Please comment on my workflow

[regken]

Hi,

In  preparation for my first DSLR that I have on order, I am trying to improve my workflow along with my PP ability. The Pentax K10 D was chosen for many reasons, the biggest being the ability to use affordable old prime lenses like the 50mm f1.4.

The images will be on a par with the Nikon D80 and Canon 400, no better, no worse. So it will come down to my PP and composition ability. Landscape including the great harbors here in Maine is my major interest. I will be shooting in DNG and processing with Photoshop CS. It would be great if some of you that are much more adapt than I am would comment on my approach.

Shoot 2 exposures 2.5 stops apart.
Use Raw to adjust WB if needed.
Blend these 2 using the method described in http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...-blending.shtml
Use The opacity slider to adjust for brightness.
New layer and use the unsharp mask for contrast enhancement as described in http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...hancement.shtml . For most photos I have worked on this seems to eliminate the need for a curves layer.
A new layer and sharpen with a high pass filter as described here, http://ronbigelow.com/articles/sharpen3/sharpen3.htm
Crop if needed.
My goal is to leave the photo as close as possible with what I saw but increase the DR and put a little snap to it. There will be of course times I need to do more but I am hoping this workflow will give me "Very good" prints.

Any and all comments will be greatly appreciated.

regards,

Ken

[boku]

Blending only works if nothing moves between frames.

Assuming the obvious (you are using proper tripod technique), I will ask the other side of the question.

Maine harbors imply water. If so, water moves (as does anything floating on it) and you cannot reliably register 2 images. Is water in the scene you are attempting to blend?

[regken]

Blending only works if nothing moves between frames.

Assuming the obvious (you are using proper tripod technique), I will ask the other questions. Maine harbors imply water. If so, water moves and you cannot reliably register 2 images.
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I set the camera to bracket and get 3 exposures with the one shot.
ken

[boku]

I set the camera to bracket and get 3 exposures with the one shot.
ken
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There is a time interval between those 3 bracketed shots, thus the problem is not exacerbated.

[regken]

There is a time interval between those 3 bracketed shots, thus the problem is not exacerbated.
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Agreed. Up here the tide is so strong there is always some movement in the water. The little extra this time lag adds is very little. There will be 1/3s to 2/3s between frames. If this proves to be distracting I can mask everything but the water and us the "blend if" method to eliminate the water from one of the shots. BTW, I always use a tripod.
ken

[Andy M]

Consider HDR, notably Generating a HDRI from a single RAW file.

See: http://petemc.net/hdr-guide (about half way down)

[TimothyFarrar]

When using a tripod, movement of water, leaves, clouds and the like are not always a problem, depending on the process used to blend the frames.

Even in the worst case (like shooting a beach with waves), you can usually pull it off by adjusting the blending via Layer Masks. I've managed even when stitching blended shots, for example doing 49 shots total in low light conditions with moving clouds (all for one 3:1 stitched pano).

The trick is to do gradual blends so the movement blends together cleanly.

If you are going to try the manual blending method be carefull about blending in areas that are fully over exposed in a given frame. If you do a partial blend there, you will get a gray look to your photo in that area. Even better, erase the overexposed highlights, before doing any blending.

I've had this whole process automated (photoshop scripts) for over a year now, and I have applied the technique to hundreds of images. However I develop after blending, unlike the method in the LL article.

Feel free to download the example4.psd file from this page,

http://www.farrarfocus.com/ffdd/examples.htm

It shows the resulting layers (with hand done layermasks to deal with the motion) for an image with large dynamic range and worst case beach waves.

Give the manual blending a try, with a little work you will get some great results!

[wood]

Even if you use a tripod, there could be minor misalignments between the images, making it difficult to join them afterwards into one image.
So instead of bracketing your images on the scene by shooting multiple JPEG or TIFF images, you can shoot one RAW image instead("try with exposure -2.3 stops, you will have more control on highlight") and extract the desired detail on your computer.
 You could for instance extract one image with shadow detail and one image with highlight detail by adjusting the Exposure slider in PhotoshopCS.
Combining these images is easier because both layers will be perfectly aligned.


Wood