HDR Tree

One last Christmas post this year. Someone said to take some HDR bracketed shots of your Christmas Tree and it will look really good – so that is what I tried here. As usual I get carried away with my favorite filters and started adding in some things, but I did process the three bracketed images in Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 using its Dark preset. Then in Lightroom Seims PW4 (see sidebar for website link) Super HDR and his Tint Warming 81A presets were applied before opening in Photoshop. Duplicated the Background layer and opened it up Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Glow – applied my SJ GrapIII Beach preset (settings listed at bottom) – this plug-in really added to the overall tone and color of the image, then set the blend mode to Color Dodge in Photoshop and the Fill to 74%.  (Note: With Color Dodge blend mode, adjusting the Fill slider keeps the effect more pronounced than adjusting Opacity slider, which creates a more dull look). Did some clean up and applied Viveza 2 to add a slight vignette feel to the corners (could have used the Radial Filter in ACR). Next Topaz ReStyle was opened and the Dark Ecru preset was applied (these changes were done: ReStyle Opacity 73% and Texture Strength 0.44; Basic Color -0.31; Tone Black Level 0.11, Midtones -0.25, and White Level 0.08; Detail Structure -0.37 and Sharpness 0.56.). A Curves Adjustment Layer was used to add back a little contrast as the last step. It was a lot of fun to do an HDR – have not done this in a while…..Digital Lady Syd

(My SJ GrapIII Beach Topaz Glow settings: Primary Glow: Glow Type Dark, Glow Strength 0.17, Effect Sharpness 0.09, Electrify 0.23, Simplify Details 0.25, Edge Color 0.20, Detail Strength 18, Detail Size 0.24, Brightness 0.23, Contrast 0.17, Sat 0.01, Line Rotation 0.09, and Glow Spread 0.20; Secondary Glow: Glow Type Light, Glow Strength 0, Effect Sharpness 0.47, Electrify 0.17, Simplify Details 0, Brightness 0.36, and Contrast 0.62; Color Red Sat 1.00; Orange Sat 0.27; Yellow Sat 0.20 and Lightness 0.09; Aqua Sat 0.78 and Lightness -0.26; and Blue Sat 0.49; Finishing Touches: Effect Coverage 0, Smudge 0.00, Sharpness 0.25, Sharp Radius 0 and Vignette Size 0. For this image these changes were made to this preset: Changed Secondary Glow to Dark. Changed Red Sat to 0, Orange Sat to 0.79, Aqua Sat 0; and Green Hue 0.32, Sat 0.45, and Lightness -0.27.)