Tulip Gardens Holland HDR Final

I have just completed a cycling and Photography tour of the Tulip growing region of Holland just south of Amsterdam. This year due to the very cold and late start to spring the Tulip flowering was delayed by 2 weeks to I delayed the original planned dates and got there for peak flowering time. This picture was taken in the famous Keukenhof Gardens the largest in Europe.

This shot was taken handheld with the Sony A700 zoomed in to 70mm to compress the depth of field more. 3 raw images were taken at 2EV spacing for HDR.

Photomatix

The 3 images at 2EV separation were outputted in Photomatix detail enhancer fusion natural setting.

Photoshop

Topaz adjust was used to bring in a more detail. A layer mask was used to apply the effect only to the area of the main Tulip on the left to bring this out from the background. This was in addition to the use of an f5.6  aperture for a narrow depth of field when taking the picture.

A levels adjustment layer tool was to enhance.

Vibrance was increased slightly by 38 points.

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

The Blur filter was used on a new layer with a layer mask to blur the Tulip on the right to concentrate attention on the main Tulip on the left.

Duplicate layer Noiseware Pro and a little sharpening.

Second duplicate layer with mask to apply extra sharpening and contrast with low amount and high radius using Unsharp mask (Clarity Effect) The settings were 41 amount and 41 radius. A layer mask was again used to apply the effect only to the main Tulip

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the original. Then the tonemapped image and then the final result.

Original at 0EV

Tulip Gardens Holland HDR Original

Tonemapped image

Tulip Gardens Holland HDR Tonemapped

Final Image

Tulip Gardens Holland HDR Final

For licence see Tulip Gardens Holland HDR

Edwin Jones