The Gracious Few
This is a 100-megapixel HDR panorama
The islands of La Graciosa (centre), Montaña Clara (behind) and Alegranza (horizon, mid-right) as seen from Mirador del Rio on Lanzarote.
A combination of 30 individual exposures: 10 wide x 1 high x 3 deep (dynamics).
See the full size version here and take a look around. (Edit: I had to downsize it to 50 megapixels to work in most browsers.)
Source:
Shot with a Canon EOS 550D, f2.8 17mm
Ten landscape captures across the panorama
Three exposures per capture, -2ev, 0, +2ev
Store all 30 images in RAW format
Preparation in Canon Digital Photo Pro 3.13.20:
Apply Digital Lens Optimisation (this is brilliant!)
Apply lens distortion correction (to aid stitching)
Apply prehipheral illumination correction (to reduce banding)
Apply noise reduction
Standardise white balance
Export all 30 images as 16-bit TIFFs
Tone-Mapping:
Open and merge each triple exposure set in Photomatix Pro 4.2
Apply selective de-ghosting as necessary (the people were moving)
Apply tone mapping (details enhancer) with mid-smoothing, high detail contrast, high luminosity, and low white point and black point (to preserve highlights and shadows)
Save outputs as 8-bit TIFF (I only have 8-bit image processing software, until the release of GIMP 2.10)
Stitching:
Stitch the 10 TIFFs together using Autostitch (I had problems with Hugin this time), using maximum quality settings
Manually correct stitching errors (parallax issues in foreground)
Post-processing:
Open the tone-mapped image in GIMP 2.8 (freeware)
Create masks for sky, islands, sea and foreground
Tone curve adjustments on sky (increase contrast, drop brightness to preserve highlights, lighten, increase gamma)
Graded tone-curve adjustments on everything else (raise contrast, brightness and gamma)
Tweak colour balance and saturation of all elements
Wavelet noise reduction on all layers
Soften and blend mask edges
Export as 8-bit jpg
The Gracious Few
This is a 100-megapixel HDR panorama
The islands of La Graciosa (centre), Montaña Clara (behind) and Alegranza (horizon, mid-right) as seen from Mirador del Rio on Lanzarote.
A combination of 30 individual exposures: 10 wide x 1 high x 3 deep (dynamics).
See the full size version here and take a look around. (Edit: I had to downsize it to 50 megapixels to work in most browsers.)
Source:
Shot with a Canon EOS 550D, f2.8 17mm
Ten landscape captures across the panorama
Three exposures per capture, -2ev, 0, +2ev
Store all 30 images in RAW format
Preparation in Canon Digital Photo Pro 3.13.20:
Apply Digital Lens Optimisation (this is brilliant!)
Apply lens distortion correction (to aid stitching)
Apply prehipheral illumination correction (to reduce banding)
Apply noise reduction
Standardise white balance
Export all 30 images as 16-bit TIFFs
Tone-Mapping:
Open and merge each triple exposure set in Photomatix Pro 4.2
Apply selective de-ghosting as necessary (the people were moving)
Apply tone mapping (details enhancer) with mid-smoothing, high detail contrast, high luminosity, and low white point and black point (to preserve highlights and shadows)
Save outputs as 8-bit TIFF (I only have 8-bit image processing software, until the release of GIMP 2.10)
Stitching:
Stitch the 10 TIFFs together using Autostitch (I had problems with Hugin this time), using maximum quality settings
Manually correct stitching errors (parallax issues in foreground)
Post-processing:
Open the tone-mapped image in GIMP 2.8 (freeware)
Create masks for sky, islands, sea and foreground
Tone curve adjustments on sky (increase contrast, drop brightness to preserve highlights, lighten, increase gamma)
Graded tone-curve adjustments on everything else (raise contrast, brightness and gamma)
Tweak colour balance and saturation of all elements
Wavelet noise reduction on all layers
Soften and blend mask edges
Export as 8-bit jpg