While looking for some waterfalls or cascades to photograph today, I stumbled across this new and very scenic heritage park in Cumberland, just over the line from Central Falls. The park is tiny, but it winds down to the Blackstone River and crosses the historic Blackstone Canal several times before ending up at this small waterfall just beneath the stone bridge that marks the city boundary. It's unfortunate that the entire path is fenced in, so there is no way to get down to the water level. At least, not on this side of the river, and the opposite side is private property.
This photo is an HDR composite of 10 photos across a 9-stop exposure range. Those photos were merged in Photomatix Pro, tone-mapped, and then saved as a 16-BIT Tiff. The Tiff was then brought into PSE and the mode reset to 8-BIT for layer support. A classic filter was applied in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted color sensitivity sliders, adaptive exposure, regions, boost black, protect highlights, contrast, and details. That layer was duplicated in PSE and a high pass filter applied with a 3-pixel radius and soft light blend mode at 100% opacity. I applied a levels adjustment and a sepia photo filter as the top layer.
Really nice spot, but even better processing. I really like that it doesn't look "HDR". I'm surprised the water doesn't look more blurred with that many exposures.
@aponi Thanks, Kathryn. It was a tough call in this case because the color image was also interesting. We're starting to get fall colors here, and I was torn between showing the yellows in the foreground trees and doing it as a b&w. In the end, the b&w won, but only because it's my preferred media.
@tigerdreamer Thanks, Karen. I really don't care for HDR that looks unrealistic. Even the color image of this shot had a natural feel to it. Regarding the water, one of the functions available in Photomatix Pro is to remove "ghosting" when the photos are merged and aligned. That does a good job of eliminating the blur that would normally occur when the water (and even the leaves) move between exposures.
September 29th, 2013
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it makes it very crisp
@tigerdreamer Thanks, Karen. I really don't care for HDR that looks unrealistic. Even the color image of this shot had a natural feel to it. Regarding the water, one of the functions available in Photomatix Pro is to remove "ghosting" when the photos are merged and aligned. That does a good job of eliminating the blur that would normally occur when the water (and even the leaves) move between exposures.