Persistence Pays Off for Jay

Jay Recently attended the Blue Ridge Photofest 2012 in Boone and, “Was inspired by the weekend of photography and excellent instruction.” Those attending gathered at Moses Cone Park on a Friday afternoon hoping for a chance to capture a spectacular sunset but as often happens when something like this is planned in advance, it just didn’t happen. On the following Sunday, Jay returned and above is the colorful result of the second attempt. He used a tripod and cable release and carefully composed the scene, taking a series of 3 shots, 2 stops above and 2 below plus the indicated exposure. The 2 stop underexposure provided the best sky so Jay chose this one to process in Lightroom. Looking at the original, which is posted below, only the very brave would have attempted to bring out the foreground but he took the plunge. Relying mainly of the shadow and highlight sliders, he managed to create the final image which is both a tribute to Lightroom’s processing capability using a RAW file and Jay’s skill and tenacity.The standard approach to bracketed images is to combine and process the various images as an HDR (High Dynamic Range) and the photo below is the result of processing in Photomatix Pro, a software designed for exactly this purpose. It has the advantage of reducing the noise which is the result of attempting to recover detail and color from such an extreme underexposure and perhaps gives a more realistic photo of the sunset but perhaps not as “artistic” as envisioned by the photographer.