Thursday, January 8, 2009

Last HDR from Maas Nursery

My last photo from this past weekends trip to Maas Nursery in Seabrook.

Title: "Red Flower, Green Pot"



Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix HDR from three handheld exposures (-2, 0, +2) > Photoshop CS3 > Curves Adjustment Layer for overall contast enhancement > Levels Adjustment Layer to set a black point > Merge Visible to New Layer > Topaz Adjust pluding "Spicify" preset > Duplicate Layer > High Pass Sharpening in Hard Light blending mode

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful! I can almost smell that gorgeous flower from my computer screen.
MIL

Larry J. Patrick said...

Barry,

Nice. Good use of HDR--it really brings the flower to the forefront of the image.

I cannot remember where I saw it, but I recently saw some images where the main subject was done in HDR and the background was just a normal processing (masked off, in your case, the flower and pot). It gave the image a surreal look that was quite interesting. I have not tried it yet, but I do intend to try it. As Craig Tanner would say, "not necessarily better, but just different look at the image."

Really good job, as usual!

Ted said...

Hand-held exposures!!!! Three!!! You are rubbing the salt right into my shaky hands Barry! This is tack sharp on my monitor. Hmmm.... what is the secret? Are you an android? Do you steady yourself with a cement cube?

This is a cool example of the way cool images that HDR can become. I particularly like it that you are muting the spooky palette which HDR produces. This is still startling, but not shiver-making. Nice!

Barry Armer said...

Thank you MIL, Patrick and Ted!

Patrick - Sounds interesting; I'll have to give the mixed HDR technique a whirl!

Ted - The way I use "handheld" it means "not on a tripod". If I can find a bench or fence post or somewhere to put the camera down and use the timer I will. I think I was acutally holding this one so that means there was some luck involved because I not one of those folks who can consistently hold a camera very still.

Thanks again for visiting my blog and for posting your comments!

Regards,
Barry

Larry said...

I'd say the whole Maas Nursery trip produced a great series of shots. Good eye.

Barry Armer said...

Larry - Indeed everything seemed to come together well at Maas on that day! I wish I had more photographic days like that!

Cheers!
Barry