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brill the settings you are using are to over the top. there is little detail or presence in the photos. the colors are almost a pastel like becoming a mush instead of being sharp and vivid.
if you see in pa2uk phots or mine above , the details pop and the images have a very strong you are there kind of look.nothing gets soft or mushy.
Agreed.
I think HDR is like wearing makeup--if you can tell that it's been applied, it probably too much. I can't really tell that HDR was used in pa2uk, mtnsurfer, or mathjak107's photos, but some of the others it is obvious how and where HDR has been used.
Unfortunately everything I've tried has been way too obvious and quickly ended up in the trash.
Does anyone have recommended books or web tutorials?
more then anything its trial ,error and most important realizing whats good for hdr and whats not.
i rarely go full hdr look when skies are not blue with white clouds. ill go and shoot objects or scenes with no sky. that dark gray stormy cloud look grows stale fast.
sometimes when scenes have skies ill do an exposure fusion instead of detail enhancer for a more natural look.
anything i do in hdr gets a full round of editing adding back contrast, dodgeing and burning as the photos come out quite compressed from the process.
for some real fun shoot very vivid in camera and then apply a slight hdr processing. boy talk about pop . you need sun glasses for some of mine but they look pretty cool.
I think HDR is like wearing makeup--if you can tell that it's been applied, it probably too much. I can't really tell that HDR was used in pa2uk, mtnsurfer, or mathjak107's photos, but some of the others it is obvious how and where HDR has been used.
Unfortunately everything I've tried has been way too obvious and quickly ended up in the trash.
Does anyone have recommended books or web tutorials?
They won't be perfect because each image is different but there should be at least one preset that is close to what you're looking for and then you can just tweak it to get it right. That should get you started in the right direction for now and help you see what settings produce what you're going for.
Excellent job, on all of these! I am an extreme newbie at all of this, so I have to ask a dumb question. I know some that are more advanced do layers, masking, etc. to only ehnance certain areas. But did some of you just use the color enhancement settings to apply to the entire image? I use GIMP, and have played around with the color enhance settings to get some decent results, but of course it does the whole image, sometimes blowing out the sky, or even adding speckles to the sky making the image look like crap, even if the rest of it ends up looking great.
Anyway, just curious how some of the rest of you did yours.
I a GIMP user as well, but use it for very little work in my images anymore. Most of the work is done in my Canon software as RAW, Photomatix, Lightroom and Neat Image.
Quin Abbey (http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinmcnallyphotography/4397688867/ - broken link) by Robin McNally (http://www.flickr.com/people/robinmcnallyphotography/ - broken link), on Flickr
I think HDR is like wearing makeup--if you can tell that it's been applied, it probably too much. I can't really tell that HDR was used in pa2uk, mtnsurfer, or mathjak107's photos, but some of the others it is obvious how and where HDR has been used.
Unfortunately everything I've tried has been way too obvious and quickly ended up in the trash.
Does anyone have recommended books or web tutorials?
I agree that much of it is trial and error. I know a lot of pros who use digital blending manual techniques. Here is one friend of mine who does stunning work and when done you can't even tell a blend was performed:
His tutorial really helped me get the feel for manual blends: Jesse Speer Photography : Contact Jesse (http://www.jessespeer.com/making_the_image/2004_0712_chasm/index.html - broken link)
A big area ppl have a hard time with is separating the sky from the mid or foreground without halos or other wonky results. Here is an excellent video using masks to seperate areas like background and foreground:
I also have gotten a lot of use out shadow highlight tool. For most photos with high dynamic range I'll use a combination manual blends, shadow highlight and levels.
The key is to not rely on or expect 'one tool' to be a do all end all automagic image enhancer. It's almost always better to use a combination of methods depending on the image itself.
My goal is always go least invasive to more invasive. So I start with levels first. Sometimes thats all that is needed. But use targeted levels which is much more effective. So for example if the foreground is too dark create a layer or mask of only that area. Make sure it is feathered: ~ 160 pixels is usuall good. Then lighten only that part. The feathering blends it into the scene.
Lastly if you have RAW mode use it! There are many occasions where I only take one frame. But with a RAW 'negative' I have ~ 1.5 stops of latitude to push or pull an exposure. So I create one for the sky and one for the foreground. Here are a couple I just did from last night in which the foreground was almost completely black:
And yes, I could have pushed them more. But I wanted to go for a subtle blend and still maintain the mood. I like to keep things looking real, as if the viewer was there watching the scene unfold.
Derek
Last edited by MtnSurfer; 08-22-2010 at 03:52 PM..
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