I really enjoy doing HDR imaging in the woods. With all the color, tone and lighting variations, it’s a real challenge to produce naturally beautiful images.

This is really a comparison of HDR methods using a nine image bracket and a single image from the brackets. The image above is a product of combining the exposures and doing a little selective tone mapping in Nik HDR Efex Pro.

This second shot is the -1 ev image with just about all post processing done with Adobe Camera Raw. The most obvious difference that I discovered while working with these two images was that the tonal range available in the combined image allowed me to blend the light and dark areas much more easily. The single image required a lot more post processing to achieve what you see here.

I’m finding that with either a final High Dynamic Range or single image, the raw processor really works for some finishing touches like removing Chromatic Aberration, Sharpening, Noise Reduction with Luminance and Color and Tone and Color management. The Adjustment Brush is also very powerful, working very much like the Control Points in the Nik modules.

And speaking of Nik, this last somewhat moody example was created with Silver Efex Pro 2 using one of the presets with just a little coloring and vignette modification. I also muted the center of the frame to draw more attention to that area.  In Photoshop, I blended the Nik layer to reveal just a very small amount of the original colors.

Equipment used: Nikon D700 with 20.0-35.0 mm f/3.5-4.5 lens at 20mm, f/5.6, ISO 400.

Just as a note: This is the first post of my second year of Photo blogging. After 325 post in the past year, I’m still planning to do at least one a day (except Sunday).  I’d like to say thanks to everyone who has interacted with me. I hope you will continue in the future.