Normal vs HDR look for portraits

[Marcel]

I've been working on this project of photographs of piano persons and have stumbled on the use of Photomatix to process single shots into the HDR. look. These are examples of the look of normal and the HDR.

What is your preference?

HDR look:


Normal processing:

 

[fotojack]

I prefer the normal look. It's more real.

 

[stamatisg2002]

I second that (with some reluctance, since I'm a fan of vivid colours...).

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

Normal looks much better.

 

[Marcel]

Thanks for your opinion guys, it's really appreciated since I can get lost in all this process and easily go overboard with effects.

 

[Rick M]

I love HDR, but normal looks better on people I think.

 

[robinchun]

Has to be normal..

Robin

 

[Johnathan Aulabaugh]

As others said I like the normal much better. I really feel that the hdr took away from the fine details instead of inriching them. I see a lot of people that do hdr type processing on portraits that look really good. In this case I do not believe photomatix was the final process but maybe going back to ps after to complete the details.

 

[Browncoat]

The "HDR" looks more like a paintbrush filter in Photoshop than anything else. HDR portraits don't look anything like that...take a look at some of Dave Hill's work for example. Although he uses a variety of techniques and tricky lighting on top of it.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the only thing that looks like HDR is the real thing.

 

[silvertip]

HDR for people just makes the subject look too unreal (unless carefully controlled). It seems like too many who use HDR seem to overuse the process. I do have a couple of freeware programs for HDR but have never used them. Maybe sometime in the future I will try HDR, but for the moment no. JMHO

 

[Marcel]

The "HDR" looks more like a paintbrush filter in Photoshop than anything else. HDR portraits don't look anything like that...take a look at some of Dave Hill's work for example. Although he uses a variety of techniques and tricky lighting on top of it.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the only thing that looks like HDR is the real thing.

Yes Anthony, there was a paintbrush effect added on top of the HDR. So I was going overboard with this. I'll restrain myself and keep these on the more conservative side.
Thanks for your opinion.

 

[theregsy]

I think its the fact that the normal image looks sharper and cleaner, I do like the vivid colours of HDR but in this specific example the HDR detracts from a nice portrait shot