PhotoEditTools :: AfterShot’s HDR

Despite being a fan of HDR (used with restraint) and having had Version 2 of AfterShot pro for a while (and used it often), I actually had not got around to trying out its new HDR feature. I figured I’d work on this series of a stormy sky for this weeks PhotoFriday, perhaps HDR can enhance the drama of a coming storm?

There are a three modes in which you can run the corel aftershot  HDR, and I will just used the conventional method of working with a set (three in this case) of bracketed exposure. To do that you simply select the photos you want and then right click and select the Edit with AfterShot HDR option. This takes you into a new window (and new process) shown above, which merges the three images into one with a wider dynamic range. At this point you have the ability to select individual photos as if the are layers and paint in or out details from that photo. I haven’t used this feature here but I can imagine it is going to be very useful.

After you click on process you get a new panel which undertakes the tonemapping (it is called HDR Adjustments) and there are the typical series of garish Presets (the don’t have typical tone mapping names) but the all tend to overbake the effects, eg disturbingly contrasty and gritty or lurid false colours. They are not my style so I turned off the presets and underneath this filter panel are a series of more conventional tone sliders and I just lowered the shadows a little. Normally this is where many HDR systems would leave you but Aftershot HDR has another panel.
The third and final step in the Aftershot HDR, which is called fine tuning gives you access to a histogram with some basic tonal sliders. Lower down on this right hand panel are a number of other fine tunning tools. This is actually a smart idea because I normally take the HDR tonemapp and do some further “fine tunning” on it in say lightroom or perfect photo suite. I have aftershot pro on my laptops rather than the  lightroom/prefect photo heavy weights so this is going to be very useful. If you are happy with the tonemapped version you can just press the Save and close key at the bottom of the screen

I should have tried this earlier.

Here is the photo after some extra post processing in Perfect Effects

PhotoFriday :: Atmosphere

The Coming Storm

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Atmosphere

Seeking Shelter (before the storm)

Ibis seeking shelter as the storm front arroves

Stormy weather & losing ability to share

I must admit that I know I can not easily share a photo into blogger directly from picasa. The work around was to share into google+ photos (the picasa web album connection no longer works either). BUT google+ doesn’t really let you share easily so you had to use the blogger web page input which does let me insert photos in picasa web albums (but not directly from google+). OK google+ and picasa web albums are really the same thing only a different front end.  To be able to access as a photo in picasa web albums from blogger you need to be able to supply an album name the picasa web interface recognised. AND now for the clinker you can no longer use an existing album name as you upload from the big green share om google+ plus in picasa!

Stormy weather

Do you see all the catch 22’s here google?

PhotoFriday :: Park

Threatening Rain

For PhotoFriday‘s topic Park

Hail, Rain & No Moon Shine

The Super Moonrise was a non-event last night in Melbourne due to a big storm. There was Hail, Rail and Shine Lightening but the heavy clouds obscured the eastern horizon and the moon
   

Mainly just darkness, clouds & lightening after that and no moon to be seen. C’est la Vie

 I just happened to be in Jells Park as the cold front approached, Making an interesting sky, which Google+ Autoawesome HDR* has captured

Winter Skies

Winter weather has arrived

Sandstorm Weather

Google+'s HDR autoawesome has done a great job capturing the atmosphere of the grey sunset, it is almost a solarized effect, but it has captured the stark eerieness perfectly. This atmospheric change is apparently a strong indication of sand storm weather to come. Compare this with the sunset a couple of days ago.

the storm

 

Was walking home, without my camera (shock horror) and a massive storm was moving across the Dandenong  Creek Valley below me. I did have my trusty old Nokia classic phone and thought I'd give the pano feature a try. Not as good as a big multi-image panorama with my DSLR camera might have captured but its just OK I guess. If you know the area you might expect Mt. Dandenong to be where the dark clouds billow.

Moral : Always carry my camera when walking & investigate a new phone with better camera.

Storm over Hawkes Bay

Sunny one moment and then a full on thunder storm with driving hail the next. The storm was so intense it even made the National news (complete with a photo of a water spout further up the coast).

Thunderstorm in Time Lapse

This "movie" is actually a time lapse of 260 still images taken over a 35 minute period.

Capturing lightening on  Digital Camera is harder than you might imagine. Here is some sound advice from an expert at photographing lightening.