First presentable HDR

Richard · December 6, 2006

I have been trying and trying to get the hang of high dynamic range processing, but haven't had a whole lot of luck. This is probably the best I have done to date:

It was three bracketed exposures, shot hand-held, then merged in CS2. I had to do some additional editing to compensate for the movement of the people in the distance, though that was only visible in the full sized version.

C&C always welcome.

Cheers,

TristanP · December 6, 2006

Looks great. Good detail in the columns and the clouds.

SloYerRoll · December 6, 2006

Bravo Richard!
I've been playing around w/ HDR for a bit and have run into (I assume) some of the same problems. If it wasn't so cloudy her in the NorthWest (USA) I might have better chances at this as well...
You can easily tell the tonal range is way more than 5 stops on this shot.
Good work!

SteveF · December 6, 2006

It is easy to an HDR poorly.

Yours looks great. Nice job.

Swartzy · December 6, 2006

Great work there Richard
Yea, HDR....there are tons of bad examples but you've done a real nice job on this.

Richard · December 7, 2006

Thanks Tristan, SloYerRoll, Steve and Swartzy. There's still a whole lot I don't understand about HDR, especially some of the choices and parameters when converting from 32 bit. Mostly, they come out looking lousy no matter what settings I use. On a good day, I can get something that looks no worse than a single well-exposed frame. I liked this one because the detail in both the highlights and shadows did go beyond what I had been able to do before, and without introducing weird color artifacts. But I really couldn't explain to you why this one worked while the others didn't.

Regards,

System · December 8, 2006

neat photo, richard-

Richard · December 8, 2006

gefillmore wrote:

neat photo, richard-

Thanks George. Glad you liked it.

Carbon Based · December 8, 2006

Nicely done, I agree with Steve, I've seen alot of HDR that has been "over cooked" and has a weird/fake look to it. I think the best HDR is when you can't tell it's HDR.

again, Nicely done!

erich6 · December 8, 2006

It has a natural look to it Richard so I think you're doing well. How do you get your shots registered in CS2 when handheld?

Erich

erich6 · December 8, 2006

Carbon Based wrote:

Nicely done, I agree with Steve, I've seen alot of HDR that has been "over cooked" and has a weird/fake look to it. I think the best HDR is when you can't tell it's HDR.

again, Nicely done!

I agree the "over cooked" look can lead to a poorly done image but I've also seen excellent images that I would classify as "over cooked" yet they work ok. Here's a link to a couple of images by gbatistini I saw in the HDR Flickr gallery:

Richard · December 9, 2006

erich6 wrote:

It has a natural look to it Richard so I think you're doing well. How do you get your shots registered in CS2 when handheld?

Erich

Thanks, Carbon and Erich.

Erich: CS2 will do it for you if you check the option "attempt to align images" when you open the files. It works fairly well if nothing has moved in the frame, but wind moving leaves or people walking may create problems it can't solve. The down side is that it adds a lot of time to the processing, so you are better off using a tripod.

CatOne · December 10, 2006

It may be a good example of HDR but I find the picture itself... well... let's say I'm having a tough time trying to find the point of the photo.

HDR of a boring subject... is still a bit boring?

CatOne · December 10, 2006

erich6 wrote:

I agree the "over cooked" look can lead to a poorly done image but I've also seen excellent images that I would classify as "over cooked" yet they work ok. Here's a link to a couple of images by gbatistini I saw in the HDR Flickr gallery:

Those are pretty... but they look like a graphic novel.

Maybe the photographic equivalent of a velvet Elvis or something

erich6 · December 10, 2006

CatOne wrote:

Those are pretty... but they look like a graphic novel.

Maybe the photographic equivalent of a velvet Elvis or something

The point is that they are pretty. They certainly don't look like a "standard" photograph but do they have to? This style may not work all the time but it is a style; and it is art ; and it is pretty; and it was done with an "over cooked" HDR recipe.

Erich

SloYerRoll · December 11, 2006

erich6 wrote:

The point is that they are pretty. They certainly don't look like a "standard" photograph but do they have to? This style may not work all the time but it is a style; and it is art ; and it is pretty; and it was done with an "over cooked" HDR recipe.

Erich

It's not for the photog purist.. But those shots are KILER!

First presentable HDR

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