Hi all,

I thought I'd post a few examples of some shots I've taken recently to demonstrate my strive for good post-processing. These examples are psuedo-HDR, that is, they were made from a single image. My intent is to gather feedback from the community — HOW'MY DOING? Where can I improve? Is it over done?

Technique: when importing the image into Photoshop, I pull highlights into a minus value as far as seems real (recovering highlight details) and push the shadow up in value to lighten those details.

Edit: those of you that know Seattle might be aware that I'm flying in an air-harbor here. In fact, the office for one is in the lower right corner. But don't worry — I waited until all air traffic was not just off the lake, but out of ear-shot. I was flying from MOHAI (museum) in the foreground and returned right away, I promise!

For this example image, here's an unprocessed followed by a post-processed version:

Here's another example. This one is less HDR-like, more color / tone / curve manipulation. Any comments are welcome.

Nice! Using the DJI app?

FAS1 Posted at 2016-3-7 17:19
Nice! Using the DJI app?

Not yet. I've downloaded the DJI Media Maker, but haven't had a chance to play with it yet. Does it do this kind of post-processing to DNGs?

This images are sweet! I love first one the most

What editing software did you use NASO?

They look pretty good.

What you're actually doing is proper processing of a single file containing a wide (or high) dynamic range.  You sometimes get weird results from reducing the highlight recovery slider, so it's generally better to reduce the overall exposure value, then lift the shadows.  Sometimes it's not quite enough though so you need to use the highlight recovery slider as well.

The first one looks to have slight over-exposure in the sky on the right where you no doubt would have liked to recover lost detail.  Next time, why not bracket the shots & do a proper HDR (not HDR in camera)?  If you don't like the way it works in Photoshop, you can do it manually just by using layers & masks, or literally rubbing through one layer with the eraser tool to reveal the other below so you keep a good under-exposed sky with a slightly over-exposed land.

The second one looks a little over-saturated to my eye, which can happen when you increase contrast.  Sometimes I like it, sometimes not, depending on the subject.  My way of working these days involves getting the contrast & saturation exactly how I like it, then backing it off a bit.  I'll also test it on different coloured backgrounds (white, black & grey) as that can make a surprising difference to how it looks.  I also use my iPad retina display as a second screen in Lightroom to check colour & contrast as it's a well corrected screen (I use a laptop & laptop screens are well known for being crap for this).

Not A Speck Of  Posted at 2016-3-8 09:30
Not yet. I've downloaded the DJI Media Maker, but haven't had a chance to play with it yet. Does i ...

Nice work on the Photos...
The description for Media Maker is for Pano's and Time Lapse...you can see a bit here and download also...
http://forum.dji.com/thread-43383-1-1.html
I have not been able to fly with the poor weather we have had so no batch of images to play with yet...

What makes a good HDR image is totally a matter of taste.  My own preference is to use HDR technique only enough to capture dynamic range without looking like a manipulated image.  The manual tonemapping you are doing with single images will always have a tough time with the information in the shadows - looking soft, noisy or both.  It is difficult or impossible to avoid this without using bracketed images, composited in Photomatix, Photoshop, of one of the many free HDR applications.

Thanks Tim!

Capt. Wild Bill: this was with Photoshop, but I've also done highlight recovery in Photo Ninja (a more affordable app with auto-highlight recovery and great noise reduction [aka built-in Noise Ninja]) and probably is also in Adobe Lightroom ... and others. (And don't forget to twist the bottle-cap counter-clockwise so you don't have to whack it against the inside of your cockpit. <-- hoping you catch the reference)

Nigel, agree that bracketing is best. Since I've only done that with a camera on a tripod, I'm still shy doing it with cameras floating up in the sky. Note that the first image is the one and only one where I cranked highlight / shadow recovery to the max and still couldn't recover everything, so that portion of the sky is all white (maxed to the right of the histogram) and that's where the noise comes from in the shadows — my bad. Agreed on the over-saturation on the second image; I need to work harder on that last step, pulling it back some. I did find that things are a little more natural upping the vibrance control (mid-tones only) rather than saturation of the entire image, but as that image shows, it can still be over-done, eh?

Thanks for the Media Maker link North. And Zeus also makes good comments about bracketing.

Thanks all,
Chris

nice work ...