04 Ghosting
In HDR, ‘ghosting’ is where objects have moved between exposures, and in landscape HDR shots like this one, the big issue is leaves and branches drifting in the breeze. Sure enough, if I drag the loupe tool over these leaves near the edge of the frame I can see there are indeed ghosted outlines representing the different position of the leaves in the different exposures.
05 Ghosting options
The first thing to do is check the Ghost Reduction box (circled) over on the right. HDR Efex Pro will now re-process the image (hence the spinning cursor in the centre of this screenshot), but this takes just a couple of seconds. You should now see that the ghosting is gone in the loupe panel.
You may also notice that one of the thumbnails in the strip at the top of the screen is now highlighted. This strip of images isn’t just there to confirm the shots you’re merging for your HDR image – that highlighted picture is the one that’s going to be used by the Ghost Reduction tool. The idea is that you pick the image that best represents the position of objects you want in the final picture.
06 Ghosting choices
It doesn’t much matter which one I pick for this shot because the position of the leaves isn’t that important. But if you’re shooting in a city with pedestrians moving through the frame, for example, you’ll want to pick the shot where they’re in the best position for the composition. In any event, it looks like my ghosting problem is now gone!
