Australian Camera — May-June 2017

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STEP 5^

Optimise Your Optics

All lenses produce vignetting and

distortion to some degree, and this

hasn’t yet been accounted for. Click

on the ‘Lens Corrections’ tab and

tick the two boxes to automatically

fi x any optical defects. Because

you’ve used the same aperture

value and focal length for all the

shots that make up the HDR

image, the corrections will be

the same, so you can apply them

to the HDR. If your particular lens

isn’t found automatically when

you tick ‘Enable Profi le Correction’,

select the ‘Make’ and ‘Model’

of your lens from the dropdown

lists and the changes will be

applied.

STEP 6

Enhance The Sky

To add more drama to the sky,

select the ‘Graduated Filter’ tool

and, in the control panel, click

twice on the minus icon alongside

the ‘Exposure’ slider. This will give

a -1.00 exposure and zero all the

sliders. Drag the grad over the

sky to make it a little darker and,

when you’re happy with the effect,

adjust the ‘Temperature’ slider to

suit the image.

With this sunrise image, we

increased Temperature to +30 to

warm up the sky. We then added a

second grad from the bottom of

the frame to the tree-line and,

once it was in place, adjusted the

Exposure to +0.80. This retained

the warmth of the fi rst grad, but

brightened the foreground to give

a better balance. On this grad, we

also increased ‘Clarity’ to +50 in

order to enhance the defi nition.

STEP 7

Use The Radial Filter

Click on the ‘Radial Filter’ tool to

exit the ‘Graduated Filter’, and

then click once on the minus icon

next to ‘Temperature’ to get a

setting of -25 and zero the other

sliders. Change this to about -10,

and then drag out a sausage-

shaped oval selection over the

misty background. The pale blue

colour will be subtly enhanced.

Increase the ‘Highlights’ slider to

brighten the mist and, if you want

a stronger effect, right-click inside

the Radial Filter’s outline and

select ‘Duplicate’.

STEP 8

Boost Your Shadows

And Save

Drag out a smaller sausage shape

at the bottom of the picture and

then drag the mouse outside

it to rotate it. Position it so it’s

pointing into the frame towards

the key focal point – the horse –

and, after setting ‘Temperature’

to 0, reduce the ‘Exposure’ to

around -0.80. Right-click inside

the fi lter and duplicate this Radial

Filter, then drag it and rotate it to

create a second shadow leading

in. Duplicate in the same way

to create additional foreground

shadows, as required.

To accentuate highlights in the

foreground and foliage, use the

same technique, but increase

the ‘Exposure’ and ‘Temperature’

settings after positioning the fi lter.

When you’re done, click ‘Open

Image’ to load it into Photoshop.

Finally, go to ‘File>Save As’ to

save the fi le in the format of

your choice.

to the HDR. If your particular lens

CamMayJune17_068-071 DigitalDarkroom.indd 71 13/04/2017 12:16 AM