I enjoy night photography but am seeing what appears to be 'halos' around lights in building shots. Sort of a soft glow around the light(s). I shoot at f/2.0 and take 3 bracketed shots at +2/0/-2 then process HDR. I don't have sufficient familiarity with layers in PS and do just about all PP in Lightroom. Any suggestions to reduce the 'glow'. (see the lights above the windows in the attached file).
Thank you, Bob
GlenBose
Loc: NE Florida, formerly Limerick, PA
Masterful shot!
I'm not a PP expert, but I'd select each circle of light and reduce the blue.
I use FastStone and some other free PP programs. This may not be the authoritative solution but it gets me by.
Larry
The halos, in this case, are caused by over sharpening. You can try using a lower Radius setting.
Bogin Bob wrote:
I enjoy night photography but am seeing what appears to be 'halos' around lights in building shots. Sort of a soft glow around the light(s). I shoot at f/2.0 and take 3 bracketed shots at +2/0/-2 then process HDR. I don't have sufficient familiarity with layers in PS and do just about all PP in Lightroom. Any suggestions to reduce the 'glow'. (see the lights above the windows in the attached file).
Thank you, Bob
That looks like nothing more than normal atmospheric condition. Nighttime humidity reflecting the light. It is way too different from light to light and far too poorly defined to be from over sharpening.
Lights tend to illuminate the area around them, the brightest part being the bulb it's self and the glow coming of off the bulb before it dissipates, every type of bulb will give a different type of glow when photographed, also the longer the shutter is open the more light will be recorded.
What does the "0" exposure image look like?
I rather like them; I think they add to the atmosphere of the photo. Not changing a thing would be my suggestion.
Linda - I did not see your 'suggestion' in the reply.
Thanks
Besides oversharpening, the Clarity slider is another one to bring down. What do you set the Clarity and slider at?
Bogin Bob wrote:
... "not so much"
The white light at the end of the awning has haze round it too. I'm inclined to go with atmospheric glare caused by the intensity of the light source. I would try two things - I'd try a merge with just the 0 and -2 exposures, and I'd select the hazy areas with a well-feathered brush and drop the highlights, possibly excluding the bulbs themselves from the selection (using Erase) to keep them bright. Don't worry about removing the glare completely, you just need to make it less extreme.
It seems that even the 0 exposure has some flair around the lights. I think HDR always makes these types of things worse. I noticed that you shot at a very wide aperture,(2.0) You might try stopping down to a lower number to see if that helps. Of course if you are looking for that star burst effect you could go to up around f16 or higher. Personally, I kind of like the glow around those lights given what the rest of the image looks like.
Thank you all, I will do some 'experimenting' with the suggestions noted. Since they are nighttime images (lost of shadows), I also used the adjustment brush and carefully darkened and dehazed area around the light to reduce the atmospheric haze. Also, in HSL I tweaked (lowered/reduced) a bit of the color of the haze ever so gently and it helped.
Appreciate the feedback, Bob
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