HD-R-Not MkII

I just don't know how Kelby and Ziser do it every day. I mean every day a giant posting. Well ok... Scott Kelby has a guest blog Wednesday and that accounts for one day. And I am pretty sure David Ziser talks his way through a posting and has some voice recognition software translate it. I have seen him hunt and peck on his videos so he can't get all that information up all by his lonesome little fingers.

No I am not bitter or upset, I am in awe in there ability to get out vast amounts of information each and every day. Kudos to the both of them. Me on the other hand... I am still here plodding along in the Blogspot world. So that was a little long for missing yesterdays post, sorry.

So picking up where I left off on Tuesday. The how to on the not so real HDR that looks kind of like an HDR but not the wacky too burned HDR image that I had to recreate because I was a bone head by deleting the original psd file (oops, my bad) is here. Brand spanking new!

Wow that was a though flush. I think I feel a little bit of blood oozing out o my ears :)

So here is a little more of the how to on this image. It was five images (must have tri-pod) at 2/3 stop difference in exposure. The layer panel below shows what I started with. Setting the darkest in the stack to the most exposed on the top of the stack. Add a layer mask on all but the bottom layer and fill them with black to block the layer.

Now the fun part. I really mean that as it allows your creative eye to tell the story in the image of what you thought you were actually looking at. You don't realize it at the time but subconsciously you are picking up all the detail in the scene and during this process you relive the experience of the moment you captured the image. (That was borderline Versace in a zen way).

It is even better with a Wacom tabled as the pen pressure maximizes you control. The process it this. Start with a soft brush at 50% opacity on the first layer mask from the bottom of the stack (layer 1 for those that are keeping track). If the first pass is not enough then you hit it again exposing 100% of that layer. If is still not strong enough, move up to the next layer mask and do it again. Eventually you will get the feel of each exposure layer and be abel to go right to a particular layer to draw the shadows out the way you want. If it sucks? Hey... You are on a layer mask, hit it with black and start over! Sweet!!!

That's it, pretty straight forward. A little time spent in layers and masks and you have yourself an HDR knock-off. But the memories give you a greater connection with that moment in time than you will realize.

Take care and let's see if I am here tomorrow?

Cya... Doug