HDR talk

[JoYork]

Hi folks,

At the moment I'm going through a learning period with HDR. I'm torn between trying to make the image look realistic but at the same time have some pop which looks cool.

I've found that the HDR merge facility in Photoshop is pretty good for realistic looking images (and they seem sharper and less noisy than Photomatix) but they just dump out a file which is quite boring and needs some PP. Not to mention you seem to get one go at messing with the curves when converting it from a 32bit image to a 16bit image.

Anyway, I took these 2 images today at an air museum. The weather was grey and drab so I added filter after filter to spruce them up a bit. I know they're not realistic, but sometimes realistic equals dull...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3478/3187714631_66f6e6ec3f.jpg?v=0
^ shot with Canon 10-22mm lens at 10mm. I was probably about 2 feet away from the plane.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3300/3189035138_60080ff3dc_b.jpg
^ same plane, this time with 17-55 lens about 100 feet away. I'm amazed at how much a difference perspective makes to an object.

What I'm sort of discovering with photography is.... there are no rules. With this in mind I went back to Photomatix and merged 3 images, saved it as a 16bit TIFF file then brought it into Photoshop for some tweaking.

Here's the result. I know it's noisy and there are artifacts all over the place (ghostly bits) and the colours are surreal but even so it represents a step towards where I want to head with my photography - emotion.

https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/41858/surrealsmaller.jpg

The lady in the picture was kind enough to stay still while I bracketed the shots. The main reason for this is that she's a mannequin :) There were some horrible reflections in the image (why do museums put everything behind glass?) so I decided to get make some artistic decisions and diverge from reality.

By the way, I just read that there's a freeware program called Picturenaut available. Sounds interesting, I'm going to give it a go... free is always a good price :)

[YesNo]

Anything can be free mate. I like the second and third one a lot. On the second though try to get directly in front of the plane so the tail doesnt look off center from the nose. Other than that I like 'em

[Electric Shepherd]

Nice shots Jo, particularly the control room one. That's Elvington right? They're pretty good on recreating the war scenario IIRC.

[forsakenme720]

These are great! Forget trying to make them look "real." There is no such thing. It took me a while to realize that, but I did :) Just do whatever looks good to you. That's what's really important :)

[Zayets]

The second shot is to die for. Very well done.

[macoffutt]

For Noise issues created by the merger of HDRS might look into the Noise Ninja plug-in or Photoshop or Noiseware, which also has plug-ins. They help out a ton!

Great photos!

[JoYork]

Yes, this is Elvington, the place made slightly more famous by Top Gear's Richard Hammond crashing his car and nearly killing himself.

[millsinmaine@gmail.com]

Fascinating post Jo, thanks for sharing and explaining everything to us. I was intrigued by the two perspectives. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the 17-55 picture which for me, emphasized the lethal aspect of the machine, whilst the museum HDR highlighted the past, and the emotions behind WW2

[forsakenme720]

Fascinating post Jo, thanks for sharing and explaining everything to us. I was intrigued by the two perspectives. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the 17-55 picture which for me, emphasized the lethal aspect of the machine, whilst the museum HDR highlighted the past, and the emotions behind WW2

Interesting interpretation. I like it. :)

[Lazuka]

number 3 makes u get lost in time, and i think you're really headed in the right direction, love your work

[canonloader]

I think your worrying about nothing, a tempest in a teapot. No matter what you do to an image, there will be some who love it and an equal number who hate it. Personally, I love the artsy fartsy look to HDR or I wouldn't do it myself. If I wanted natural, I would do natural with single shots. Luckily, I can do both, cause the camera has no say in this. :mrgreen:

[CameraBuff]

That # 3 is real cool.