The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers part 23 pptx

ptg 201Chapter 8Creating HDR Images Continued The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Eight: The section at the bottom has two tabs: Color and Curve. The Color tab has Vibrance and Saturation controls (like Camera Raw’s), so if you need to make the colors more vibrant, try dragging the Vibrance slider to the right. If you want to take your image to “Harry Potter world,” then add in the Saturation slider, as well. Here, we’ll set the Vibrance at 22 and the Saturation at 26 (the only reason we’re doing something this extreme is because the image doesn’t have much color to begin with). If you need to add more contrast, click on the Curve tab and create an S-curve. Add points to the curve by clicking along the diagonal line, then move them by dragging them up/down. We’ll add the S-curve you see here at the bottom. Also, I turned on the Remove Ghosts checkbox (at the top right) in case the clouds moved a bit between shots (more on this later in the chapter). TIP: Get That “Old-Timey” Look If you increase the Vibrance and then decrease the Saturation, it gives your image that “old-timey look” (there’s prob- ably a better description, but you know what I mean). Give it a try, and I’ll bet you’ll say, “Hey, that’s the old-timey look.” Step Nine: Now, click the OK button at the bottom right to have Photoshop process the image. When it’s done, you’ll see the HDR image appear in Photoshop (as seen here). Now, there’s something many people don’t realize about the post-pro- duction process of HDR images: there’s always a second round of processing in Camera Raw (this isn’t new—we did this back in CS4 with third-party plug-ins, too!). Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 202 Chapter 8 Creating HDR Images The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step 10: Before we start the post-production process, you have to save the file as a TIFF or JPEG (if you want to keep it in 16-bit mode, save it as a TIFF, otherwise, JPEG is fine) and then close it. Then go under Photoshop’s File menu and choose Open (PC: Open As). When the Open dialog appears, click on the JPEG or TIFF image you just saved, and from the Format (PC: Open As) pop- up menu at the bottom of the dialog, choose Camera Raw (as shown here) to have the image open in Camera Raw for processing, and then click Open. Step 11: When the image opens in Camera Raw, I usually crank up the Clarity amount (which brings out lots of little details), and in this case, we’ll crank it up to +42 (as shown here). I also increased the Exposure to +0.35, the Recovery to 89, the Fill Light to 23, and the Blacks to 34. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg Before After 203Chapter 8Creating HDR Images Continued The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step 12: Next, we’ll add a dark edge vignette (this is a very popular look in hyperreal HDR images), so click on the Lens Corrections icon (the fifth icon from the right) at the top of the Panel area, then at the top of the panel, click on the Manual tab. At the bottom of the panel, in the Lens Vignetting section, drag the Amount slider all the way to the left to darken the edges, and then drag the Midpoint slider to the left to extend the darkening inward from just the corners, so it’s more even and larger all the way around. Step 13: That’s it (well, that’s it if you were going for the hyperreal look). Now, these settings worked for this particular image, but you could open a different image, and these settings might not work at all, which is why on the next two pages, I’m going to give you a few settings that I use myself for different HDR images when I want them to have the hyperreal look. What I recommend is trying them out, saving them as presets (see the next step), and then when you open an HDR image, at least you’ll have a couple of starting points that are better than the presets that come with Merge to HDR Pro. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 204 Chapter 8 Creating HDR Images The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step 14: The settings we’ve used so far are the set- tings I use most of the time with Merge to HDR Pro, because they seem to work on almost any image. Around the office, we just call them “Scott 5” (because that’s the name I gave the preset I saved with those settings). Here, I put them together in one place, so you can find them easily (don’t forget to add the S-curve, though). Also, once you enter these, I would save them as a preset (but of course, you don’t have to call them Scott 5). I always try these first: Under Edge Glow, set the Radius at 176 and set the Strength down to 0.47. Under Tone and Detail, set the Gamma at 0.76 and the Exposure at 0.30. Push the Detail all the way to 300%. Now, for the next two sliders, I pretty much use the same settings for every hyper- real look: