Tools
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HDR.........Benefits ?The major drawback I have seen with digital has been the dynamic range..
Light areas are easily blown out when trying to get detail in the shadows, and conversly, dark areas are black when exposing for the sky....
I can see benefits when combining exposures...but I don't like the over-driven, "fake" look of many HDR treatments..
I'm tempted..........but is the result worth the post processing efforts... ??
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uncle aj
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I like HDR when it's done well. I agree about the overblown look of some examples but you can finely tune it to suit. I'd try it you will like it I'm sure. 
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Gedanken
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I've been vaguely aware of HDR, and one of these days I'll give it a go, but in the meantime, I've just been using the hgihlight/shadow function on Photoshop. It seems to work pretty well.
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uncle aj
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| Gedanken wrote: | | I've been vaguely aware of HDR, and one of these days I'll give it a go, but in the meantime, I've just been using the hgihlight/shadow function on Photoshop. It seems to work pretty well. |
I played with that picture you once posted of the Albert Hall from your UK visit. It came out really good in HDR but I think the picture is back on my Saudi computer.
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KJacques
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I saw some HDR pics that were of some very atmospheric landscapes. I used to use Cokin filters to try and replicate that effect. Does anyone have any they've done to post? I normally use the settings on my D300 that seem to work fairly well in smoothing out a contrasty exposure. But I'd love to see some examples here of true HDR pics.
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Gedanken
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Don't know if I got this right but here goes. I took three shots at 1EV bracketing:
Using Photoshop layers I overlaid the first two photos on ther third and got this:
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uncle aj
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This is another of James's pictures. When I first saw it, I thought what a great candidate for HDR. I don't have the original and thought I'd binned this one but found it again this morning. It was done by making three images from the original and altering the exposures.
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Tools
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I have still not invested in one of the various HDR software programs..
I think that it is an interesting technique... But, it is time consuming and I still like to take photographs more than I like processing them......
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vh_bu98
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I think HDR is cool looking and have considered creating some, but a part of me says it goes against my belief that photography should be capturing the moment and not creating something that wasn't really there.
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uncle aj
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| vh_bu98 wrote: | | I think HDR is cool looking and have considered creating some, but a part of me says it goes against my belief that photography should be capturing the moment and not creating something that wasn't really there. |
I look at Photoshop as the modern darkroom. In the darkrooms of old there was plenty of dodging and shading going on. Some of the pictures produced in the old days did not represent what the camera saw.
I recently went to an evening at the local camera club called "Digital dos and don'ts." As soon as the lecturer started he said "Do everything and there aren't any don'ts."
It was a great demonstration and I'm eager to try some of his ideas out. 
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vh_bu98
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| uncle aj wrote: |
I look at Photoshop as the modern darkroom. In the darkrooms of old there was plenty of dodging and shading going on. Some of the pictures produced in the old days did not represent what the camera saw.
I recently went to an evening at the local camera club called "Digital dos and don'ts." As soon as the lecturer started he said "Do everything and there aren't any don'ts."
It was a great demonstration and I'm eager to try some of his ideas out. |
I have NX2 and that is pretty much all I use to edit my photos. I will correct the white balance, adjust the eval a little, maybe some cropping and slight color adjustment.
I do have a copy of CS2, but I haven't used it in years not since my web design/development days.
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uncle aj
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| vh_bu98 wrote: | | uncle aj wrote: |
I look at Photoshop as the modern darkroom. In the darkrooms of old there was plenty of dodging and shading going on. Some of the pictures produced in the old days did not represent what the camera saw.
I recently went to an evening at the local camera club called "Digital dos and don'ts." As soon as the lecturer started he said "Do everything and there aren't any don'ts."
It was a great demonstration and I'm eager to try some of his ideas out. |
I have NX2 and that is pretty much all I use to edit my photos. I will correct the white balance, adjust the eval a little, maybe some cropping and slight color adjustment.
I do have a copy of CS2, but I haven't used it in years not since my web design/development days. |
I use NX2 and CS4, both are great programmes but you can do so much more with CS4.
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KJacques
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Okay, I agree with Larry that I prefer taking pictures to processing them.
But WoW! those examples from James and A.J. are absolutely stunning. They have just magical looking lighting. Thanks so much for posting them. I am going to have to pull out the tripod and try that technique sometime.
What a pain in the @ss, but honestly, they are beautiful.
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vh_bu98
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Dang you guys...I started playing with creating HDRs today and I may be hooked.
This is one of my first tests. What do you think?
Cambell River, BC - View from our room at Painter's Lodge
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uncle aj
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Nice one Vu, great first attempt.
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uncle aj
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I never seem to take any pictures suitable for the HDR process but one of Gerard's jumped out at me. Here's the result of a quasi HDR picture made up out of three copies of the original image at different light levels.
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Tools
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All of those look great..
Maybe I'll take some shots on the way down to Mexico next week with some experimentation in mind.....
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uncle aj
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Here's another example, it's the view from my front door, back home in England.
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Tools
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Is that with an HD program.. or using Photoshop layers.???
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uncle aj
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| Tools wrote: | | Is that wiht an HD program.. or using Photoshop layers.??? |
I created three Tiff images from one original RAW image. The original exposure and one stop over exposed and one stop under exposed. These were then put into Photomatrix Pro for processing.
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Tools
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| uncle aj wrote: | | Tools wrote: | | Is that wiht an HD program.. or using Photoshop layers.??? |
I created three Tiff images from one original RAW image. The original exposure and one stop over exposed and one stop under exposed. These were then put into Photomatrix Pro for processing. |
Gotcha... So, I need some more software to play with..... 
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uncle aj
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| Tools wrote: | | uncle aj wrote: | | Tools wrote: | | Is that wiht an HD program.. or using Photoshop layers.??? |
I created three Tiff images from one original RAW image. The original exposure and one stop over exposed and one stop under exposed. These were then put into Photomatrix Pro for processing. |
Gotcha... So, I need some more software to play with..... |
I think PS CS4 has an HDR process but I like Photomatrix Pro. They also do a plugin for PS.
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vh_bu98
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| uncle aj wrote: |
I think PS CS4 has an HDR process but I like Photomatrix Pro. They also do a plugin for PS. |
Photomatrix does a better job than PhotoShop. One issue I ran into with PS is that if you're using the same image, but you manually changed the exposure, the metatag will prevent you from processing the HDR. You have to wipe the metatag completely for each copy.
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uncle aj
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| vh_bu98 wrote: | | uncle aj wrote: |
I think PS CS4 has an HDR process but I like Photomatrix Pro. They also do a plugin for PS. |
Photomatrix does a better job than PhotoShop. One issue I ran into with PS is that if you're using the same image, but you manually changed the exposure, the metatag will prevent you from processing the HDR. You have to wipe the metatag completely for each copy. |
Good point Vu, I forgot that.
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