Enfused about Watkins Glen

[AndrewMcD]

On returning home from a recent trip to Canada we stopped in Watkins Glen, New York. My wife had been to the State Park there and was enthusiastic that she might share the place with me. Clouds, spitting rain and a gorge all amounted to some dodgy lighting conditions. I thought this might be a suitable opportunity to test the Enfuse software I had read about and merge a couple of exposures. This is a merging of two images. I have mixed feelings about the result primarily because I used the software as a "blackbox"; I just shoved the images in to see what might come out. I need to review and process some of the other shots to see if I get something I like better without merging. I also need to become more familiar with the Enfuse software; if this is going to be a viable tool I feel the need to understand it and control it rather than treating it like a magic "blackbox." As always C&C are solicited and appreciated.

Andrew

[IzzieK]

Oh my word! Andrew -- this is a beautiful shot! I do not have Enfused and I am sure am glad you are reviewing it...Now I am left wondering if this photograph will be a beautiful shot to convert to B/W. Have you tried yet?

[Shadowman]

Nice image.

[Marie Hass]

Lovely. Enfuse seems to be an interesting product.

I have memories of swimming there as a child - 1960's. My parents would race SCCA at Watkins Glen

Marie

[bnnrcn]

Very nice shot

[tbob]

Very interesting spot. The possibilities seem endless. Your shot highlights it well.

[wtlwdwgn]

I like this composition and the exposure. I agree that it might make for a nice B&W.

[chauncey]

Andrew, the difficulty with travel shots is that they are what you have...reshooting isn't in the cards.
You have done well with what you have, which is a nice shot! To take it further, just close your eyes and dream...maybe adding an angel bathing in the falls.

But, this is how I remember Watkins Glen...http://www.theglen.com/?homepage=true I worked the EMT team for one race 35 y/o...times long ago.

[Brownbear]

Beautiful image! I adore the composition and perspective. I can't get to the bottom of my waterfalls, yet (the water is too high) but I hope to do so this summer to capture a similar perspective.

Thank you for sharing your experience with Enfuse. I'm still trying to figure it out. The guide says one can choose to give priority to exposure, saturation or contrast so I've used Exposure as the priority (simply because it makes sense for bracketed shots) but I wish the program would give you a hint of what the combined image will look like before creating the image. I hope you share more of these.

[Mike Buckley]

Very enjoyable, Andrew!

[ajohnw]

On returning home from a recent trip to Canada we stopped in Watkins Glen, New York. My wife had been to the State Park there and was enthusiastic that she might share the place with me. Clouds, spitting rain and a gorge all amounted to some dodgy lighting conditions. I thought this might be a suitable opportunity to test the Enfuse software I had read about and merge a couple of exposures. This is a merging of two images. I have mixed feelings about the result primarily because I used the software as a "blackbox"; I just shoved the images in to see what might come out. I need to review and process some of the other shots to see if I get something I like better without merging. I also need to become more familiar with the Enfuse software; if this is going to be a viable tool I feel the need to understand it and control it rather than treating it like a magic "blackbox." As always C&C are solicited and appreciated.

Andrew

The squared artefact to the right of the waterfall is unusual. I'd suspect that is down to low "contrast" in that region in both images. I think the best way to look at Enfuse is to think of it as liking perfect exposures of all light levels in the scene. Or if there isn't some "contrast" difference between the shots in some areas it may have problems deciding what to do. In many instances that wont matter. I'll come to why contrast is in quotes later.

Enfuse is opens source software. Not sure if you are using the Lightroom plugin or the windows gui version which is freely available. That one also gives some control over Enfuse itself. They claim more than any other application. The documentation for Enfuse is here

http://panorama.dyndns.org/EandE-documentation/

but many people find the defaults useful as it's a balancing act. It can be steered by what goes into it or images can be pp'd after they are merged.

This is probably a better description of Enfuse's options than any others that are available

http://wiki.panotools.org/Enfuse

The adjustments are weightings eg contrast is the weighting used to pick between images based on contrast. The default for that on the package I use is 0. Same exposure, default 1, Saturation same default in my case 0,2. There are others but I understand that is what Lightroom offers. They all alter the way the pixels are processed and don't have their traditional pp meaning. Increasing the contrast setting from 0 often makes little or no difference however it will cause enfuse to to take more notice of contrast between adjacent areas. That may or may not increase the contrast in the final image.

I assume the windows gui is similar to the linux one. Before actually fusing the images it produces a smaller preview. I use one 1050 wide. If it's setting are to be changed this speeds things up tremendously. Not sure what Lightroom does in this respect but fusing 16mp plus images takes some time.

John
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