Comments on: Exposure Blending for Landscape Photography

By: Seacoast Shots

Seacoast Shots — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 19:50:22 +0000

Awesome tutorial, thank you! My pictures are starting to look a lot better using this technique rather than processing everything in Photomatix!

By: ElendilTheTall

ElendilTheTall — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 10:25:22 +0000

Preference and/or enough money to afford Photoshop :)

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 14:04:02 +0000

Great advice! With the techniques you mentioned, I think I would prefer Photoshop, instead of Gimp. But, each has their own preference.

By: Stan Rogers

Stan Rogers — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 01:30:34 +0000

This is HDR, really, just not as it's generally understood in the wild (or as it's implemented in "HDR" software). And it can often be done with a single image rather than multiple exposures just by using development with different settings, provided that the data falls within the dynamic range of the RAW image, and when you can get it all from a single exposure, alignment and ghosting will never be an issue.

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).

By: ElendilTheTall

ElendilTheTall — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 13:00:36 +0000

If you're comfortable with HDR, then you probably won't need to use this technique - this post is aimed more at beginners. I guess it is a 'gateway' to HDR. While I used Photoshop, you can do exactly the same thing in Gimp, which is of course free, whereas free HDR programs generally aren't much good.

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.

By: Ferdy

Ferdy — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 21:44:42 +0000

Great tip, but I don't see how this is much different from HDR? True, HDR requires careful tuning to avoid it being overdone, but that's not a differentiating factor from your method. Also, if you argue that HDR processing requires dedicated,expensive software, explaining your alternative method in Photoshop (which has HDR processing on board) isn't any cheaper.

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.