Experimenting with HDR

[Jaysfan8]

I was out the other night in a quest for 'city lights' shots. It was miserable, solid rain. I found some cover and instead of letting the night go to waste thought I'd experiment with HDR. This is one of those results. Really would appreaciate your feedback/tips on how I can improve this image. As it is HDR, there are no details on exposure etc. The image is of City Hall in London (near Tower bridge).

[NaturesPixel]

IMHO there is nothing wrong with this.. its excellent.. none of that "Glow" from tone mapping .. well done mate

[Seltzer]

LOL. It looks like a big evil pac-man thing.
I like the image, good view into the windows even. The spot on the left is a bit bright, could possibly tone that down but otherwise quite faboo.

[wulf]

Interesting result. It doesn't put much detail in the shadows and the highlights are still quite bright but, as mentioned, you have also avoided the common HDR halos (which, to my eyes, just look like sharpening gone bad). At a glance, I would have guessed it to be a long exposure shot rather than HDR.

I would be interested to see the shots you composed it from - that might make a good contribution to the "How I Took It" or "Before and After" sections.

Wulf

[Jaysfan8]

Originally Posted by wulf

Interesting result. It doesn't put much detail in the shadows and the highlights are still quite bright but, as mentioned, you have also avoided the common HDR halos (which, to my eyes, just look like sharpening gone bad). At a glance, I would have guessed it to be a long exposure shot rather than HDR.

I would be interested to see the shots you composed it from - that might make a good contribution to the "How I Took It" or "Before and After" sections.

Wulf

Thanks for your comments Wulf. It was indeed a long exposure but still used photomatix to hdr merge the images. I find that with slightly longer exposures, you eliminate/reduce the glow.

I have attached the original images (although reduced to 400px).

[Learner]

Well! Thanks for the before/after posts. I'm trying to get the concept of HDR. I have not attempted it at all. Have seen many different ways to achieve this effect, but this is by far the best!! Photomatrix is a bought program, correct? Do you know of any 'free' downloads that will achieve as good an effect? Thanks for posting before/afters.

[wulf]

Any image editing program that allows you to work with layers and layer masks (so you can blend differently exposed versions of the same view drawing highlight details from the underexposed ones and shadow details from the overexposed ones) will be enough to start experimenting with the general concept.

Wulf

[Saralonde]

Originally Posted by Learner

Well! Thanks for the before/after posts. I'm trying to get the concept of HDR. I have not attempted it at all. Have seen many different ways to achieve this effect, but this is by far the best!! Photomatrix is a bought program, correct? Do you know of any 'free' downloads that will achieve as good an effect? Thanks for posting before/afters.

Try this site http://www.hdrsoft.com/

You can try the free download which I don't think will expire, but will put a watermark on. If you like it, you can buy it. I haven't tried this myself.

[Learner]

Again, Thank You Wulf and Sara for responding. Took so long to get back to you as I was in 'sunny' Florida for several days. I thought the two different exposures idea was a start. I'll have to try it. Thanks.

[benttop]

I've tried the HDR tool in Photoshop a number of times with mixed results. This image is one of the better ones I've seen. Better than any of mine, that's for sure!

Where I keep getting in trouble is having things that move between shots, like water for example. In this shot the water doesn't look "bad" because you're far enough back that the ripples just blend together fine and it still looks like water. If you're closer, that blurred together water looks odd.

That orange sky is really cool!