The Art of Blending
If photography is going to be viewed on the same stage as painting and other artistic techniques, we must be allowed to create. As photographers and artists we are using the Available Light to create communicative, expressive works. If we only allow ourselves to express what our camera tells us is possible, then it is the camera manufacturer who is being creative, not us.
Throughout my career as a landscape photographer, I have explored various techniques for expanding the workable dynamic range of my images – Graduated Neutral Density Filters, HDR Software etc. However, now I exclusively shoot bracketed images and manually blend them in Photoshop.
People have been bracketing for years – with film as an insurance policy to get one “good” exposure, and latterly with contemporary landscape photography to either use software to combine them in an HDR style file, or as I do, to manually blend them.
This technique has a number of clear advantages.
1: You capture the full dynamic range of the scene in your multiple frames.
2: You get to choose which bits of each exposure you want to use.
3: You can create different versions of the same scene while retaining a favorite portion of it.
I hope it is noted how many times I get to use the word “you” in the above summary. After all, they are your images.
Last night on the coast of Phuket Island in Thailand I had the chance to demonstrate the Art of Blending. The sea swell was pumping into the rocks at my feet, I was dressed only in swimming shorts and rubber shoes for grip on the slick rocks – it was 32C with a gentle onshore breeze.
Between surges, the rock pool below me would settle and become calm, then, as the next waves came in, it would turn into a boiling cauldron of energy and motion. I was drawn to both scenes, but the dramatic light in the sky lasted only a few moments, about 5 minutes after sunset. The dynamic range wasn’t too great, and I was able to take one image for the sky, and then wait for suitable moments to shoot foreground exposures.
The Calm before the Storm
Sky – 2.5 seconds @ f13
Rock Pool – 25 seconds @ f13
The Tempest
Sky – 2.5 seconds @ f13
Rock Pool – 8 seconds @ f13
Both image tell completely different stories, but even though the foregrounds were taken 3 minutes apart, the sky remained the same.
Another serious advantage with this technique is the ability to retain definition in the clouds. Had I used a 3 stop soft Graduated Neutral Density filter, even in 8 seconds, I feel the thunder head would be less well-defined, and no doubt in the 25 second exposure to get details in the rock pool. Of course I don’t preclude doing exposures where the clouds are also moving, they can also be dramatic and very artistic, but in this case, I chose to have well-defined cloud shape.
The word here is “choice” – with manual blending you choose.
at 9:37 am
I voted as using all techniques, but I am using the hand blend more and more.
at 10:45 am
Yes, I suspect a lot of us use various techniques depending on the circumstances, but like you, more and more I use the multi blended manual technique.
at 5:19 pm
I prefer to get as much as I can in one exposure, just because I find that getting as much as I can out of a RAW file is way less of a pain than a manual blend. My second choice is to double-process the RAW and blend. But blending different exposures in an awesome tool to have, and I too am using it more and more.
at 12:18 am
You make an excellent point regarding processing single RAW files multiple times. Many photographers see this as a more legitimate method, as all the light was captured at the same time –
I am trying to gauge public opinion on how multiple file images are viewed these days?
Is there resistance to the technique as they are bounding on composites etc?
Thanks very much for your input..
at 11:00 pm
Hey man, good to see youre on the road. I will follow along. Lucky dog to be in Bali. I was in bad mental shape when I was there. Should return. Went through your portfolio. Did you redo the website? Looks awesome. I wont tell you what I think of your photos cause you might get a swollen head! Now you have revealed some secrets. Answerred my questions here in fact. As to how and to what extent you are altering, filtering, “cheating” in general. Im mean we all do,its OK. Im always running the vivid colour setting! I dont really understand the technical aspeccts well but Im starting to think it might really fascinating. Slightly in awe…
Ruary
at 2:23 am
Good to hear from you, and thanks for the comments.
“Altering, Filtering, Cheating”
No camera captures reality the way we see it, and certainly not the way YOU see it
What I am advocating in this short article, and what I will be writing more of in the future, is the state of contemporary landscape photography, where I feel the Photographer/Artist should have more freedom to interpret scenes without being limited by their particular tool.
