Digital Blending. This subject is featured in Issue #6 of The Luminous Landscape Video Journal. The Problem Being Solved In nature when doing landscape work that includes sky, especially early or late in the day, the contrast range encountered often exceeds that which film or imaging chips can handle. It's therefore necessary to find a way to reduce the contrast range to something that the camera can handle so that the highlights don't burn out and the shadow areas don't turn inky black. The Traditional Approach The traditional method of dealing with this is to use split neutral density filters (graduated filters, some call them).
This works well much of the time, and I have rarely gone out shooting without my full filter kit at the ready. 1 stop, 2 stop and 3 stop grads, and soft and hard edged versions of each. Add filter holders and adaptor rings and the whole kit can cost over a thousand dollars and fills a small shoulder bag. An additional downside is that using them takes time. Is there a better way? Photomatix « Before the Coffee. You can download a free trial version of Photomatix from www.hdrsoft.com Get 15% off the Photomatix program (reg. $99) just by entering “beforethecoffee” in the coupon code box of the Photomatix purchase page. Getting Started With Photomatix Version 4.0 It’s not unusual for a company to come out of the blocks in a full sprint and leave the competition in the dust. Look at Google, Ebay and the iPhone; they lead the industry in their categories and everyone else plays catch-up, When it comes to HDR software it’s Photomatix created by HDRsoft. Each new version of Photomatix incorporates new tools giving us more control over the final image and Version 4.0 is no disappointment.
This Photomatix tutorial covers Version 4.0 and will take you through it’s most popular tone mapping tool, Details Enhancer. So let’s get started. In Bermuda I used a Nikon D2x with a fish eye lens and a tripod to capture the source image set of 5 images, each a different exposure: 0EV, -2EV, -1EV, +1EV and +2EV. 1. 2. Return To The Digital Photography Connection.
Selective Contrast. Photoshop Tutorials. The Nature, Wildlife and Pet Photography Forum: HDR Blend Tutori.