llindstrand Loc: Seattle Metro

The images were shot at sunset just as the sun disappeared behind the tree. Processing was in NIK HDR EFlex Pro. Critiques are welcome.
Swede

Combined Image

photophly Loc: Old Bridge NJ

Love the finished product.

llindstrand Loc: Seattle Metro

Thank you; I'm glad somebody finally commented.
Swede

photophly Loc: Old Bridge NJ

Just curious.....how do you like the Nik program?

llindstrand Loc: Seattle Metro

I like it very well. I have used it for about 2 years. At the time I looked at a cross-section of the software available and tried several. The thing that I especially was their offering about 28 presets that will show your image and you can select for the output. They just came out with a new version that allows some more individual flexibility. They also have some self help movies on the site now that I wasn't aware of.
Photoshop CS6 has a revised HDR program that is a great improvement over the CS5 version. It doesn't have the presets but does a tolerable job.

I also use the NIK noise removal software and am very happy with it. I tried their sharpening program and it is on my list for someday. There are several places that you can get it discounted up to 15% if you look for them.

Another program that I use a lot is Smart Photo Editor It has about 1200 preset edits any of which can be combined so the possibilities are endless. It costs a whopping $29.95 and is worth every penny.
Sorry if I rambled too much. If I can answer any more, let me know.
Swede

photophly Loc: Old Bridge NJ

Thanx for the info........I am going to look into that Smart Photo Editor program.Anything to speed up post production is good.

Chinaman Loc: Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Always love a cloudy sky. Did you pump up the saturation +/- the blue? A sky like the first picture looks more natural. Play with the colour settings to keep the greens but tone down the blues. The first 3 originals are already showing a bluish cast.

llindstrand Loc: Seattle Metro

Thank you for your comments. The pictures were taken in the early evening at sunset. Most all of the other pictures taken in the park show a quite a bit of blue. I'll post a set with lightening them up a bit and see if this is what you mean. I would appreciate if you would look at them and comment. If you want to make any changes to show me what you mean, you are welcome to do so.
Swede

Chinaman Loc: Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Hi Swede
Your new postings are not quite what I had in mind. Don't alter the original images. Work on the tone-mapped/merged image in NIK, process it and work on it again in Photoshop or equivalent. Did you try just reducing the blues in the final image in a photoeditor?
I will have a go with them over the weekend if I have time and come back to you next week. Kids have weekend sports, friends coming over, a half day conference to attend and a house model to complete with one of the kids. Thats why I love going to work!

llindstrand Loc: Seattle Metro

I appreciate your taking a look at them. I went back to the original and have three slightly different finished products. It is hard to get rid of the blue as it was late afternoon just as the sun was going down.

Chinaman Loc: Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Hi Swede
The 3rd image of the last set looks pretty good.
I managed to play around with your originals in different ways at the weekend and reporting on 2 of them which gave the best results. My aim was to keep the white bits of the clouds white, keep the sky a lovely blue, bring up the green and yellow in the grass and lighten up the foreground.
1. I used Photomatix v4 to tonemap the 3 original JPG images. The image looked pretty good so I didn’t alter any of the settings in Photomatix and proceeded to process and save it as a TIFF image.
I opened the TIFF image in Photoshop CS3 and adjusted the Selective Colour options. In the GREEN option, I pushed the Yellow slider to +20 and in the CYAN option, I move the Cyan slider to -20. In the Blue option, I reduced the Black to -10 and in the Neutral, I increased the Yellow to +10. Basically, play with the different colour options to get the look you want. I then increased the contrast by about +10 and reduced the brightness by -5.

2. I opened the ‘correctly exposed’ original JPG image in Photoshop. I went into Image/Adjustments/Shadow Highlight and played with the sliders to achieve my aim as mentioned above. Sorry I forgot to take note of the settings. The contrast was then increased to +15. In the Selective Colour GREEN option, I pushed the Yellow slider to +20 and in the NEUTRAL option, I move the Yellow slider to +15. The end results looked pretty good too.

The small JPG files (around 200Kb) I downloaded were probably not the best quality images to be tone-mapped, hence the little difference between the tone-mapped image and the Shadow/Highlighted image.

HDR of 3 originals


Shadows & Highlight adjustments of normal exposure image

llindstrand Loc: Seattle Metro

Thank you for taking an interest and all the work you did. I really appreciate it. I like the white you kept in the clouds. It was something I hadn't thought of--I just wanted to keep the clouds in the photo and some of the range of color. Editing can be quite a challenge as there are so many parameters to consider. I keep working at it and trying to remember and improve.

I posted some new HDR's on UHH last night under the heading "Sunset at Mt. Si". Please feel free to take a look if you are so inclined!
Swede