If you’re just finding my blog – You don’t want to miss the entire HDR Workflow series that is right here on Nuwomb Creative. Check out the launch posting that links to all the steps in the tutorial.  I couldn’t make this list without linking back to the start of my own series.

Other HDR Tutorials all over the Internet

Now this is the meat of this Bonus part to the Workflow.  It’s important that we never stop learning!  These are some awesome and intense tutorials that I have come across around the interweb.  They are pretty detailed and if you’re interested in improving or learning HDR photography, you must check out some, most, or all of these!  They provide different perspectives on processing and little tips that I couldn’t mention or forgot or simply don’t do.  I love learning how other people work and they all so that this isn’t just about a program doing all the work.  It does show you that we’re all capable of doing this kind of work; however, excelling is due to your passion for it.  I’ll give a brief commentary about the site.

Stuck in Customs – HDR Tutorial

This is a really detailed tutorial by Trey Ratcliff.  Stumbling upon his blog a few years ago was eye opening.  I wanted to create these types of images because I felt I was seeing things in photography the way I saw them in real life.  Everything was more vivid and nostalgic.  I think this is the best tutorial on the Internet.  Interesting thing was that I didn’t understand “Masking” when I first read it.  I would try and try with no luck in understanding.  One day it suddenly came to me.   What a new world it was when that opened up in my understanding.  Don’t miss this How-To in HDR. He is one of the most open people on the net today about how he creates his images.  I have the most respect for this guy and I can’t wait to shoot with him on a trip one day.

The Windy Pixel – HDR Tutorial

In the tutorial, the windy pixel uses an image that is from very early morning as night becomes morning.  It’s important to see how he manipulates it with HDR to get a much more dramatic feel that inspires me to get out of bed these days.  It won’t take long to read so brush up on this perspective of HDR photography.

Before the Coffee – Photomatix Pro Tutorial

Nicely Explained Photomatix Tutorial. It helps with understanding the inner workings of Photomatix.  The screenshots are outdated because Photomatix has gone through multiple software updates; however, the information is totally relevant and you might want to check it out to see what Photomatix used to look like back in the day.

Gizmodo – Create Stunningly Realistic High Dynamic Range Photographs

I loved this one because of the tutorial is showing you how to work with HDR in a realistic approach.  While you might only like this type of HDR processing, or you think you might need to tone down your editing – Check this out.  Image used is rather awesome itself.   I love learning little bits of information for different tutorials.

Vanilla Days – Create ‘High Dynamic Range images using Photomatix

Nice overview and introduction to bits of HDR.  It helps to build on our overall knowledge of the HDR Technique.  Some really inspirational sample photos at the start of the tutorial! Awesome.

Photoshop Cafe HDR Tutorial

This is pretty rad if you’re looking to try creating an HDR image in Photoshop CS3 rather than in Photomatix. 100% done in Photoshop.

Photography Blog – How to Create High Dynamic Range Photos

This is pretty good.  The images used are from the Chromasia HDR Tutorial.  I am going to link to that down below.  This does look like it is a different HDR Tutorial and should give you may learn some interesting tips.

Abduzeedo – How to Crate HDR Photos – HDR/Photomatix Tutorial

This is about shooting HDR with any camera and proper HDR software.  I love it because it’s true. Anyone can do this type of work and and it’s got some nice screenshots that will help if you only have a point and shoot camera with manual capabilities.  If you arn’t familiar with Exposure Value – it’s probably worth while looking because you could learn something that could help your photography all around.

Squidoo Advanced HDR Techniques

This is seriously awesome.  It is pretty advanced for sure because you’re fixing that ghosting that occurs when people are in the image and moving.  Also, you may get movement in your photos due to vehicles on the roads.  This kind of tutorial can clean it up and make it a bit more interesting. You can get the HDR feel but a more realistic look to people.  I am a huge fan of that because I am not into tonemapped people.

Second Picture – HDR Tutorial

This is awesome because it has a lot of information around HDR knowledge and processing.  It’s got information for creating HDR in Photoshop and Photomatix. I believe this is a must read if you’re interested in HDR Photography.

Chromasia – HDR Tutorials and Photoshop Tutorials

I am going to do a full posting soon about Chromasia because it’s simply amazing.  But for right now, there are 3 parts to the HDR tutorials and they are so detailed that you’re going to improve.  If you want to create the best HDR….check it out.

