Severe Exposure Edit 3: Single File, Adjusted in Lightroom

Man that is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

very very beautiful

this is very amazing

Yes, the color palette varies and I guess is a personal pref issue. Probably you could make the colors a lot more similar if you wanted to so perhaps that is not a crux issue here. I agree that the sky color is nicest in the last single file; I like the batch for most of the rest of the image. One thing about the single file is the water surface detail is retained, which I like. I don't detect any masking or other boundary artifacts in any of them and they all work for me. Thanks for sharing the process.

Stunning!! 😀

it looks so natural, love it!

que lindo paisaje es soñado

wow

+Shane Stenhjem I tend to agree with +R. Brooke Fox on these, liking the blue sky and the overall result of the single file edit, but I like the Batch/Average for much of the shadow/tree detail.  In concept I could merge the two, but I forgot to apply a lens correction to the averaged files before I merged them, and strangely, the lens I used was not in the list presented for the TIF file, so I corrected for a 17-40mm lens with that one and the actual 16-35mm lens for the single file edit, so in practice I'd have to redo one from scratch to combine them.  I tend to leave edits in a "good enough" state until I get a commercial inquiry, then I'll present the choice of the version they liked and often one I've re-done from scratch at that time.  That way I don't waste time on images which have no immediate revenue potential (that time can be productively used shooting new images or organizing a photo workshop), yet I can use the very latest tools and techniques at my disposal to put my best foot forward as my images go out the door.

The coolest thing about the single file edit is that it started out almost black-looking in the shadows, yet the information was there once I went looking for it and aggressively pulling it back out.  Four years ago sensor dynamic range and post-processing tools wouldn't have allowed that.  Since everything was done in one program, Lightroom, I can then copy those Develop settings and apply them to a few dozen similarly-exposed images from the same sunset.  A few minor exposure and content-specific adjustments later, and I just saved myself hours of work going through a complicated process on multiple files in multiple programs!  I can focus instead on the subject, which compositions and sky (and water) conditions had the most impact, and whether and how to best crop them.  It's nice to be able to get my head out of software and tools and back into the point of the matter: the subject!

I've seen this sort of trade-off repeated over the years, and as sensors gain more dynamic range and as post-processing tools improve, my opportunity and ability to simply use a single exposure expands.  I'm probably at close to 95% single exposures now, with the last 5% in some "other" category usually involving Photomatix, but perhaps only half of that actually involving what most people would consider typical "HDR" processing.  

If HDR salvages 1 out of 30 potential results that's a useful productivity tool, but I certainly wouldn't pitch it as the cornerstone of a post-processing strategy (as many people seem to).  I prefer to remain agnostic on tools and use whatever works, and I think that helps me avoid painting myself into a corner as a "one-trick pony"  in a stylistically extreme niche.  Others may take their own path; to each his own.

That's the Averaged one Roma.  It does make the colorful aspen trees stand out more, and it has better sunset color in the clouds in the center, so best for the key subject points in the photo.  

I think that a center crop of that image might be particularly good (and its nice to have a little extra room for what gets lost with printing and mats, or wrapping around the frame of a gallery wrap).

Thanks for the album view and the analysis. I had recently said I was going to bracket almost always. Must re-think. It looks like your fav was processed not surprisingly from a -2 EV exposure. As a default in situations with blow out or near blow out potential, would that be what you might recommend? I have only been shooting -.67. I must get much better acquaininted with using LR for serious editing, rather than relying almost exclusively on PS itself. Thanks also for the album share, most enjoyable.

I nearly always still bracket exposures for a few simple reasons +R. Brooke Fox:
– The most underexposed image is the best one to go with whenever possible, for the reasons you mentioned.
– Noise often makes the most under-exposed image impossible or undesirable to use, as in this case (I used the second darkest out of 5).
– Storage is cheap. Even the gas to return to a spot and re-shoot it is expensive, but individual moments are priceless and irreplaceable, so it's best to drive your success rate up as close to 100% as you can, in any way possible.
– The old value of getting a shot in one exposure made sense back in the film days when each frame cost $1-2.  Those days are gone for most of us. Now capturing enough exposures to have the option to increase dynamic range has more relevance.  Few people think about or discuss it, but a photographer's thought process and approach (you could even say their values relating to photography) must change to make the most effective use of digital photography!  
– Future-proofing: Whatever our results today, like Ansel Adams, we may return to our images years or decades later and re-process and re-interpret them.  Who knows what technologies will come along in 5 or 10 or 20 years to use the extra information contained in the extra exposures?

Some people say that pride is a sin.  In digital photography, the now antiquated and misplaced notion of taking pride in getting an image in one exposure, at the very least, adds unnecessary risk which will tend to minimize successful results.  Of course if someone doesn't take the extra exposures, or isn't in the habit of developing the necessary experience and skill to post-process single or multiple, they'll never know what they're missing.  I could have looked at the single, worthless-looking exposures, produced the better (but to many people garish or even nauseating) HDR, and left it at that.  but fortunately I had two more options at my disposal, the extra exposures to try them both, and even a second dark single exposure when the darkest one ended up being too noisy.  Pre-judging any one approach as "better" could have cut off those options.  

I propose that you can often only know the best processing option in hindsight, and that implies that you can only know the optimal exposure choices in hindsight as well!  I don't have to worry about it much while shooting, nor do I care which approach turns out better.  I just want to get the job done, with the best result and the least time and effort.

So if -2 is the second darkest of 5, your likely exposures are -4,-2,0,2,4. My little T2i only allows me 3; another good reason to expand my brackets. Many thanks for taking the time to expostulate, and to clarify that although you ended up preferring the one exposure it could have gone another way and you had the five to choose from at any rate.

gud looks

Something about this Lightroom stuff that makes photos look fake.
When I look at this photo for instance, there appears to be more than one Sun, the lighting's that impossible.

+Jeff –  I made my apparently wrong deduction based on the photo details which said the single image was shot at -2EV. No matter – Thanks for the clarification and further thoughts. RE: Jeff's comment to Mr.Snowdon: Likely one of the reasons the pic doesn't match the eye view is that the eye is constantly adjusting 'exposure' as it roves, while the single, unprocessed picture is fixed.

Thanks so much for sharing these. This one's my favorite of teh three, and it seems to me that the lesson learned is that it's easier to fix overexposures than underexposures (as those bring out noise when adjusted), so when going with a single exposure, I usually pick the lighter one. Thanks, Jeff, very informative!

Its very goog