Another Monday, another process post for you. Today I will show you how this star trails photo was edited. So let’s get started.

Finished photo

One from the original exposures

Of course here I used a lot of photos. 80 in total here. All with same settings and all loaded in Lightroom to start with. There I did few tweaks, mostly white balance correction, removed noise and chromatic aberrations, and exported everything into Photoshop. Normally for star trails, is enough to set every layer (except the background one) to the lighten blend mode and thats it. But since there were few clouds in the sky, that crossed in front of the camera while I was taking the photos, I first masked them out on every photo that they were visible. Luckily, it affected only about 15 photos, so it was not so much work :)

Lightroom edit

All exposures

Then I merged all the images, as Photoshop worked very slowly with so many layers opened. After that I continued with the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):
1. the merged copy with the star trails
2. one of the original exposures, to mask in the trees, as they were too bright after the star trail merging. Also they were moving between the exposures and I wanted to remove ghosting.
3. adjustment to the layer beneath, to add contrast and brightness
4. added saturation to the photo
5. retouched out few branches that didn’t fit
6. sharpened the star trails using the High-pass filter method
7. added overall contrast

After that I cropped the photo, to have it more focused on the sky.

And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here:

There are so many different cameras and so many modes one can set on them. But not many of those are on each camera and even less are useful for HDR. So today, I will look at those main one (or I should say, the one you should use) and how they work together with HDR. All other modes, the ones I don’t mention here, like night photo, scenery, portrait and so on, are really only for people not interested in photography, as using the basic modes, will give you much better control and results than those.

Program mode – P

I would call this beginner mode. As each photo setup consist from the aperture, shutter speed and ISO setting, this one sets two of those for you. The only one you can change is ISO. As I said, it’s great for beginners and for snapshots. One should leave this mode as soon as possible. This mode is not at all suitable for HDR bracketing, as it will change the apperture in between shots, and so change the DOF (depth of field). You will not be able to blend photos like that, as parts that are sharp in one exposure, can be completely out of focus in another one.

Shutter priority – Tv (S)

Shutter priority has a little more specialized use that the other modes. From the three settings you set up two, ISO and shutter speed. This is useful when you want to archive a particular length for your exposure. For instance you want to freeze the action, so you use a short exposure. Or you want a nice soft water, so you use a long one. The camera always adjust the apperture automatically, so you get the exposure time you need (be careful, as the camera may adjust to the closes available, as there is not such a huge variation in apertures as in shutter speeds). This mode is not usable for HDR, as again, the aperture is changes, and so the DOF.

Aperture priority – Av (A)

Next one, Aperture priority, is an opposite to the Shutter priority. Here you can change the Aperture and ISO, and the camera adjust the shutter speed for you. This is probably the most useful mode in photography in general and also in HDR. As the aperture never changes, the DOF stays the same for all exposures and you can use the Automatic exposure bracketing in the camera, to get an exposure series automatically. It’s also great for hand-held shots, as you can set up a bigger aperture and so shorten the exposure lengths. If handheld you can also turn on auto-ISO, as that when combined with exposure bracketing, will bump up the ISO instead of taking a longer exposure ans so give you a better chance for a sharp photo.

Manual mode – M

As the name already suggests, here you set up all three values, the shutter speed, the aperture and also ISO. This mode give the most control, but also requires a little more time to set up a shot. One can use the Manual mode for HDR series, but only when setting every shot manually, or using a separate way to take the photo. Here I mean ways like using a promote or Magic lantern firmware. If you are only using the internal exposure bracketing, the manual mode is not the best, and you are better off with Aperture priority.

So what to take from this? If you are begging in Photography, go for Program mode, but try to move to Aperture priority as soon as possible. If you are starting with HDR, go for Aperture priority and if you are trying to get more control and use advanced tools, go for Manual mode every time :)

I hope you all had a great start into the new week, and as almost each Monday, let’s look at one of my photos, and how it was edited. For today, I have for you this blue hour shot, from the Kuchajda lake in Bratislava.

As you can the photo was quite OK already from the start, it just needed to brighten the shadows and get a little more color into it.

Finished photo

Original photo

I started with 5 exposures in Lightroom, where I only did the basic tweaks. I removed lens distortions and chromatic aberations. Then I exported all the file as 16-bit Tiff files and continued in Oloneo Photoengine.

All exposures

Lightroom tweaks

There I just changed the strength and contrast and saved the result. I loaded all the exposures and Photoengine result into Photoshop and did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):
1. Oloneo Photoengine result
2. +2EV exposure, from which I brightened the middle part
3. Color effex pro contrast on the whole image, but toned down a little on the sky, as it created a shadow on the top part.
4+5. Added glow to the photo.
6. Color balance on the middle part to make it warmer.
7. Added contrast to the bottom part of the image.
8. High pass sharpening to add detail to the photo.
9. +2EV exposure again from which I manually blended the light stars around lights.
10. A little more contrast in few areas, especially on the buildings

Photoengine tonemapping

Photoshop edit

And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here:

Around two months ago I posted a review of the LG 34UM95 ultra-wide monitor, and today I share with you some of my observations after two months of using it.

Issues

Let’s first look at the two problems I noticed right at start. The shaking stand and the back-light bleed. Of course both are still there after two months. But none of them are a deal breaker.

The shaking is there only when I type. I type quiet fast and that can create quite a lot of shaking. Other than that, I have seen none, either when editing or playing games.

