I have seen some wonderful images recently done with blending. What is your preference (at least with digital camera)?
I've tried few using photoshop but very few turn out good. I recently lost my GNDs and need to replace them. Is 'photomatrix' a good investment compared to 2/3 SR GNDs?
PS: I did try photomatrix last year but found the results were 'very HDR like'.
I have GNDs, but mostly for use with my large format gear. When shooting digital, I almost always resort to blending as it's a much more controlled operation. GNDs obviously give you a straight grad line to work with. With mountain scenes, this often creates problems, even with the higher end soft grads (I use Singh-Rays). PS work can mitigate those effects, but it's easier - for me at least - to skip the grads and take multiple exposures for blending. The results that I've gotten are much more natural looking than with grads.
If I can use grads without worrying much about visible grad lines, I will just to save the PS time spent blending.
I struggled to get good results when I first started using PS to blend, but once you get the hang of it, the process yields many benefits. Jesse Speer has a good tutorial on his site that helped me up the learning curve.
Posted by Bill Chambers on April 22, 2007 at 9:37 AM
Prashant - I still use both methods, but find myself using blending or double processing more and more, especially in situations where GND's sometimes struggle. For my beach images that have hard horizons I still prefer GND's because they're easy, but for scenes with uneven horizons, lots of trees, etc. blending or double processing seems to be the way to go, depending on the circumstance.
Prashant, in theory, both would achieve the same results. However there is always the misalignment of pixels when using double blending, and this problem only gets worse as the pixel density of the cameras keeps increasing.
So I think both are preferred - depending on the situation, and the size of the prints. I believe having just two GNDs - a 3-stop hard step and a 2-stop hard step should be good enough.
Posted by Tom Webster on April 22, 2007 at 1:56 PM
I sold all of my GND filters and work purely in Photoshop or Photomatix when I do shoot landscapes. Good riddance to my old GND filters!
I know this is not answering your question, but my answer is 'you need both' if you are going to make the most of all of your forays into the field.
I still use grads on many of my images and find them invaluable when there is any movement in the field of view, such as clouds or water, which are usually pretty integral elements of a 'dynamic' landscape. Trying to shoot two exposures and blend them when there is movement across the blend line just doesn't work well.
I have learned to overcome the 'grad line' phenomenon by hand holding a hard stop grad over the front of the lens and moving it up and down slightly over a longer exposure. After a little experimentation, you'll be able to tell how much movement is required for each type of scene. And the result is very different from the use of a soft line grad- these lines are so wide and diffuse that I only use these in rare circumstances where the light intensity gradient is very gradual across an image. Slight movement of a hard grad gives you a result you can't achieve with a static grad or blending in photoshop. You should experiment with this sometime. This technique has revolutionized my photography. Even after shooting a scene with a grad, I'll fine tune the grad line in photoshop, but the results are usually much more precise and natural appearing and I don't run into the 'muddy color/noisy/halo' lines that I see in images that were only blended in PS or only shot with a static hard grad. It's amazing how a little hand movement of the grad can even out the light across the narrowest slice of an image. It takes a bit of practice, but I'll bet you'll like the results. If you think about how much time you spend in the field trying to get just the right image and the amount of time it takes to 'fix' an image in PS, I believe a set 2 hard stop grads (and maybe a 3 stop reverse grad if you shoot ocean scenes) are well worth the investment to get the images right out of the box
Discussion
6 repliesI've tried few using photoshop but very few turn out good. I recently lost my GNDs and need to replace them. Is 'photomatrix' a good investment compared to 2/3 SR GNDs?
PS: I did try photomatrix last year but found the results were 'very HDR like'.
I have GNDs, but mostly for use with my large format gear. When shooting digital, I almost always resort to blending as it's a much more controlled operation. GNDs obviously give you a straight grad line to work with. With mountain scenes, this often creates problems, even with the higher end soft grads (I use Singh-Rays). PS work can mitigate those effects, but it's easier - for me at least - to skip the grads and take multiple exposures for blending. The results that I've gotten are much more natural looking than with grads.
If I can use grads without worrying much about visible grad lines, I will just to save the PS time spent blending.
I struggled to get good results when I first started using PS to blend, but once you get the hang of it, the process yields many benefits. Jesse Speer has a good tutorial on his site that helped me up the learning curve.
So I think both are preferred - depending on the situation, and the size of the prints. I believe having just two GNDs - a 3-stop hard step and a 2-stop hard step should be good enough.
I know this is not answering your question, but my answer is 'you need both' if you are going to make the most of all of your forays into the field.
I still use grads on many of my images and find them invaluable when there is any movement in the field of view, such as clouds or water, which are usually pretty integral elements of a 'dynamic' landscape. Trying to shoot two exposures and blend them when there is movement across the blend line just doesn't work well.
I have learned to overcome the 'grad line' phenomenon by hand holding a hard stop grad over the front of the lens and moving it up and down slightly over a longer exposure. After a little experimentation, you'll be able to tell how much movement is required for each type of scene. And the result is very different from the use of a soft line grad- these lines are so wide and diffuse that I only use these in rare circumstances where the light intensity gradient is very gradual across an image. Slight movement of a hard grad gives you a result you can't achieve with a static grad or blending in photoshop. You should experiment with this sometime. This technique has revolutionized my photography. Even after shooting a scene with a grad, I'll fine tune the grad line in photoshop, but the results are usually much more precise and natural appearing and I don't run into the 'muddy color/noisy/halo' lines that I see in images that were only blended in PS or only shot with a static hard grad. It's amazing how a little hand movement of the grad can even out the light across the narrowest slice of an image. It takes a bit of practice, but I'll bet you'll like the results. If you think about how much time you spend in the field trying to get just the right image and the amount of time it takes to 'fix' an image in PS, I believe a set 2 hard stop grads (and maybe a 3 stop reverse grad if you shoot ocean scenes) are well worth the investment to get the images right out of the box
-Mike.
Mike, thanks for the detailed answer. I've placed an order for GNDs.