• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Offers
  • How tos
  • Listicles
  • Explainers
  • A-Z
  • Downloads
    • Adobe
    • DxO software
    • Capture One
    • Exposure X
    • ON1 software
    • Skylum
  • About

Life after Photoshop

  • Lightroom
  • Capture One
  • DxO PhotoLab
  • Nik Collection
  • Exposure X
  • ON1 Photo RAW
  • Aurora HDR

Boost your landscapes with HDR Efex Pro

November 10, 2013 by Rod Lawton

HDR Efex Pro isn’t just for special effects. It can enhance your images in much more straightforward ways, improving the tonal balance, sky detail and colour saturation.

I like to use it on landscapes, where professionals can wait for hours for the right lighting, but the rest of us have to grab shots when we can. The shot below is a good example. It was the middle of the day, so the light wasn’t very interesting, and I didn’t have any graduated filters with me to tone down the sky.

  • DxO Nik Collection review
  • More Nik Collection news and tutorials
  • How to get the Nik Collection
Boost landscapes with HDR Efex Pro

I could see the picture had potential, though, so the best I could do was shoot in RAW and make sure I used an exposure that would capture the brightest tones in the sky. I’d have to do the rest in software, so here are my tips on how to boost landscapes with HDR Efex Pro…

01 Choosing an HDR Efex Pro preset

Boost landscapes with HDR Efex Pro

HDR Efex Pro presets use your current image for their previews, so you can quickly see which is going to give the most attractive effect. The ‘Deep 1’ preset is one of my favourites for jobs like this, and with one click my image is already 100% better. The foreground is lighter, the sky is darker and the colours are richer.

However, I think I can improve it with some manual adjustments, so I’m going to close the presets sidebar and open the tools panel on the right.

02 More contrast

Boost landscapes with HDR Efex Pro

HDR tools darken light areas and lighten dark ones – that’s their job. What you often don’t notice, though, is that they reduce the overall image contrast. They look fine close up, but from a distance the picture can look flatter than you expect.

My next step, then, is to increase the contrast value in the Tonality section. I’ve been quite aggressive here, pushing it up to 50%, but I think this picture can take it. Pushing up the contrast also helps disguise any ‘HDR effect’ in the image.

03 More structure

Boost landscapes with HDR Efex Pro

Now I use HDR Efex Pro’s secret weapon – the ‘Structure’ slider. (Actually, you’ll find this in many of the Google Nik Collection plug-ins). The Structure slider increases the definition around objects and outlines, but doesn’t have an effect on the overall contrast. Increasing the Structure value to 40% gives this image extra ‘bite’ generally, but works especially well in the sky, where it makes the clouds stand out much more clearly.

04 Warmer colours

Boost landscapes with HDR Efex Pro

Landscapes usually look better in the warm glow of late afternoon sun, but I didn’t have that, so I’m going to try to recreate it with the Color panel. This isn’t easy to get right, and your adjustments can easily end up looking just plain bad. My tip is to increase both the temperature and tint values – but make the tint increase half the size, and keep to relatively low values. I think 10% on the temperature and 5% on the tint is just about right here.

I think the picture can stand a saturation boost too, so I’m pushing the saturation slider up to 30%.

And yes, I have noticed the huge sensor spot at the top of the sky at the upper right! HDR processes tend to make any spots stick out like a sore thumb – I’ll fix this with the Spot and Patch tools in Aperture later.

05 Graduated filter effect

Boost landscapes with HDR Efex Pro

The HDR Efex Pro preset I used already has a slight graduated filter effect applied – you’ll find this in the Finishing panel. I’m going to adjust it to make the sky darker still (to make up for not having any grads with me when I took the shot), so I’ve reduced the ‘Upper Tonality’ value to -1 Stop.

This darkens the sky, but I can see the darkening effect is spreading down over the hills, so I’ve increased the ‘Vertical Shift’ value to push the transition higher up in the picture, and reduced the ‘Blend’ value so that there’s a sharper transition, just above the horizon line.

06 The finished picture

Boost landscapes with HDR Efex Pro

I must admit I’m quite surprised by this myself. I thought I could certainly improve on the original picture with HDR Efex Pro, but this transformation is quite something. I’ve got the warm, rich colours I wanted and a very powerful sky, and while I might have intensified the colours beyond anything nature could have provided, I don’t think this looks like HDR at all.

See also

More HDR Efex Pro tutorials

Related

Filed Under: Nik Collection, TutorialsTagged With: Graduated filters, HDR, Structure, Warmth

Life after Photoshop is owned and run by photographer and journalist Rod Lawton. Rod has been a photography journalist for nearly 40 years, starting out in film (obviously) but then migrating to digital. He has worked as a freelance journalist, technique editor and channel editor, and is now Group Reviews Editor on Digital Camera World. Life after Photoshop is a personal project started in 2013.

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to this site

Enter your email address to subscribe to Life after Photoshop and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Adobe Lightroom: what is it, where do you get it, what does it cost?

Adobe Lightroom is not one program but three. You could … [Read More...] about Adobe Lightroom: what is it, where do you get it, what does it cost?

The best photo editing software for organizing, editing, RAW and effects

Choosing the best image editing software used to be easy. … [Read More...] about The best photo editing software for organizing, editing, RAW and effects

Layers explained

Layers explained: what they do and how to use them

Layers are a central part of many photo editing processes, … [Read More...] about Layers explained: what they do and how to use them

BAN adjustments… Basic And Necessary image corrections to do first

Photo editing software does two quite different jobs. It can … [Read More...] about BAN adjustments… Basic And Necessary image corrections to do first

More Posts from this Category

Mission statement

Life after Photoshop is not anti-Photoshop or anti-subscriptions. It exists to showcase the many Photoshop alternatives that do more, go further, or offer more creative inspiration to photographers.

Affiliate links

Life after Photoshop is funded by affiliate links and may be paid a commission for downloads. This does not affect the price you pay, the ratings in reviews or the software selected for review.

Contact

Email lifeafterphotoshop@gmail.com

Copyright © 2023 Life after Photoshop · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in