-SF-

[abjam77]

Hey, I am new to these forums so I thought I would post a picture I took recently. I have been posting most of my stuff over at deviantart but nobody really gives you constructive criticism over there, so I figured I would stop by over here and see if I could actually get some advice. This was taken from a boat on the San Francisco bay with my Canon A620 in RAW mode (which it isn't supposed to have but I hacked it with the CHDK firmware).

Here is the original shot:



Post processing ensued and here is what I came up with for my final version:



Comments and critiques would be awesome

-- i'm not sure if you guys want this in the critique section or in the share your photo section, feel free to move the thread...

[zetson]

Welcome to the DPS forum. I hope you'll like it here.

The photo is so cool! Seems like you know what you're doing. That lighting really did it.

For future reference: If you want constructive critique, I suggest you post this in the critique section.

[private]

It seems like you did a good job straightening out the picture and the colors are pleasing. The only thing that bugs me (not sure if others will agree) is the crane like thing on top of the building on the right of the picture. And maybe crop out some of the H20 - even though its beautiful!

[falafelicious]

Great PP, it looks like a completely different shot. I'd be interested in knowing what you did to it.

If you're looking for constructive criticism or really anything more than "nice job" you may want to try to critique section

[teinee]

I also like the job you did, it brought a lot to the photo. One other thought, if you didn't want to go right to the critique section, are some of the other sections. This would be good in before and after as well as in one of the technique sections, they are usually more likely to give critiques in those than in share your shots. As a matter of fact, I believe critiques are kind of discouraged in SYS. You should find a lot of feedback here at DPS though, welcome.

[avatar]

Hi.

That looks so good! Great work, mate. I agree about the crane, it is a bit distracting although it is a minor critique. Would you mind sharing with us what you did to get it to this point? The result is amazing. Would love to know how you did it.

Thanks.

A

[KathrynWilson]

Very nice color you went with - I really like it

[abjam77]

Thanks for the copliments! I never noticed the crane before but I agree that it does mess up the skyline a little. For those wondering what I did here is a quick summary.

1) Shot in RAW using the CHDK firmware
2) Used Adobe Raw plugin to adjust the exposure. Using the exposure slider I made 5 different pictures, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2
3) Brought these pictures into photomatix and messed around with the tone mapping until it looked good (I didn't save the settings, sorr if that is too vague).
4) Used NeatImage to get rid of the RAW noise (worked really well)
5) Used Photoshop to straighten the image and used the chanel mixer to get the nice sunset color.

Basically it is a fake HDR shot.

[avatar]

Excellent. Thanks for sharing that. I really appreciate it.

I find it interesting that you used Camera Raw to adjust the exposures and then created the HDR. I always thought that the whole point of HDR was that the camera is not able to capture the full scope and that therefore you have to take the same picture a couple of times with different exposures. I have never tried adjusting the exposure in RAW and use HDR on the result(s). Now I'm all intrigued and can't wait to try this on some of my older shots where I didn't bother shooting a set of images of HDR but have only one.

Thanks again for you reply! Keep up the good work.

Andre

[wulf]

Moved to "Before and After", since you have before and after and (a little further on) information on [url=http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/showpost.php?p=189132&postcount=8]how you got from A to B (or, rather, Before to After).

Wulf

ps. Please do remember the 600px max on longest side limit for pictures though