Exposure Blending - Paradise Resort - Koh Chang, Thailand

[eldiablo]

My own take on HDR. This is why I'm not too partial to photomatix, even though it does have a place in more surrel imagery. The 10 second results you get with that program are nothing like what you can create by taking some time and doing it yourself. I'm not saying hdr sucks, so don't take this the wrong way, I just think tone mapping software has a ways to go yet. I could definitely improve on this had I taken more than one exposure and corrected the color balance (it's a bit orange...but ahh well, this photo is not worth the effort of doing again).

1 image digitally re-exposed, layered, blended, dogded, burned, nuked, and re-nuked in CS3. Used a wacom on this as well. It helps with the DB and air brush what nots. Just wanted to share.

http://evilaxisofpenguins.zenfolio.com/img/v1/p965939983-4.jpg
Original out of camera:
http://evilaxisofpenguins.zenfolio.com/img/v1/p642799018-4.jpg

[figmented]

now easier in lightroom 2 w/ localized adjustments! :)

[eldiablo]

I'll have to give it a try. The one thing cs3 has going for it is gradients and layer masks. Is this possible in L2?

[René Damkot]

Gradient: yes. Layers: no. Masks: kinda.

Have a look in one of the various LR2 threads.

Also, check this out: Click (http://lagemaat.blogspot.com/search/label/Lightroom) (Scroll down a bit to the post of July 5, 2008 )

[eldiablo]

Gradient: yes. Layers: no. Masks: kinda.

Have a look in one of the various LR2 threads.

Also, check this out: Click (http://lagemaat.blogspot.com/search/label/Lightroom) (Scroll down a bit to the post of July 5, 2008 )

Just upgraded....yeah...I was way wrong...the masking tool is great...kinda ;]

Thanks for the info.

[Boucher]

Yes you can do it yourself. but it's a lot harder and takes longer. I've had good results its just a matter of how you tonemap the image...

[eldiablo]

Yes you can do it yourself. but it's a lot harder and takes longer. I've had good results its just a matter of how you tonemap the image...

I've had and used photomatix for almost a year now and I still cannot produce anything as close to what I can with photoshop.

Could you share some that you've processed?

[Boucher]

It's really a combination of things. Micro smoothing helps a lot.

This can probably be considered as over done though. If so check out Tsmith's work, he has some amazing HDR's.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3204/2715763229_63839939cf_b.jpg

[eldiablo]

Very nice photo, but I'm still seeing the same things that turned me off of the program. The odd coloring/static in the sky/clouds, and the halos, even though they are very minor in this image. Don't get me wrong, this is still better than most photomatix images I've seen.

[Boucher]

Yeah that was probably me just not using enough micro-smoothing or light-smoothing.