The shot you see above is from Jumeirah beach and it is one of my favorite locations on the beach because of the vibrant colors you see on the rocks. Today’s post will be a comparison on HDR and manual blend mode. The image you see above is not HDRed but has been manually blended by merging 3 exposures on Photoshop CS5. I must admit though that this is my first ever manually blended image and it turned out pretty decent as a first attempt.
Manual blending allows you to give you the full depth in an image like HDR but leaves everything natural. On the other hand, HDR brings out more detail in an image especially in the shadows and makes the image look a bit more dramatic. Below is the HDR image of the same shot.
Take your time and do a comparison between the 2 images carefully and notice the difference. I am content with the way both the images have turned out but I leave it up to the viewer to decide which one they prefer most.
5 comments
great shot…. and impressive results for a first time… i like it better than the hdr. (personal prefrence)
but honestly ..its a reallly good shot.
Hey Thanks Maliha! =)
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I like the way the sea looks softer in the HDR image and the light on the rocks is slightly warmer.
You may be able to get more detail out of your images using something other than Photoshop. I’ve been using SNS-HDR lately, which I find gives particularly natural looking results with little effort.