Settings for Vivid Drawing Look ACR/Lightroom Preset and NIK Color Efex Pro 4 Pseudo HDR Recipe

The image is from The Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. Deacon Bodie has a very colorful history and this sign locates a pub named in his honor.

The above image used SJ-Vivid Drawing Look preset as a starting point in Adobe Camera Raw (note: change file extension to .xmp in zip folder to get file to work) and Lightroom. In my Fun Photoshop Blog “Pseudo HDR Using NIK Color Efex Pro 4“, I created a recipe for NIK Color Efex Pro called SJ-Pseudo HDR1. This recipe was applied without any changes to it. Back in Photoshop a Curves Adjustment Layer was added, and a High Pass Filter (radius 9.1) applied to a duplicate layer (set to Soft Blend Mode) was used to sharpen the image. That is it. Hoover over the image to see how it looks with just the Vivid Drawing Look preset applied.

Settings for Presets

For those of you who do not like to download files or might want to tweak what I have created, here are the settings for my favorite HDR feel ACR and Lightroom preset. Also the recipe I put together for NIK Color Efex Pro4 has been provided.

SJ Vivid Drawing Look settings: To make this preset in either Lightroom Develop Panel or Adobe Camera Raw, use these settings: Basic section: Exposure -o.32, Recovery +38, Fill Light +72, Blacks +12, Brightness +52, Contrast +55, Clarity +54, Vibrance 0 and Saturation 0; Tone Curve section: Highlights -30, Lights +16, Darks +23, Shadows -23, and Point Curve Linear; Split Toning Section: Highlights – Hue 50, Saturation 11, Balance 0, Shadows – Hue 50, and Saturation 34; Sharpening section: Amount 48, Radius 1.0, Detail 35, and Masking 69; Noise Reduction section: Luminance 82, Detail 95, Contrast 44, Color 20, and Detail 50; and Post-Crop Vignetting section: Style – Highlight Priority, Amount -18; Midpoint +47, Roundness 0; Feather +57, and Highlights 0.

SJ Pseudo HDR 1:  To make this recipe, the filters and settings are as follows: Tonal Contrast (Highlights -37%; Midtones -30%; Shadows -12%; Saturation +5%; Contrast Type set to Standard; and Shadows +58%; Darken/Lighten Center (Use#2 for lighten area; Center Luminosity -10%; Border Luminosity -64%; and Center Size +30%; Place Center in image); and Detail Extractor (Detail Extractor +69%; Contrast +56%; Saturation +16%; Effect Radius – Fine; and Shadows +14%.

I hope you put these presets to good use. I think they are both good starting points to creating that great pseudo HDR effect. Have fun. Have trying these out…..Digital Lady Syd

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