p>Thanks for finally writing about >Exposure Blending for Landscape Photography

As often as not (as with this picture), there is a clear line of demarcation between, well, let’s call them “zones” of a photograph that can be treated differently. Sometimes the transitions can be quite immediate, and the mask can be pretty hard-edged.

I’ve generally found that a process like this one gives a much more natural-looking result than tone mapping. It’s a lot more like using a graduated ND filter ex post facto (and a filter that has been designed specifically for the image at hand to boot).

I believe it is easier to get natural results with this technique as you aren’t doing any tone mapping or the like, you’re just taking two shots out of the camera, raw processing them, and blending them together. You can’t really overdo it. It’s also quicker and simpler in the field – two exposures are all you need. However, as you mention it is more limited in that it concentrates on a balanced exposure between the sky and ground, whereas HDR covers the whole image.

I hope you take my questions the right way, I’m looking for added value over my current HDR process. From what I can tell, the added value of your method is fine-grained control over the horizon and sky, whereas HDR tends to work on the image as a whole.

Thanks for writing this, it’s interesting food for thought.