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DPChallenge Forums >> Challenge Results >> March Free Study - Sunflower
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Canon EOS-5D Mark II
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM
 04/12/2007 08:33:48 PM · #1
Hi everyone,

I really want to learn more about photo editing. I have Photoshop CS2, that's it. Is it possible to do this image adjustment with that? Here is what the photographer did:


Convert from RAW at exposures: -2, -1, 0
Create HDR image
Tone Map
Neat Image
Clone out
* some leaves from another plant
* some leaves that poked out from behind the sunflower
On the centre of the sunflower
* Saturation +34
* Lightness +5
* Hue -14
Gradient fills from the left, right & top
Curves
Selective Colour: Blues: Black +50
Auto Levels
Channel Mixer: Blue: Blue +110
Contrast +19
With the flower masked out
* Levels 0, 0.84, 255
Flatten
Resize
Add Border
Neat Image
Save for web

What do the following things mean?
Convert from RAW at exposures: -2, -1, 0 (how do you convert 3 times?)
Create HDR image (what is HDR?)
Tone Map (What is a tonemap?)
Neat Image (I see this term a lot. Is this a photoshop plugin? Where can I get it for cheap or free?)

I'd really like to turn my flowers into images like this one!
Canon EOS-7D
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 L IS
 04/12/2007 09:07:00 PM · #2
Originally posted by mirdonamy:
I have Photoshop CS2, that's it. Is it possible to do this image adjustment with that?


I used Photoschop CS2 for that image so yes you can. There were a couple of other products used but we'll cover those in your next question.

Originally posted by mirdonamy:
What do the following things mean?
Convert from RAW at exposures: -2, -1, 0


I use a free package called RawShooterEssentials to take the RAW file from the camera (you need to shoot in RAW mode for this, not jpeg). In this you can adjust some settings such as the exposure of the image. I adjusted the exposure in the above increments and at each step generated a file (in my case I use 16-bit TIFF files). We thus get different exposures of the one image.

Originally posted by mirdonamy:
Create HDR image (what is HDR?)


HDR=High Dynamic Range. It's the process of combining the files of the different exposures and gaining a higher range of tonal values than you can in a single exposure. The result looks funny but we sort that out in a moment. For this process you need to buy software such as Photomatix. The Adjustments>Shadow/Hilight option in Photoshop does a similar job to this process (and the next one) if you dont' have Photomatix.

Originally posted by mirdonamy:
Tone Map (What is a tonemap?)


Tone Mapping is the next step in the process and it invovles taking your 16-bit image and mapping it such that we can display it in 8-bits. This brings the funny looking HDR image back to something closer to normal. Photomatix does this bit too.

Originally posted by mirdonamy:
Neat Image (I see this term a lot. Is this a photoshop plugin? Where can I get it for cheap or free?)


Neat Image is a plugin for photoshop that reduces noise in an image. When creating HDR images like this from a single shot you will get noise added to some degree. Noise Ninja is another noise reduction plugin that you will see mentioned a lot on DPC.

Originally posted by mirdonamy:
I'd really like to turn my flowers into images like this one!


On a final note I'd say that in the end I don't know if the HDR process was really needed on this image. Certainly exposing the shot correctly at the time would have made the biggest difference.

The two photoshop skills I have learnt that helped the most on this image are
1. the healing brush to close objects out
2. layer masking

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