andrew.haysom Loc: Melbourne, Australia

Following the example of RVDigitalBoy today, I thought I would post one of this weekends images, along with a sample workflow. My usual HDR objective is to end up with a clear, detailed image that looks as close to my memory of the actual scene as possible. Therefore I rarely play with saturation, colours etc and usually favour the natural looking presets in Photomatix.

Details for this image.

The Melbourne Convention Centre is part of the South Wharf complex on the banks of the Yarra River in Melbourne, Australia.

- Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM lens.
- Five exposures (-2,-1,0,+1,+2) shot tripod mounted.
- AV mode f/13, ISO100 @24mm, shot as RAW.

1. Use Digital Photo Professional to remove lens distortion and chromatic aberration from all 5 RAWs and save each image as TIFF.
2. Use Topaz Denoise (within PS Elements 11) to remove noise from all images. I always try and use the lightest Denoise setting as I don't want to lose detail. For these I used "RAW-Lightest" on all images except the -2EV which I used "RAW-Light".
3. Merge images in Photomatix, I used the "Natural" pre-set and made a few minor tweaks to sliders. As my aim with most shots is to end up with something as close to what I saw as possible, "Natural", "Default" and "Photographic" are my usual starting points.
4. Use DxO Optics Pro to make perspective adjustments (align verticals).
5. Slight crop and removed two sensor spots in PS Elements 11.
6. Finish with Topaz Adjust using "Crisp" pre-set, on a duplicate layer and reduce opacity to 40%.
7. Use PS Elements 11 to sharpen.
8. Save as JPG.

Melbourne Convention Centre

sarge69 Loc: Ft Myers, FL

I can only say what popped into my mind when seeing this.

Holy Shit !!!

Great shot

Sarge69

Just Joe Loc: Northern California

LOL Sarge. I second that sentiment! Outstanding shot :thumbup: :thumbup:

conkerwood

No nits on this one Andrew, beautiful work. Lovely to see the reflection of Polly Woodside in the window, would love to see you take a couple of shots of her. Interesting to see your workflow, we are almost identical, even down to using the crisp setting which I think is the most useful of all of the Topaz presets. I think the only real variation I have from you is that I pre-align my bracket in PS before taking it into Photomatix as IMO it does a better job of aligning than Photomatix. I use PS to adjust my verticals but haven't looked at DxO Optics Pro so I will chase it up. Catchyou soon.

Peter

SoHillGuy Loc: Washington

Ditto's on all comments. You didn't list the shutter speed, so from what appears to be movement of leaves(?) in the water I am thinking it must have been rather slow.

If you would comment on what I am seeing I would appreciate it.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

Koi?

I love the little smoky eddies in the water. Another very nice image. More eye candy....

OhTom Loc: North East Ohio

Andrew, thank you so much for posting this shot and taking the time(and effort) to detail your steps and how you approached the workflow. Great shot and an outstanding bit of insight,
Thanks

andrew.haysom Loc: Melbourne, Australia

The shutter speeds on the exposures ranged from 0.3 secs to 5 secs and there was a fair breeze. I quite like the movement in the waters, but the movement of the trees I didn't like. Initially I discarded the shot and tried a pseudo-HDR but even on the "normal" exposure there was movement, so went back to the initial shot and decided that I liked it enough to forget about the movement blur in the trees.