“I ain’t afraid of no Ghost!”
One of the biggest problem when creating High Dynamic Range photo’s is “Ghosting”. When you shoot multiple exposures you will eventually run into this problem, ghosting is the result of movement between exposures which can be caused by a number of reasons, the most common of which are listed below;
- Not using a tripod
- Not using a shutter remote
- Wind
- People
- Animals
In this short guide I will be showing you how to combat ghosting, so it doesn’t end up ruining potentially beautiful shots.
If you would like to follow this mini tutorial step by step you can find the files I used in the example here.
Remember this technique can only be used to get rid of certain parts of an image that have ghosted, unfortunately if you are using JPEGS there is nothing that can be done to save your ghosted shot. However this is where I would like to emphasize the importance of shooting in RAW.
If you shoot in RAW mode not only do you gain more control over your shots in the early pre-production stages of the processing, but you can also create a HDR from a single RAW. Shooting in RAW is the only way to 100% protect yourself against ghosting when used in conjunction with a tripod and remote.
So What Can I Do?
Here are some simple tips to help eliminate ghosting!
- Always shoot in RAW
- Use continuous shooting mode
- Set the bracketing order to Meter, Under, Over
- Use a Tripod!
The Tutorial
To eliminate ghosting from multiple exposures you are going to need to open your tone mapped image, as well as the middle exposure of your shots in Photoshop. Once you have them both open drag the tone mapped image on top the middle exposure then click on the “Add Layer Mask Button”
Once you have created the layer mask select it by clicking on it, then press (B) to select the brush tool and zoom in on the people. As you can see below they are clearly ghosted so let’s try to do something about that! Select a soft brush and set the opacity to 100% then start to paint over the people very carefully, trying not to go outside them.
You should end up with something below, this process can be used to minimize other kinds of ghosting too so experiment with it!
Next we are going to use the healing tool to try and erase the women photographer in the background. Before that we want to merge the layers down so go to layer>merge down.
Once you’ve merged down you should be left with the background layer, select the healing brush tool (J) and zoom in on the photographer. Set the brush size to around 140 and start clicking on the photographer slowly working your way from top down.
As you can see the photographer is slowly starting to disappear from our image, keep doing it until she has gone completely. If you start having problems try using a smaller brush.
This is the result I got, not too bad eh?
Remember this technique can only be used on minor objects, people, birds etc. If the whole image has ghosted then there is little you can do to save it, the best way to stop ghosting is to be prepared and shoot RAW.