18 More HDR Tutorials on Specboy

Awesomely huge list that I came across when trying to research for this bonus HDR post. There are actually 19 links to other tutorials here, but 1 is overlapped [Stuck in Customs].  I could not exclude that one in my list because it’s what seriously turned me on to HDR Photography.   This is some reading and browsing but it’s totally well worth the time to improve our photography.  It also includes a few Video HDR Tutorials. WOot!!!!!

This part of the HDR Photography Workflow series is mainly image heavy.  It consists of a lot of screenshot that will hopefully describe what I’ve done within Photoshop.  I am not a photoshop professional and I have never taken any formal training on the software.  I hope you have atleast a bit of experience with the program. If not feel free to ask questions if you need a bit more information. I like Photoshop because it is what I am comfortable with today. I am not used to making major adjustments in Lightroom or other programs at this point.  Maybe in the future.  Use whatever software you want or have.  The main idea behind this step is that your image can have a life after tone mapping in Photomatix. Most people may think that it ends at Photomatix and then you post it online or do whatever.  You can further tweak your photograph!

In the first 2 photos below, I am just simply adjusting the levels.  Photomatix leaves the photograph a bit flat, and that’s partly my fault because I didn’t want to change the black and white points too much. I do it here instead. To get to here, I selected the adjustment layer option in the layers window and chose levels.  I got the little pop up box that you see over top of the picture.  I moved the arrows in closer to where they start at the histogram.  I think of it as starting at the bottom of the mountain instead of in the water.  Kind of weird but whatever eh.  The blacks in the image start to show a bit better and it ads some contrast.

Next, I Merge the 2 layers – Hold shift and drag the sky layer on top of the layer for the building [left image below] and Invert the mask [right image below] so that you can then paint with white to reveal the sky layer.

Starting to paint with white over the sky at 100% opacity.  So you just have to select the brush tool to do this part.  Sometimes you have to adjust the brush size and hardness.  I am painting at 100% because I can adjust the opacity of the layer if I want later.  Below is part of the sky  painted on the left and a picture of the bit of change in the mask.  Hopefully you feel the same way as me: It looks better under there.

Get in Close for the tighter areas.  This is where you’ll want to change the size of the brush and zoom in.  It looks a bit weird but your looking at maybe 300% zoom here.  It’s just to clean in here and then you can zoom out and it should look pretty good!

Painted fully – You can see the image is looking better [I hope you're still with me anyways] and on the right hand side you can see the mask and the white area is the painted sky.

What I will end up doing next is merging the layers so that I have one layer again.  I usually like to atleast check out Nik Color Efex [A filter plugin for Photoshop] to see what I can fix up.  In this case I noticed a green hue to the image and I wanted to lose that. So I thought of the “Remove Color Cast” in Nik Color Efex.  Below is an image of me going to the filter setting to select the Nik Plugin. Removing the Cast could be done with other settings however, I like the realtime view and easy adjustment in Color Efex.  Before going into Color Efex, I create a duplicate layer copy so that I can create another mask if I want.

So once into Color Efex, it looks like the image below. It’s pretty cool all the options you have within it.  On the right hand side you can see that I have the option to remove the color cast.  I moved the slighter to the green section because that is what I felt was weird about the image and as much as I like green…It wasn’t there that day.  It has a 100% preview window in the bottom corner as well! Check that out because you can see the before and after there.

Now what? Well, I seem to want to tweek the color a little further.  In the white, and part of the sky, I feel as if there is a bit of magenta coming in.  I decided to go for an adjustment layer – Hue/Satuation.  I made the following setting changes and I felt a bit better about the overall change.

The next image is the final result that I am feeling good about now.  The only final thing I did before coming to this image is cloning.  I cloned a little bit of the top right corner. I tried to make the corner a little less dark. Oh, I also cloned a few spots within the water that my eyes found distracting.  This is something you would never notice in person as you view the entire scene.

I tried to find a balance in the image.  The top image is totally aggressive and I couldn’t have left it like that.  I like this final image because, inside me, it feels good. I do want to take this image into software now to reduce some of the noise though.  It will improve it a little bit further.  This section really was a lot of screen shots.  I tried to just edit it and screenshot the steps I was doing.  I’ve never done a tutorial like this so it’s definitely a learning experience.  Feel free to make comments or ask questions in the comments.

Now that we’ve edited the photograph to our liking we’ve got an optional step:

Turn down the noise in the image…