I open the shadows fully up (setting the Shadow slider at 100%) and clamp the highlights fully down (setting the Highlight slider at –100%). In the last section, increase the Vibrance to 22% and the Saturation to 26%, then click on the Curve tab and make an S-curve (see Step Eight) to add contrast. Once you’ve put these settings in, if you like the look (of course, it depends on the image), go to the flyout menu to the right of the Preset pop-up menu, and choose Save Preset (as shown here). Give this new preset a name and it will be added to the bottom of the Preset pop-up menu. Step 15: This one doesn’t look a whole lot differ- ent than the previous one, except I’ve learned that subtle differences between the Radius and Strength amounts can make a big difference. Set the Radius at 166, and the Strength at 0.39. Leave all the Tone and Detail settings like they were in Step 14, but then at the bottom, crank the Vibrance up to 80%, and set the Saturation down to 0%. Go ahead and save that one as a preset, too! Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 205Chapter 8Creating HDR Images The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step 16: This particular one is a bit punchier, a bit more over the top, but it’s worth trying because, on some images, it’s just the tick- et. Set the Radius at 370 and the Strength at 1.84. Set the Gamma at 0.23, the Expo- sure at –0.35, and the Detail down to just 156%. Set the Shadow and Highlight amounts the same as always (Shadow at 100%, Highlight at –100%). Down in the bottom section, set the Vibrance to 82% and the Saturation to just 10%. Of course, I always have the curve set to an S-curve to add more contrast. Now save this one as a preset, too, then I have one more for ya. Step 17: Our last hyperreal preset just tweaks things a little bit, but fairly often, that’s all you need (and don’t forget, you’re going to do some post-processing after the fact, and with this one, you’ll prob- ably be adding lots of contrast and clarity in Camera Raw after the HDR processing). Set the Radius at 83 and the Strength at 0.43. Set the Tone and Detail settings like this: Gamma at 0.23, Exposure at 0.80, Detail at 270%, and Shadow and Highlight both at 100% (yup, I’m throwin’ ya a curve ball). This one really pumps up the color, so set the Vibrance at 76% and the Saturation at 52%. Just remember: you may apply this preset and it might look terrible, depending on the image you try it on (this is why you need all five of these presets. At least one will get you in the ballpark). Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 206 Chapter 8 Creating HDR Images SCOTT KELBY The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step One: Start by selecting your HDR-bracketed images in Mini Bridge, and then choose Merge to HDR Pro, under Photoshop, from Mini Bridge’s Tools icon’s menu. After a few moments, you’ll see the Merge to HDR Pro dialog appear (seen here) with the default settings applied. Step Two: From the Preset pop-up menu at the top right of the dialog, chose Photorealistic (as shown here). This is probably the only built-in preset that I like (but we’re only going to use it as a starting place). Creating Photorealistic HDR Images In the previous project, we looked at the very popular hyperreal, surrealistic look, which is definitely a creative, artistic use of HDR, but if you’re looking to simply expand the dynamic range of what your digital camera can capture, without adding a surrealistic effect to it, you’ll be happy to know that getting that look is even easier (though I recommend going through the previous project first, so you know what all the sliders do, because here I’m just going to give you a recipe for photorealistic HDR images). Download from www.wowebook.com ptg The HDR image using the Photorealistic preset settings and then adding a few tweaks The original normal exposure image Step Three: Now, in the Tone and Detail section, increase the Detail amount to 65% (as shown here). Then, in the Color tab, increase the Vibrance to 65% and the Saturation to 25%. A before/after is shown below. 207Chapter 8Creating HDR Images The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 208 Chapter 8 Creating HDR Images The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step One: Once you’ve finished creating your HDR image using Merge to HDR Pro, and it’s open in Photoshop, start by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to duplicate the Background layer. Now go under the Filter menu, under Other, and choose High Pass (as shown here). Step Two: When the High Pass filter dialog appears, drag the Radius slider all the way to the left, so that everything turns solid gray. Now, drag the slider to the right until you can just start to see the color peek through the solid gray (as shown here)— the farther you drag, the more intense the effect will be (here, as an example, I dragged 9 