Playing with HDR

 

Spent the day on the laptop trying out "merging to HDR" on some test images using Lightroom, Aurora HDR 2018 and Photomatix Essentials 3.2.

Think the most successful was still Aurora HDR 2018, and I've been watching a few basic video tutorials to try and get to grips with it rather than keep flicking through a myriad of presets. Think I'm getting the hang of it 🤔 The hardest image from the above was the tree image, shot in the woods the green cast was rather difficult to get rid of, without losing too much green in the background. Not a specific HDR problem but one which would have needed sorting anyway.

I also didn't want to have too much detail in the shadow area of the Dockyard tunnel, the aim of this image is to draw the eye to the other end.

So probably the easiest was the yachts along St Mary's Island!

I've learnt out to utilise the basic panel and then dabbled with using layers to apply certain other filter changes and specifically to certain areas using masks. All concepts that I'm familiar with from using Photoshop but you still have to realise the nuances between how they work in different software.

HDR always intrigues me as a genre in photography, I quite like the semi-surreal options one can produce and whilst my cameras have HDR modes they aren't quite as sophisticated as some of the more professional models, although that said, every now and again, they will surprise me with how well they cope with a high dynamic scene. I suspect my biggest problem is using it when it's not strictly necessary and so the result is somewhat underwhelming 🤣 Mind you, I have also gotten some quite favourable results using it on a single image which is quite good.

Anyway, all this experimentation has kept me busy today as I struggle to fill my days when the weather is not conducive to going out. Which it's not really been for most of my Christmas break from work 😥 And as said break is almost at an end I'm finding the continued wet weather somewhat irritating ☔ It will be even more so if it's raining for my trek into the office next week, at least last New Year I was still fully WFH. Now I'm going to have to drag myself in, to what is likely to be a freezing cold office, all in the name of bums on seats 😠