Whats the truth behind shots like this

[arlon]

I looked through a lot more of his similar photos and see dodge/burn mentioned a lot. I also see from his gallery that he knows his way around photoshop better than I know my way around my sock drawer.. I bet there's more creative PS going on there than most of us have dreamed of.. (-:}

[Foques]

on the point of HDR, I usually use to bring the contrast out such as here


but that shot that OP has linked to is very very very doctored. well doctored, however.

[yisra_el]

Hi everyone.

I'm new to photography as well. Just got my DSLR last August 21st. My first 3 shots are auto-bracketed and are continuous. Unfortunately the camera was set to JPG only. But I was able to get a nice result. At least for my taste.



I guess what I've learned is that tonemapped JPGs has less tonal range (beats the purpose of doing an HDR) but can add a dreamy more painting-like quality to the image (if PPed properly). Tonemapped RAWs on the other hand would create an "HDR".

I hope I made some sense. I hope I'm right as well. I would love to learn from the experts

[StormyOne]

Originally Posted by yisra_el

I guess what I've learned is that tonemapped JPGs has less tonal range (beats the purpose of doing an HDR) but can add a dreamy more painting-like quality to the image (if PPed properly). Tonemapped RAWs on the other hand would create an "HDR".

RAW files have all the information captured at the time of shooting embedded within them, some of which might not be immediately obvious to the human eye which is why they're used for HDR as the aim is to increase the dynamic range, hence 'High Dynamic Range'.

I find I get better results with five shot HDRs taken at one stop plus and minus increments than I do with the three shot variety taken at two stop plus and minus increments.

Some people use Lightroom or similar to adjust the exposure of a single RAW and create several images they combine for 'pseudo' HDR, but the results are never the same as a true HDR because they can only work with the information that single RAW file captured at the time of shooting, which is less than you'd have from three or more differing exposures taken at the time.

HTH

[Gonzo13]

Loki give it some time. Read tutorials about what you are trying to accomplish. Take lots of pictures. I would say that you should almost always shoot in raw. I have never had the chance to play with either of the Canon 5ds but with my 400D I adjusted a Picture Style and made my own which upped the saturation and the contrast. You payed for a camera with all the bells and whistles I say learn how to use them. Your pictures will come out so much better for it.

[loki1982]

Thanks for all the advice. I am doing a lot of shots, trying to go out 2 times a week and shoot different subjects. I still find my shots seem way dull and unsharp. I have starting encorporating my tripod, shooting in raw and jpeg, using the 2 second timer to remove camera shake(i dont have a release cable yet) and other things Im learning. Im using 2 lenses that I got with my camera, canon zoom EF 75-300mm 1:4-5.6 and canon zoom ef 28-135mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS.

I did capture some lightning last week. I didnt try to do any composition or add any interesting subject, this was purely trying to capture my first lightning strikes on film.

IMG_1537.jpg

[windrider86]

I could be wrong here, but it also appears to have some gaussian blur to it. The parts that almost glow can be duplicated by applying a gaussian blur to a top layer and then changing your blend mode to overlay.

[weshoot]

Looking at the first image, it has the possibility of being HDR, or a high dynamic range image, which is a number of different exposures of the same image (usually on a tripod). There are programs, like Photomatix, that put these images together to make one HDR image. Another consideration is that the image was manipulated in Photoshop (or other editing program) to achieve that look. Photoshop CS4 will allow you take a tiff or jpeg and process it as a raw image and do some manipulations you can't do in regular Photoshop. A tutorial on doing this is at http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html under faux HDR and can give some ideas on this, provided you have the versions of Photoshop or other program which will allow you to do that.

I hope that helps.

Gary Silverstein
weshoot.com

[Mitchell]

Erm, not to seem like an ass or anything, but maybe you should try messaging him and asking him how he did it OP. It's what I'd do, haha.

Hope I helped, haha.

[diwhisul]

They are really very cool, very wonderful
Great work .. really informative .. and thanks a lot for sharing ..
Glad it works as expected for you
looking good