First attempt at HDR pics

Went to a small town near me today, in order to get some pictures I thought would work in HDR. I'm trying out photomatix, and guess I'll be getting it now, really like it. Let me know what you think of these. I've got a few others I'm trying to figure out how to downsize so I can post.

Not bad at all man, but for the subjects you chose I'd just do RAW>Clarity to +80-90, contrast it up 25-35, and add maybe +40 vibrancy instead of the full on HDR/photoshop option for HDR effect.

SkvLTD said:

Not bad at all man, but for the subjects you chose I'd just do RAW>Clarity to +80-90, contrast it up 25-35, and add maybe +40 vibrancy instead of the full on HDR/photoshop option for HDR effect.

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I speak every language in the world except this one!

Haha, just try what I said though. Shoot in raw, open the raw using photoshop raw plugin and you'll see those settings.

I like the result, however it was not clear to me if these pictures need HDR.

HDR is normally used if the range between the brightest and darkest area are more then 5 stops (what a digital can handle).
Where it is quite common for shots with a bright sky I´m surprised is would be needed for the shots above.

P.S.: I´m trying to use Picturenaut for HDR without much success.

I have mixed feelings on HDR images. The images to me need to look natural. They need to look like what the human eye can see. Very few people do HDR properly. I like you're photos. It's just not done the way I would have proccesed them. Why do people leave a glowing effect around trees , buildings etc...? Really not sure what their trying to accomplish. Of all the HDR photo's i've seen. Very few of them look natural. Is this the way HDR photo's are supposed to look?

FastGlass said:

I have mixed feelings on HDR images. The images to me need to look natural. They need to look like what the human eye can see. Very few people do HDR properly. I like you're photos. It's just not done the way I would have proccesed them. Why do people leave a glowing effect around trees , buildings etc...? Really not sure what their trying to accomplish. Of all the HDR photo's i've seen. Very few of them look natural. Is this the way HDR photo's are supposed to look?

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I had the same arguement with an HDR photographer a while back. He believes all HDR images need to be surreal looking. I've seen photos done using HDR that were very realistic and unless you were told that an HDR technique was used, you wouldn't have known. I'm guessing there is room for both kinds of techniques depending on the look you are shooting for. Some HDR pushed to the edge look kind of cool, but it all depends on subject matter. Old buildings look ok... church isles and alters I don't like.

HDR needs to look the way the photographer wants them to look.

There is no one on this planet dumb enough to tell me how I NEED to process

MY images. I process the way I want to. If you like them, great! If not, thats not my problem.

I don't like heavily processed HDR images, but thats NOT my call. It's the photographers call.

JMTCW

​Pete

FastGlass said:

I have mixed feelings on HDR images. The images to me need to look natural. They need to look like what the human eye can see. Very few people do HDR properly. I like you're photos. It's just not done the way I would have proccesed them. Why do people leave a glowing effect around trees , buildings etc...? Really not sure what their trying to accomplish. Of all the HDR photo's i've seen. Very few of them look natural. Is this the way HDR photo's are supposed to look?

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Different people have different views on photography....I won a photo comp with an image thought was not as good as some of the other entrants...

Well said, Pete. There is no status quo on how HDR is "supposed" to look, when it is "supposed" to be used, or who is "supposed" to approve of it being used a certain way.

And in the spirit of pull your head out of your assedness...

HDR is no different than dark room post processing techniques used during the days of film. The father of photography, Ansel Adams himself, was very well known for spending a lot of time in the dark room dodging and burning his photographs to show the full tonal range of light available. If he were still alive today, you can bet the farm that he'd be doing HDR, because it accomplishes the exact same thing, only digitally.

I have mixed feelings on HDR as well. I am a purist, sort of, as to photographs. Still, I look at some of these HDR images and am just stunned at what I see and it does attract me.

What I am curious about , after doing some HDR research, is how you manage to hand hold multiple bracket shots and then get them perfectly aligned for the final image? Does the software do that good a job at alignment?

Mike....I used a tripod on all of my shots to help with stability