Software Solutions for High Contrast
- Darwin Wiggett
I am a big advocate of polarizing filters, grad filters, reflectors, fill flash, or alternate
light sources to help me reign in the high contrast inherent in outdoor scenes so I can
capture the best image in-camera.
But sometimes there is no easy in-camera solution and I need to resort to a post-
production software fix. Photomatix, from www.hdrsoft.com, lets me take several
differently exposed photos of the same scene and to blend 2, 3, 5, or more
exposures into one final image.
For example in photo one when I exposed this Nova Scotia scene with my digital
camera all Igot was a scene with washed out highlights and black shadows. By
making three separate exposures; one exposure for the midtones, another for detail
in the shadows, and a third for detail in the highlights and then running the three
images through Photomatix, I could get a final image rich with detail in all areas - see
photo 2.
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