Monday, October 25, 2010

The Ruins #3, Tower Grove Park, Infrared HDR Test


The Ruins fountain in Tower Grove Park is a favorite backdrop for many a portrait made in St. Louis.  This picture is made of only two shots, one stop apart, using a Cokin P007 Infrared filter.  I used as slightly different workflow that I think will become standard for me.  This final monochrome was made in Nik Silver Efex Pro using my "Leica I" preset, then toned in Lightroom 3.


This is the lighter of the two exposures, straight from the camera.  The processing change was to make the custom color adjustment on both images before HDR processing.


This is the output from Nik HDR Efex.  The color is about the same as the adjusted files going in, so the tone mapping was applied only to detail and exposure.


The next step comes in Photoshop CS5 to swap red and blue channels and tweak levels slightly.  This really looks like an Infrared Ektachrome slide.

I always take an unfiltered reference shot as part of the infrared workflow. 


Lens: Nikkor AF 24-85mm f2.8-4 IF 
Camera: Nikon D100
Exposure: ISO 200, two brackets around 50mm @ f/16 @ 0.5s, Cokin P007 filter, Auto WB, tripod, RAW
Lighting: Daylight
Location: Tower Grove Park, St. Louis GPS
Dates: Capture - October 5, 2008, Processing - October 23, 2010
Processing: Lightroom 3, Nik HDR Efex, Nik Silver Efex Pro, Photoshop CS5

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