Home > Blog > November 20, 2013 – Sea Stack Sunset at Cannon Beach, Oregon, and the Photoshop Realistic HDR Technique
November 20, 2013
Sea Stack Sunset at Cannon Beach, Oregon, and the Photoshop Realistic HDR Technique
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Sea Stack Sunset
Cannon Beach, Oregon, USA
Canon EOS 1D X; 24 TS II; 2-stop hard grad ND; 1/15, 1/8, & 1/4 sec; f8; ISO 100
Image taken on November 19, 2013.
Photoshop Realistic HDR Technique
I tried to process this image using the Lightroom HDR technique, but by mistake I saved the 32-bit merged file as a PSD instead of a TIFF. Lightroom 5 complained that it couldn't read the 32-bit file, so I thought there must be something wrong with Lightroom 5. Because I really wanted to use Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) to do the realistic HDR, I created this Photoshop Realistic HDR Technique.- In Bridge, select the bracketed photo series RAW files, or already-processed TIFF files, then select Tools > Photoshop > Merge to HDR Pro…
- Wait for the images to load into Photoshop CC
- Click the "Remove ghosts" box, set the Mode to "32 Bit" and check the "Complete Toning in Adobe Camera Raw" box, then click the "Tone in ACR" button
- Wait for Photoshop CC to create the 32-bit file and launch the ACR window
- Use the Exposure, Highlights, and Shadows sliders to develop the file w/o worrying about the typical HDR tone mapping controls
- Click "OK" to create the 32-bit file in Photoshop CC
- Convert it to a 16-bit file to continue processing:
- Select Layer > Flatten Image
- Make sure that the default color space is correct (for example, RGB is set to "ProPhoto RGB") by selecting Edit > Color Settings…
- Select Image > Mode > 16 Bits/Channel…
- Set the Preset to "Flat"
- Click "OK"
- Continue to process the 16-bit image as usual in Photoshop CC
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