There is nothing like an Idaho sunset, especially when you get some water and reflections involved.
The colors are so rich, warm and saturated at sunset. I love being out in a good sunset when the fire spreads across wisply clouds.
My favorite time to shoot is Sunset!
There is one thing I like better than shooting at Sunrise, and that is shooting at Sunset. You don’t have to wake up so early, and you can keep on going after sunset for that “blue hour” when light painting is the funnest. For these images, I blended several exposures into one and ran them through Photomatix for the full HDR range. I did have to mask out the foreground weeds on the vertical shot, because the colors just got a little to funky with bold orange backlight.
HDR SECRET: Follow up with masking in Photoshop after Photomatix
I took the HDR blend I made with Photomatix… into Photoshop and layered it with one of the original shots, so I could mask those weeds back in. Now it looks closer to what I saw with my eyes. You have to be careful with HDR. If things get overdone, you can mask part of one of the originals back in that area. I believe this is a vital step for many HDR shots. This was a sweet sunset. How fortunate to be along the Buffalo River that night a few weeks ago.
I love this! I think HDR is the best if its used to just enhance the colors, not make the photo look fake. You’ve done an amazing job with these!
Thanks for the comment, Jace! It was so fun to go to Photoshop World and learn even more ways to work with amazing HDR technology. I agree that it can be overdone. I just like to get closer to what I saw with my eyes. The camera usually dilutes the colors and light to be flat. In this case, the sunset was simply amazing and the whole sky was on fire, so I was glad HDR brought it back. However, the weeds in the foreground turned into a funky orange color too, and that was not realistic, so I had to mask out the HDR effect in Photoshop.. in that area. Thanks again.