usinglight

Tag Archives: HDR

Gloriette wallpaper


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HDR and back light – wallpaper “Gloriette”

One great situation to use the HDR technique is when having backlight. In this picture here I used 5 brackets +/- 1EV. I could have used seven or nine brackets, but then the effect would have been gone.

I threw in a polarizing filter and my trusted Sigma 10-20mm to catch the magic beauty. I left my tripod at home so I made the shot handheld.

In postprocessing Nik HDR color efex and the updated Nik color efex was to be used. They had this promotion so I bought the update. They finally added support for stacked filters, so I can skip some steps and win time. Some filter algorithms are also working smoother – until now it was worth the money.

I did all the processing in lightroom 4 beta, which works like a pearl. I cannot wait to see the final.

So here is the wallpaper I promised. Click on the picture and rightclick afterwards to save the wallpaper.

Gloriette wallpaper

The path is your choice


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Thinking at the end of the year – “Crossroads of choice” wallpaper

Sometimes pictures make you think. Especially at the end of the year, where it’s traditionally the time to reflect on the past year and think about what choices you made, which choice you did not take and what you learned.

The motive present is always the standing at the crossroads. I wanted to collect some thoughts on what you can do at such a point – using this photograph.

  1. You choose a path.
  2. You do not choose and wait for something (This might be the worst solution in most cases but can be a good choice on rare occasions).
  3. Maximize your options. If you look in the picture below, you do not see the path to the right because the camera covers a lot but does not give you the whole picture. Think of “The map is not the territory!“.
  4. Invent a path.

Whatever you do: Think first!

If you want you can use the picture below as a wallpaper (This one is 1920×1080 and creative commons). It might help as a visual anchor to think on what you want to achieve 2012. Use your brain and don’t let it be the other way around.

 crossroads of choice by Stefan Steinbauer

Creative Commons LizenzvertragThis work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.


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Now winter can come

Now winter can come by stst31415
Now winter can come, a photo by stst31415 on Flickr.

I found these guys when taking a walk on the weekend. as there is a lot of details in this picture I tried to shift the focus to front section. So I added brightness to the top left corner to enhance the flare and reduced the reflections of the roofs. The background was muted by the taking the saturation to 50%. I cranked the warmth of the leaves in the left lower corner up 20%, just enough to recreate what I saw that moment.


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Build your own view

Build your own view by stst31415
Build your own view, a photo by stst31415 on Flickr.

What I like in modern architecture is the fact that you have gazillions of reflections. If you look at the pictures you sometimes start building your own views.

By using the HDR method one can reveal lots of details in the reflection. It were so many details that I had to apply some retro colouring and minimize the contrasts in parts of the picture to make it look real.


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Medieval alley


Medieval alley, a photo by stst31415 on Flickr.

What really fascinated me in this picture was that the method HDR could capture all the colors facets and texture and preserve them. That was not quite easy due to the different artificial light colors, varying from blue to orange.
Again the tipp by RC Concepcion I use often, is to use a Glamour Glow effect on HDR. It takes the unnatural sharpness out of the picture and gives it some nice appeal.
I started using the glamour glow (which was created for portraits) on some architecture pictures – not specifically HDR. It works just fine…
And again this shot was brought to you by Canon running Magic Lantern with 9 exposures, creation with HDR Efex by Nik Software and postprocessing with Color Efex (also by Nik Software).

If you are looking for a book specifically for the creation of HDR with HDR Efex and get some real nice postprocessing tips for HDR, read the HDR book by RC. There is great stuff inside.


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Panoramic HDR Experiment

I went out with my tripod to shoot a structured panorama in at least 3 by 2. I made it 4 by 2 but it was not convincing. Because I also experimented…

Another thing I wanted to try was a panorama with a wide angle lens. So I used my trusted Sigma portrait in 10mm and used a recipe which nearly always worked for me.

The recipe as always: 3 pictures using 9 brackets with Magic Lantern on my 60D, HDR created with HDR Efex, and panorama with Microsoft ICE.

There were problems with the distortion near the lens, like in the railing you can see on the left. I don’t know if the result is also there because of the horizontal lines. I will try to find out.

I am very pleased with the look of this picture. What is your opinion?

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