Unfortunately, very few of my sunset pictures I took tonight turned out...too many burned out highlights. Oh well. Maybe I should look into blending multiple exposures. Thanks for looking. Comments and critiques welcome.
Posted by Grant Collier on January 23, 2009 at 1:13 AM
I'm not sure if you'd need to blend exposures. I think you could just make sure and not clip the highlights and, if necessary, let the mountains in the foregroud go completely dark and act as a silhoutte, as I don't think you really need detail there. Also, you might try the highlight recovery sliders in Lightroom or ACR if you haven't already done so.
Hi Justin: I went out and took some too, you could tell it was going to be a great sunset...though it didn't last very long. I took one from a ridge in Parker, so much further away. It was very pastel from my point of view. That upper sky is amazing in yours!
Thanks for the suggestions...I use Photoshop CS2 and I don't think it has highlight recovery. I usually shoot sunsets the way you suggest, but I thought when I looked at the images in the LCD last night that I wasn't blowing out the highlights as bad as I actually did. Oh well, I'll stick to what works next time. Thanks again for looking and commenting.
I'll love anticipating a good sunset...it's almost like a game to me. Having to setup, framing, exposure, all of it. It's great. Maybe that's dumb. Post some of yours from last night!
Posted by Grant Collier on January 23, 2009 at 1:33 PM
Hey Justin,
Yes, the version of ACR that comes with CS2 doesn't have highlight recovery. You could always do a 30-day trial of CS4 and use that on any images with blown highlights. If you're shooting RAW, you can bring back a lot of detail that you wouldn't expect to be there.
Posted by John Mumaw on January 23, 2009 at 6:54 PM
I thought when I looked at the images in the LCD last night that I wasn't blowing out the highlights as bad as I actually did.
This is a good reason to set your camera up so the thumbnail you see in the LCD preview includes the histogram.
Posted by Ken Wyatt on January 24, 2009 at 12:28 AM
Hi Jason,
Here's some hints for the next sunset. These may, or may not, have applied in your case. First, make sure your white balance is switched off of AUTO. Many cameras think a sunset is really incandescent lighting and try to compensate, leading to a washed out picture. Second, set the camera to MANUAL exposure and keep an eye on the histogram to make sure you're not overexposing the highlights. The issue here (especially if you're set to "matrix" or "evaluative" metering) is that the dark foreground tends to fool the camera into overexposing the image. This is especially an issue if you move the camera slightly, because it can easily lead to very mixed results - some OK, some not - which only serves to confuse things more. An alternative - a technique we used to use in the film days - was to set the camera for MANUAL and spot meter off the highlights and overexpose by a stop - recompose and shoot. Hope this helps!
Discussion
8 repliesThanks for the suggestions...I use Photoshop CS2 and I don't think it has highlight recovery. I usually shoot sunsets the way you suggest, but I thought when I looked at the images in the LCD last night that I wasn't blowing out the highlights as bad as I actually did. Oh well, I'll stick to what works next time. Thanks again for looking and commenting.
I'll love anticipating a good sunset...it's almost like a game to me. Having to setup, framing, exposure, all of it. It's great. Maybe that's dumb. Post some of yours from last night!
Yes, the version of ACR that comes with CS2 doesn't have highlight recovery. You could always do a 30-day trial of CS4 and use that on any images with blown highlights. If you're shooting RAW, you can bring back a lot of detail that you wouldn't expect to be there.
This is a good reason to set your camera up so the thumbnail you see in the LCD preview includes the histogram.
Here's some hints for the next sunset. These may, or may not, have applied in your case. First, make sure your white balance is switched off of AUTO. Many cameras think a sunset is really incandescent lighting and try to compensate, leading to a washed out picture. Second, set the camera to MANUAL exposure and keep an eye on the histogram to make sure you're not overexposing the highlights. The issue here (especially if you're set to "matrix" or "evaluative" metering) is that the dark foreground tends to fool the camera into overexposing the image. This is especially an issue if you move the camera slightly, because it can easily lead to very mixed results - some OK, some not - which only serves to confuse things more. An alternative - a technique we used to use in the film days - was to set the camera for MANUAL and spot meter off the highlights and overexpose by a stop - recompose and shoot. Hope this helps!
Ken
It's Justin