# HDR Set of St. Phiilips Church (Picture Heavy)



## vipgraphx

I went out the other day as I finally had time to go and take pictures. I have been looking for new places around where I live and I came across this church. Its an older church with lots of beautiful architecture.

I developed a new work flow through trial and error and thought I would share it with you. I processed these bracketed photos which were about 9 each except for any outside shots. All inside shots were 9. What I did was processed them 3 times before I went to post. I created three presets One very light tonemapped and moved the micro smoothing all the way to the right. This made the walls smooth and helped with the blown out lights. The next I moved the micro smoothing to about 2 which gave it more grunge. Next I brought down the strength slider and upped the black to get a more darker feel especially in the shadows. Once I was done I brought the three processed photos from photomatix into along with all 9 original exposures. Next I blended those three processed photos first using masks. Then I used nearly all 9 of the original photos and masked those into the processed photo. I then flatten. NExt I duplicated the layer and used topaz adjust specify and placed that layer on the bottom. I then got the top layer and lightly masked in textures into the wood parts of the photos. Then flattened. Next I used Nik color effex and added a warmth filter along with pro contrast. I then duplicated layer and used a high pass sharpening and flattened image.

Results are as follows.
*
Walk in for the Tour*




on the other sidejpg by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




St_Phillips_Church by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




the walk by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




pipe organs by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




church isle 2 by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




church isle 3 by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




church isle by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




alter by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




pipe organ 2b by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




sitting in the pue by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




lonely piano by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




figurine by VIPGraphX, on Flickr






gate cropped by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




st phillips by VIPGraphX, on Flickr


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## MLeeK

I am NOT an HDR fan, but those are absolutely GORGEOUS


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## MLeeK

I'd love to see you record your steps and processing for a tutorial. There are tons of screen capture softwares you can download for free!!!


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## Steve5D

Could you number them? It would make it a lot easier to comment on them.

In the first one, what's the red and blue (and maybe even green) atop the wall on the right side of the gate?

The one with the piano is exceptional...


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## JRE313

yea do a tutorial!!!


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## RichardH

I think you did a fantastic job on these. I am looking more and more at HDR and I like the looks of it. Now if I can get my D90 set up to do the exposures, I am going to try some.

Good job.

Richard


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## pgriz

Very nice images.  I'll echo others:  would love to see your workflow and get an idea of the processing.

However, in a number of them, there are faint circular whitish spots in the image.  Are these "dust" or retouching efforts?  As well, in the organ shot, there appears to be a purplish flare in mid-field.  Was that an artifact of processing?


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## JRE313

VIP
I think I understand your new workflow and I will try to Mimic this on a church that I did in Brazil. I will process it and post it later today.
Hope you will enjoy!! I will add my own twist to it though


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## unpopular

Ok VIP. These are WAY over the top good. If these are indicative of your current quality, you've FAR, FAR, FAR surpassed about anyone I can think of in HDR, including the well-respected "experts". I think there is some minor composition details to hammer out still, but my god, man, your technique is just fantastic.


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## CaboWabo

As I said in the other wait till you get a load of the pipe organ just killer stuff !!!!!!


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## Designer

A truly exceptional set!  Congratulations!


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## PlanetStarbucks

You know why I love photography?  It's because everytime I think I know about some technique someone comes along and blows it all away.  In the words of the immortal Ali G:  "Respek"


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## Demers18

That really is a fantastic set! Nice work!

I really like how you were able to keep the look realistic. 
I've been playing around with HDR lately and I only hope that I can produce images with type of execution.


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## HughGuessWho

The figurine is amazing. I don't think you could take a digital image that could look any more life like.


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## Trever1t

A good church really is perfect for HDR, there's just so much detail and the process seems to give it all a life of it's own. I concur with all the above, there are very very well down, my hat's off to you!


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## vipgraphx

Thanks to all of you for the positive feedback! 

The spots are from the glare of the window. The processing enhances them. They are in the single raw images as well. I am not sure WHY I had so much to be honest with as I am using the NIkon 14-24 with nano coat which is supposed to reduce flare but I guess at the right angles it is impossible. That is just my guess.

This new work flow is something that just happened through trial and error tweaking the sliders and seeing how it effected every part of the image. HDR can really produce life like imagery thats for sure.

If I get some time I will try to see about doing a tutorial again as I would love to help out anyone who wants to try new things.

Cheers and thanks again for the positive words!!


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## BigknockHawk

What processing software did you use for the HDR?


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## vipgraphx

Photomatix


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## vipgraphx

Here is another from the set




hall way cropped by VIPGraphX, on Flickr


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## vipgraphx

st phillips 4 by VIPGraphX, on Flickr




lilly pads cropped by VIPGraphX, on Flickr


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## Parker219

Nice^ Except the one lady looks like she just rolled around in dirt right before this picture was taken. That may be that she really just did, or the processing.


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## that1guy

really good! 1st one and piano are my favs!


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## Overread

Congratulations your photo has been nominated for photo of the month http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...ember-2012-photo-month-nomination-thread.html


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## Red_John

that's incredible. do you have a worflow to achieve such a great result?


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## jaguaraz

Man I always love your work.  That is the church in which I was baptized 56 years ago or so.....  Thanks for capturing it so beautifully.


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## LazyFrog60

Those pictures are absolutely fabulous!!  Love them all!!  I do love HDR and these are definately among the best I've seen!


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## The Barbarian

Splendid work.   I like the darkened mood of some of them.   Technically, as good as I've seen.


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## vipgraphx

Thanks again!! I really enjoyed processing this set.


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## KongKurs

Very very good, as always..

Hey VIP, do you use focus stacking to get the sharp focus in both fore- and background? If not, have you tried this?


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## _HH_

Really nice HDR ...


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## ceeboy14

The first HDR images I've seen that display what HDR is supposed to show instead of the over-burned, garish treatments I mostly see...Superb. Bravo!


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