You know yourself as an artist that so much of the end result is a product of creative choices you make as you go along. Photography is the same – I want to Harvest Light when I am outside, and make more creative choices later when I am working on an image that should be an emotive, expressive representation of my experience.
Cheers amigo… great to have you stop by..
at 4:54 pm
Wow, beautiful photos!
at 7:58 am
An interesting entry … principally to remember the creative role of the photographer to some groups of very conservative photographers. Regards.
at 8:18 am
Thanks – yes, I call a lot of what I do Contemporary Landscape Photography, as I feel it embraces our current state of technology to create my work.
I do not want to be limited by the camera or a set of parameters dictated to me by a manufacturer.
It’s my work yeah?
at 8:02 am
Ahhh, forgot it … excellent the images of the beaches of the Silence and Gairua of the front pages of your new books …
at 8:18 am
Thanks again – it was such a beautiful night, a real pleasure just to be there…
at 5:01 pm
Hmm, the little poll widget thingy wouldn’t let me vote on multiple choices, so I picked “multiple images and blend in software”. But in fact while that is the base for much of my landscape work, I often then add a soupçon of “multiple images and blend manually” on top.
The HDR blending tools in my kit, and the way I use them, can take me a long way towards where I want to go with the “base image”. But these tools, especially the stand-alone ones like Photomatix or Oloneo PhotoEngine, apply their chops to the entire image globally. There’s no way to apply an effect in only localized areas of the frame, or dial it up in one area while back in another. So I often run the scene through my HDR workflow twice or more, to produce renditions with different measures of control on the visual results. I then blend them together as layers in Photoshop; sometimes also with one of the original, non-HDR frames. In this way I get the advantages of the high-fidelity (32-bit / linear / wide gamut / low noise) processing, contrast management & tonal development that the HDR software can do for me. And I get the fine control over developing specific areas of tone or color that Photoshop layer blending can do.
A note on your opening paragraph — “If we only allow ourselves to express what our camera tells us is possible, then it is the camera manufacturer who is being creative, not us.” I agree with this 100%. A catch phrase I’m using in my upcoming seminar on HDR in the masterclass I’m co-leading next week is — be in control of your tools, or your tools will be in control of your images.
It’s for this very reason that one of my pet peeves is the statement “get it right in the camera”. I dislike that sentiment for 2 reasons:
a) It’s not about “right” or “wrong” which connote ethics, rather it’s about stylistic choice and how I want the image to look. This isn’t an ethical issue and in my opinion shouldn’t be framed with loaded, judgmental terms. I want my image to look how I want to it look, not by default how some film, sensor or software designer decided it should look.
b) The camera has never been the only element in the creative process, back to the dawn of photography. Rather there’s always been an aspect of post-camera development of some kind, even if the photographer simply employed the efforts of chemists, darkroom masters and out-sourced photo lab technicians.
So the camera is not “right”, and even if we re-define “right” to mean “the way I personally want it to look”, the camera is not and never has been the only important part of the creative process.
Having said all of that, there’s a corollary to my catch phrase “be in control of your tools, or your tools will be in control of your images.” I totally support the freedom of any photographer (or artist in general) to voluntarily adopt the constraints on their work imposed by their personal choices of tool, technique and material. Watercolor painters don’t bemoan the lack of contrast or saturated color that the oil painters can achieve, nor would I critique a watercolor painter because their work isn’t as contrasty or colorful as work from somebody doing acrylics. Watercolorists have adopted watercolors intentionally along with their inherent reduced palette of color & contrast. It becomes part of their personal style, and there’s nothing “right” or “wrong” about it.
So I’m very respective of photographers who freely choose a photographic style dominated by in-camera technique. What I’m not interested in is a judgmental framework that somehow aggrandizes the in-camera mode of working, or denigrates & excludes artists working with a more post-camera developmental style. (Many old-school darkroom masters would have to be excluded as well, in that case!) Photography has always been a broad, inclusive & innovative craft and artform; digital has only increased the scope of the form. There’s room for all of us at the table within the fold of what constitutes “photography”.
