Santorini Cathedral (HDR)
Before-and-After
Take a look at the Before-and-After Comparison to see where this photo comes from!
Making-of
Watch the the “High-definition Making of…” video (choose the 1080p version for full details) to see where this photo comes from!
Pics to play with
Download the source files and try your own processing style! Go to here to upload your version and to see other peoples’ versions.
Check out the Dynamic Before-and-After for this image. Simply slide back and forth between the original 0EV photo and the HDR version.
The story of this photo
This is the catholic cathedral in Thira, Santorini. Santorini is a location that you must visit. It’s an island located in the southern Aegean Sea. The architecture is very characteristic, held in white and blue mostly. We found this church when we left the touristic main stream routes.
How it was shot
- Handheld [details]
- Six exposures (+2EV to -3EV in steps of 1EV) semi-autobracketed [details]
- Camera: Nikon D7000
- Lens: Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED
- Details can be found here
How it was tonemapped
- Preparation: developed the raw files with ACR mainly in order to reduce the CA [details]
- Applied noise reduction (Topaz Denoise) to each of the source images [details]
- Resulting TIFF images were then used as input to Photomatix
- Tone-mapping: Photomatix Pro 4.0 (Detail Enhancer)
How it was post-processed
- Post-processing was done in Photoshop
- Topaz Adjust on the entire image to get back the colors and the details
- Topaz Infocus on the entire image for sharpening
- Selective editing of almost all areas of the image to bring out the nice color contrasts. I will not list all of them here because it would be somewhat boring. The essence of any of these selective editing steps is to select and mask the area and then apply adjustment layers to that area until the desired look comes out. Watch the making-of video to see more details.
- Global saturation layer (master)
- Global levels layer (contrast – masked to preserve highlights)
- Vignette effect using a masked fill layer [details]
- Watermarking [details]
Hello Klaus;
I would like permission to use some of your images as slides for a classroom presentation on photography. I will give you full credit and a link back to your website.
Michael Hays
+1 702-233-1703 or SKYPE: lvmegabyte
Hi Michael,
as long as it’s educational, you can use them. Do you need anything specific? You can download any image by Ctrl-clicking on it from the photo page.
Cheers
Klaus
Hi Klaus,
I have seen your post and documents .. its really impressive .. And I learned a lot about HDR.. I am not a prof. Photographer .. but really like to spend a quality time to learn about photography and click.
if you help me to know in detail how to do post process after capture 3 snaps of diff exposure .. I have Nikon D7000 camera , Photomatix Pro 4.2.4 (32-bit), and photoshop cs5. And is there any way to get more snaps in breaketing mode. plz let me know . Shall wait for your respons . My email ID is .. kousikp@gmail.com ….
And also looking forward for more tips on photography which will help me to grow and learn and to capture good snaps . thanx for your time 🙂
Hi Kousik,
thanks for your comment and for the nice words.
Yes, there is a way to get more photos using auto-bracketing on a D7000. But it requires a bit more manual action. Check out the tutorial on Semi-Autobracketing for HDR – How to Extend Your Exposure Bracketing Series for more information.
Cheers
Klaus
Klaus,
Its a really amazing document for HDR photography …. thanx a lot …. I will expect more documents on Photography technics time to time … I become really fan of your documents and technics . 🙂