touch,’ ‘a little bit,’ ‘very low,’ and ‘light.’ The key to what I’ve been doing lately is to use every effect in moderation. Just because a slider or setting goes up to 100 doesn’t mean it should. 

Most of what I do pretty much follows that workflow. Maybe a few less or few more uses of Viveza and Color Efex or a little more dodging and burning, but that’s the gist of it. Also, many times I end up simply blending two exposures rather than all three. It’s usually the darkest exposure that gets discarded in that case.

Hope that helps to explain what I do and can help you make a better image!

As always, you can comment or pick my brain at any of these sites: Facebook | Twitter | Flickr | 500px | Google+

©2012 Zach Frailey