(As you hint above, I do feel there’s a point where compositing technique becomes so pervasive that it’s no longer photography that’s going on, and the work becomes a mixed media form. But that’s a whole other kettle of fish, and I’ve so far not felt compelled to draw lines in the sand on that…
)
at 12:01 am
Great post Royce – You have managed to enhance my message well… In the last year I have totally changed my standpoint on my photography and I want it to be truly expressive – and to do that, I have to step beyond the boundaries imposed by the camera.
It’s been a fun year, and as I write more and more on the subject – that too becomes very liberating.
We gotta get together and do “something” together – our melting pot was a fertile field of contemporary landscape photography…
at 12:12 am
I generally shoot with filters but I will bracket and blend manually if required. Automatic processes imho usually are a poor substitute for a manual blend and lets face it its not hard anyway.
at 12:31 am
In the last year, I too have made a dramatic change in how I view, and create my photography. I started in photography just over 3 years ago, and tried to alter my photos as little as possible. In this past year I have found that the camera cannot create the image that I see and more importantly feel.
at 1:27 am
I agree 100% – Photography is an expressive medium… if one is trying to use sign language to communicate with a deaf person, can we do so with one hand behind our back?
at 1:17 am
I voted as well. I prefer to hand-blend my shots if I need the extra dynamic range. Of those, 95% of the time I use separate exposures, usually 2 or 3. The rest of the time, I use a single exposure and process the RAW file twice.
at 1:26 am
Thanks Mike – I feel this is an increasingly more popular way to work, as people begin to realise how limiting a single frame can be….
at 5:11 am
Great post and thoughts, Alister. Reading the comments has been interesting too.
I’m curious, what do *you* think the majority of my images are? You don’t have to answer that, but like many people here (Royce I know for sure), I strive for a realistic feel to most of my images, not letting that gaudy HDR look to take over. My personal preference is to maximize the most in each image, usually through manual blending.
Jackson’s point of double-processing RAW files is a good one for another reason. Sometimes, alignment is a real issue for me due to movement of branches, etc, and with a dual-processed RAW file, that issue more or less goes away…
Cheers,
Greg
at 12:55 pm
Thanks, as always Greg for your thoughtful comments. Yes, of course, you are quite right, my personal feeling is that no matter what technique the photographer has used, the viewer should not have to care – it is the visual statement that counts.
Do I like that, does it resonate with me? etc.
Of course, as most of the people who read my blog are photographers, the question was thrown out there more as a snapshot of the current state of contemporary landscape photography.
Just to check which way the wind is blowing…
Cheers mate..
at 11:46 am
I try to stick to one shot and the use of filters. Have resisted to buy PhotoShop so far, but do see the possibilities and probably “will go there” at some point. Thanks for the post!
at 12:56 pm
Thanks also for stopping by and adding your thoughts… I am sure your position is a common one – Lightroom 3 is offering a lot of superb functionality especially with gradients and plugins like Enfuse – you can do an awful lot now without Photoshop. BUt of course, for a big complex blend, PS is the only way to go…
at 3:34 pm
Great article Alister. For myself I started out and until early this year would use graduated filters to balance the exposure in my shots. I never was satisfied with the blending results that I would get from automated software therefore I stuck with what I knew best. It always seemed that I couldn’t get rid of that “overdone HDR” look. As I progressed I started to work on my manual blending skills and now am to a point where my Grad filters barely come out of my bag. I like the complete control I have over the image using masks to blend and the fact that I can have cleaner shadows and highlights and avoid grad lines on uneven horizons. Like any skill, the more I practice it, the more competent I become with it. For the most part these days my camera is always set to bracket three exposures.
I have to agree with you on not succumbing to the limits of the camera. It is at the end of the day just a tool to assist us in capturing our vision, and if that means overcoming it’s limits and using it in the most creative way possible then so be it.
I can feel the day coming soon where I put my filter kit up for sale!
at 11:56 pm
The fact that your thoughts are completely in line with mine, I cannot agree more
Almost a perfect summary of my own progression – Proponents like Tony Kuyper, Sean Bagshaw and Marc Adamus are fine examples of contemporary Landscape Photography stepping beyond the confines of the capture tool.