The back-light bleed is exactly the same as it was in the beginning, but I’m not sure if I got used to it, or I just ignore it. I almost never notice it. I really thought it would be a bigger problem, but it’s exactly the same as the one burnt pixel on my old monitor. If I don’t look for it, I don’t see it.

Movies

Before I look at work performance, lets first look at the other uses. Watching movies on it is just wonderful. Especially 4K content is great. The monitor on it’s own is not 4K, but it’s close enough for the 21:9 content.

HD content still looks good on it, except for the black bars on 16:9 content. Especially thats the moment when you will be able to see the back-light bleed. But again, it’s not such a huge problem that one could not live with it.

Then there is SD content, and on-line videos, especially Youtube. Both look horrible for different reasons. SD content (anything under 720p) just looks too pixelated on a screen this size. It’s OK when you sit far enough, but not up close. Youtube videos are even worse. Even if they are in 21:9 aspect ration (trailers for instance), Youtube adds black bars on top and bottom to them, so they are 16:9. So when you go full-screen with a video like that, you will have a huge black border around it. The only solution is to download the video and then use a player that can scale it, to get it into a usable full-screen.

Games

I love gaming on this monitor. My PC is not one of the strongest, but it runs all games older than 1 year in a very nice 2560×1080 resolution. That’s actually the smallest 21:9 resolution that is available, so anything smaller and you won’t get fullscreen.

It made me even play more games. Especially first person games are so much impressive on this monitor, than on a 16:10 one. You just see so much more. I play mostly RPGs and strategies, so I don’t really care that much about some huge refresh rates, and I never noticed any lag from the screen.

It’s nice to see that more and more games support this aspect ration natively, and with a little tweaking, I managed to get around 90% of games in my Steam library working quite well. Actually, if you are curious how some of them look, you can check the screenshots under my Steam account, where I uploaded quite a lot of them.

Btw. playing turn based strategies in a 2560×1080 window (Civilization mostly), while you watch a video on the side is just perfect :)

Work

And we are getting to the most important thing, how it is to work on this huge monitor. It’s just great to have so much space to work with. Just wonderful for multitasking.

Either if working with multiple browsers, while editing the blog, huge Lightroom window, to see the images, or editing big panoramas in Photoshop, and seeing the whole image all at once.

It’s quite interesting, that for most things one just does not need the whole screen. Even for Photoshop, I have it only on about 2/3rds of the screen most of the time. I like to have a video playing on the side, so that works very well for me.

Also, if you work with modern windows apps, the size works great with the window snapping. Having a Skype chat snapped on the side works just perfectly, and due to the ration it does not even feel like it’s taking up space.

Overall

Overall I don’t regret buying it. It’s a very impressive monitor, and it was well worth the money.

I already put up articles about most software I use, but not yet that much about Photoshop. So today, let’s look at few random tips for Photoshop.

Fade adjustment

This is one small feature that is great for when you are doing retouching. What it does, in simple terms, is allows you to set the opacity on your last used adjustments. So if you for instance use the Patch tool, to replace a part of your image, and you feel that the changes is too strong, you can use the Fade adjustment and tone it down.

To use this, right after you do the adjustment, go under Edit/Fade, and choose the percentage you need. But beware, it works only on the last adjustment, so if you do something else after that, the adjustment will no longer be available.

Hide selection

This is a must when you do Luminance masking or any other manual blending. The marching ants of selection can be so in the way, and making it hard to blend correctly. So you have to know that you can hide them, and actually do that very often.

To hide the marching ants, you have to go under View/Extras (or Ctrl+H) to toggle the visibility. Again, a little note, remember if they are hidden or not, as it’s very easy to forget that you have a selection active, when it’s not visible.

Selection in the way

Change workspace

Save your workspace

This is one thing I never used until I got a huge monitor. I can arrange and safe different setups for Photoshop and then just switch between them. I have one for when I use Photoshop in full-screen, one when only using it in a smaller window. This just makes switching so much easier.

To do this, just setup you Photoshop workspace as you like, and then choose the workspace drop-down and create a new workspace. Once you have all the ones you want, you can switch between them by choosing them from the same drop-down menu.

Use Last filter

Sometimes you just need to use the same filter over and over. Either for different layers, or different image. To make this easier, there is a simple solution in Photoshop. By choosing Filter/Last filter (or Ctrl+F), the last filter will be used on the actually selected layer.

And even better, this does not just work with Photoshop filters, but also with additional ones, like Color Efex or Noiseware. Choosing it, will use the same filter, with exactly the same settings as you used last time.

Align layers

Perspective crop

Align layers

One thing one needs to do a lot, is to align layers. Especially if one take photos handheld for HDR. There are many ways to align layers, but one of them is to just use the internal Auto-align. This works quite well most of the times, but don’t expect miracles.

To use auto-align, just select the layers you want to align, and choose Edit/Auto-align layers. If you have taken photos from the tripod, I suggest using reposition instead of auto mode. It’s so there are no distortion in the separate layers only movement.

Correct distortion by cropping

Cropping is a very useful tool in Photoshop. But you can use it for more than just cropping the image. You can use it to extend the canvas of you image, just by cropping it for a bigger size than it was, or you can even correct perspective distortion by cropping.

To do that, you have to choose the Perspective crop tool from the tool bar. Once you select the area with it, you can move every corner separately to select the area that will be stretched into a rectangle image. So just move them inside and confirm by Enter and you are done :)