A few weeks ago I received my copy of Photoshop CS5. I was excited about some of the new features being offered, including the new Content Aware fill capabilities. However, another area that Adobe was touting was their new HDR (high dynamic range) Pro module. I’d tinkered briefly with HDR in the past but never seriously. Photoshop’s capabilities in prior versions were meager at best, so I was curious to try out the new version.
Two weeks ago I was in Napa Valley with a buddy and we stopped by the Old Bale Grist Mill. I wanted to take a look at it to figure out what time of day would be best to photograph it. It turns out that there is no really good time because it is surrounded by trees and open meadows. The combination of shade and bright light makes photography difficult. I realized that this type of high contrast lighting would be a perfect subject for testing CS5’s HDR Pro module.
I used a 24 to 70 mm zoom lens mounted on a tripod mounted D700 and took a series of raw photographs from +3 EV to –3EV, in one stop increments.
[Click on any image to enlarge it]
The image above is the 0 EV image, or in other words, this is the picture you would get by putting the camera in autoexposure mode and taking a photo. Notice that the sky and foreground are largely burned out. Because I metered the exposure on the building there is good shadow detail, although there is some loss of detail at the bottom of the waterwheel. The thumbnail images show the exposures of all 7 photos.
These 7 images were loaded into Lightroom. Before attempting to process the images I figured I needed to learn how to use the HDR module so I went to NAPP’s (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) Photoshop CS5 Learning Center and clicked on the HDR Pro icon to view an instructional video. Eight minutes and 45 seconds later I was an expert.
Returning to Lightroom I selected the 7 images, Right clicked and selected Edit in >>>Merge to HDR in Photoshop. All 7 images were stacked in layers in one image in the new HDR Module and a HDR image was automatically created. For this image I wanted a realistic look. So after playing with all the sliders I simply selected the Photo realistic preset and clicked OK. The 7 individual images were merged into one HDR image, which opened up in the normal Photoshop screen.
While the HDR image was good it was not yet ready for prime time. I went through my usual routine of sharpening, etc. In this case I knew that I wanted the final image to be Black and White so I used a Black and White adjustment layer to make the conversion. The final step was to correct the perspective of the image using the Transform command (Edit>>>Transform>>>Perspective) to produce the final image shown below. For my first serious try at HDR I was pleased with the image.
While at the grist mill I shot two other sequences; one of the side of the mill featuring the water wheel and one inside the mill showing two old milling stones. In each instance I followed the same process described above; shooting 7 images at 1.0 EV intervals. The image of the waterwheel I converted to an antique sepia tone in Lightroom after creating the HDR image in Photoshop. For the shot of the mill stones I pushed the details up in the HDR module to create a slightly hyper-real appearance.
I’m forced to conclude that Adobe did its homework on CS5. While the HDR Pro module may not be up to the level of Photomatix yet (or maybe it is) I found the interface simple and easy to use.
Mark
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