Making your digital camera see more

CATEGORIES: Digital Photography, Tutorials | Dave Huss | October 07, 2005

The following tutorial is courtesy of “Mac Design Magazine”
One of the challenges of photography is to capture the image that you see with your camera. With modern cameras performing all of the light measurement and changing the settings, in most cases when you press the shutter button, the image that you capture is an accurate representation of what you saw; that is, until you attempt to photograph a scene that has extremes in lighting. When you’re out shooting a sunset, for example, you can see both the foreground and the sunset quite clearly, but after taking the photograph, the sunset looks brilliant and the foreground is black as pitch.

What has happened? Your eyes have a much greater dynamic range (ability to see both the darkest and the lightest shades) than the best digital or film camera made. Your eyes can see both the shaded subjects in the foreground and the blazing sunset in the background all at the same time-your camera can’t. Which part of the image is properly exposed, and therefore seen in the resulting photograph, is determined by which part of the scene was used to take your light measurements. A pro would describe it as either exposed to the highlights (in this case, the sunset) or exposed to the shadows (foreground). Whichever light source you choose, the area not selected will, in most instances, be lost.

To show the effect, I wanted to use something other than a sunset. These photos were taken in the early morning as the sun was trying to peek through a layer of clouds (I love clouds). In the first image shown here, the camera was set to center-weighted metering (meaning the camera used the brightness of the center of the frame for most of its calculations). As a result, all of the subtle shading of the clouds is captured but the foreground went solid black. The second image was exposed to the foreground and, as expected, the sky completely blew out. So, to successfully capture the detail in both the shadows and the highlights you must take two photos. At this point I should point out that this technique is best reserved for extremes in lighting.

Taking the photos

This is best done using a steady tripod, but I have done it handheld. If you don’t want to lug around a tripod or if your tripod is a little on the flimsy side, buy a pound bag of lentils or navy beans at the grocery store and you have an instant beanbag that you can put on a fence post or the hood of your car to get a really stable shot. Here’s how to make the two photos:

STEP 1:

After the camera is mounted on the tripod (or on your beanbag), compose the shot through either the viewfinder or the LCD screen.

STEP 2:

Change the metering to center-weighted or the equivalent with your camera. Point the camera so that the brightest part of the image is dead center on the image and then press the shutter down halfway. This locks the meter reading (called Exposure Lock, or EL) to the brightest part of the photo.

STEP 3:

Still holding down the shutter button, return the camera to its original position where you composed the shot in Step 1.

STEP 4:

Now comes the magic. Press the shutter down the rest of the way, taking the photo. The bright areas of image in your LCD screen should be well exposed and the shadow areas almost pure black. Without moving the camera, press the shutter a second time. Now the camera is correctly reading the scene and the resulting photo will have the shadows areas properly exposed but the brighter areas will be blown out.

There are several variations on Step 4. Since I shoot with a Nikon D-100, I can change the metering system very quickly using a switch on the camera body. I will often use spot metering on a bright area, and after I take the first photo, I switch to Average, which accomplishes the same thing. If you’re shooting at or near sunrise, sunset, or moonrise, keep the time between exposures to a minimum. The sun and the moon move very fast as they near the event horizon. This procedure takes some practice but since you have a digital camera, take lots of photos-they don’t cost anything.

Bringing it all together

Combining the two photos in Photoshop is the fun part. Here’s how it’s done:

STEP 1:

Open both images. Select (Command-A; PC: Control-A) the darker image (exposed to highlights) and drag it on top of the lighter (exposed to shadows) image with the Move tool (V) while holding the Shift key. This will center the darker image on its own layer above the lighter image.

STEP 2:

Create a layer mask (Layer>Add Layer Mask>Reveal All). Select the Brush tool (B), set your Foreground color to black, and paint the areas of the darker image in which you want the lighter background image to appear. This is a situation where a Wacom tablet is really a godsend. Change the pressure settings so it controls the opacity and slowly reveal the brighter foreground subject. (If you don’t have a Wacom tablet, you can change the Opacity of the Brush tool in the Options Bar.) If you go too far, press the X key to change the Foreground to white and paint over the area again to bring back the darker image.

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