First attempt on HDR

[kuul13]

This is my one of the pictures from the first attempt on HDR. I would like to know if I fared well. Since it is my first attempt, I would like to know if something is missing in this image? Does it hold your eye? How is composition? And if any tip on improving this (if any?)

[Tito87]

I like the shot. I wish I could be more helpful, but I'm also in the process of learning HDR. So, I don't know what to tell you about the actual process.

[cesarderio]

Nice image, my personal taste would be to pull it back a little. There are well done HDR, and then there all over the top iphone looking HDR. Don't be the latter.

[scootermcq]

High Dynamic Range is a useful tool in it allows you to get more range out of the camera then the sensor can see. Your eye can see more than the camera, so this allows you to have not clipped shadows or blown highlights in an image with a very high range of zones.

People (myself included) tend to overdo it when they first start. An image is not natural. It is not what the eye sees, but a cartoonish change to what nature put there. I feel fairly safe to say that the scene did not look like that to the eye. Not to mention there is a ton of noise in the image.

People also push it too far and get halos around trees & sky where light meets dark. I am attaching two images from yesterday. The bottom one I deleted (I had to pull it out of my recycle bin) as I pushed it too far. My color became un-natural and not what I saw when I looked at the scene before shooting.

Keeper

Trash Bin:


Now this is just personal taste, but the top image looks the way the scene did to my eye. In the bottom, the sky was nowhere near that blue, the trees were not that vibrant and the door was not glowing red. Some people will like it, but it is not realistic at all. I trashed it.

[windrider86]

Something I like to do is to do my "HDR's" in layers and mask out areas that look to fake. Like skies and what not.

[kuul13]

Originally Posted by Tito87

I like the shot. I wish I could be more helpful, but I'm also in the process of learning HDR. So, I don't know what to tell you about the actual process.

:-) Thanks Tito!

Originally Posted by cesarderio

Nice image, my personal taste would be to pull it back a little. There are well done HDR, and then there all over the top iphone looking HDR. Don't be the latter.

Thanks Cesarderio, I guess it is overcooked. You know what, I didn't do much except used free trial version of "Topaz Adjust" and use the preset. To start with, I went much easier route But, you are right, I should not go over the top.

[Nina Xmania]

The shot is beautiful ..
Could anyone tells me whats HDR exactly?

[kuul13]

Originally Posted by scootermcq

High Dynamic Range is a useful tool in it allows you to get more range out of the camera then the sensor can see. Your eye can see more than the camera, so this allows you to have not clipped shadows or blown highlights in an image with a very high range of zones.

People (myself included) tend to overdo it when they first start. An image is not natural. It is not what the eye sees, but a cartoonish change to what nature put there. I feel fairly safe to say that the scene did not look like that to the eye. Not to mention there is a ton of noise in the image.

People also push it too far and get halos around trees & sky where light meets dark. I am attaching two images from yesterday. The bottom one I deleted (I had to pull it out of my recycle bin) as I pushed it too far. My color became un-natural and not what I saw when I looked at the scene before shooting.

Now this is just personal taste, but the top image looks the way the scene did to my eye. In the bottom, the sky was nowhere near that blue, the trees were not that vibrant and the door was not glowing red. Some people will like it, but it is not realistic at all. I trashed it.

Scott, appreciate your elaborated comment. I completely agree with you that the picture is overcooked and I lost the natural feel. I guess, the HDR images that I have seen before seems to be dramatic and unnatural to me That's what reflected in my picture too. I didn't spend much time in this picture, I used Topaz Adjust with a HDR preset. I don't know why most of the presets on Topaz are grainy? I have some pictures that look better and bit natural that I would like to post for your critique.

Originally Posted by windrider86

Something I like to do is to do my "HDR's" in layers and mask out areas that look to fake. Like skies and what not.

Firstly, I am glad that I got a comment from one of the moderators, never got any before thanks windrider. Do you know if there is a link on "how to create HDR with single picture"? Secondly, I will try to get multiple exposures and run it through photomatrix for trial and see how I fared.

[kuul13]

Originally Posted by Nina Xmania

The shot is beautiful ..
Could anyone tells me whats HDR exactly?

Nina, firstly thanks for liking the picture. Secondly, HDR is High Dynamic Range Imaging, I have just started on this but it seems to be pretty cool stuff Here is one of the links from DPS An Introduction to High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDR). Basically it is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. You achieve this by clicking pictures with multiple exposures (dark | normal | light) and then using HDR tool, merge all the three images + tonemapping and you get one dynamic image

I downloaded Topaz Adjust 4 - trial version to try the presets and someof the images are better than this. You can see couple of them in my flickr photostream. I know not a big help, but you can start from here!