pixels, and you can see a glow appearing around the edges of the boat). When you’re done, click OK. Although I cover High Pass sharpening in the sharpening chapter, I thought it was important to include it here, as well, because High Pass sharpening has kind of become synonymous with HDR editing (especially with the hyperreal-fantasy HDR effects). High Pass sharpening is sometimes called “extreme sharpening” and that’s a really good description of what it is. Here, I’m going to show you how to apply it, how to control it afterward, and an optional method that I use myself quite a bit. High Pass Sharpening for HDR Images SCOTT KELBY Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 209Chapter 8Creating HDR Images The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Three: To bring the sharpening into the image, go to the top of the Layers panel and change the duplicate layer’s blend mode from Normal to Hard Light (as shown here), and you’ll see the full sharpening. If it seems like it’s too much, you can do one of two things: (1) Lower the opacity of this duplicate layer. Think of this as the control for the amount of sharpening, so try lowering the Opacity amount (at the top of the Layers panel) to 75% (for 75% of the sharpening), or 50% if that’s still too much. The other method (2) is to leave the Opacity at 100%, but change the layer blend mode to Soft Light. You still get the intense sharpening, but it’s just not quite as intense. So, that’s High Pass sharpening, but there’s another option, and in the next step, we’ll look at limiting where the sharp- ening is applied (and keeping some of the glow around the edges in check). Step Four: To limit where the sharpening is applied, press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel (shown circled here) to hide your sharpened layer. Get the Brush tool (B), and make sure your Foreground color is set to white. Then from the Brush Picker in the Options Bar, choose a medium-sized, soft-edged brush and paint over just the parts of the image you want to be super-sharp (here, I’ve painted over the boat, but avoided the water, sky, and sea grass, so just the boat itself gets that extreme sharpening). Also, if you pushed the High Pass filter so high that you saw a glow around the edges, try to stay away from the edges or you’ll see the glow. If you do see it, just press X to switch your Foreground color to black and paint it away. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 210 Chapter 8 Creating HDR Images The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step One: Open the image you want to add a “faux- HDR” look to, then go under the Image menu, under Adjustments, and choose HDR Toning (as shown here). Before we go on, I just want to reiterate what I said in the intro above: while the controls in the HDR Toning dialog look the same as the Merge to HDR Pro controls, they seem to be much more sensitive, so you can’t use the same settings and get the same effect—you have to back everything off a bit. Step Two: When the HDR Toning dialog appears, the default settings give your image somewhat of a tone-mapped effect (as seen here, where the image is more con- trasty, brighter in the shadow areas, appears to have some clarity applied, and the colors are more vivid). This is what I mean by being more sensitive, because when you open a bracketed multi-image HDR photo, with the default settings, you hardly notice a difference in tone at all. Now, let’s crank things up and get the faux-HDR look from this one image. Note: If the Toning Curve and Histo gram section at the bottom of the dialog is collapsed, just click on the right-facing arrow to the left of the section header to expand it. If you didn’t shoot for HDR (meaning you don’t have at least three bracketed images of the same scene), you can still do single-image toning. While it doesn’t create the exact same result, it does create a pretty cool effect, and best of all, it uses the same controls as the regular Merge to HDR Pro dialog does for multi- image HDR processing. So, you already pretty much know what to do (except I’ve found the controls are much more sensitive with just one image than they are when applying them to a multi-image, real HDR). Single-Image HDR Toning Effect SCOTT KELBY Download from www.wowebook.com . here). Then, in the Color tab, increase the Vibrance to 65% and the Saturation to 25%. A before/after is shown below. 207Chapter 8Creating HDR Images The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers . from the right) at the top of the Panel area, then at the top of the panel, click on the Manual tab. At the bottom of the panel, in the Lens Vignetting section, drag the Amount slider all the. with third-party plug-ins, too!). Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 202 Chapter 8 Creating HDR Images The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step 10: Before we start the post-production