Looking for some suggestions on recent HDR...

[stripdshirt]

I just shot this a couple days ago. I feel like something is a little off. I'm hoping I can get some feedback from everyone here on this one.

Thanks
1st HDR
Link (http://www.flickr.com/photos/18378590@N05/4280261233/sizes/l/)

2nd HDR after critique.

Reprocessed photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos/18378590@N05/4281489181/)

[dmccabe]

The detail in the bricks looks really nice.But the lower left has the snow area blown out. Also the snow is turning purple in areas.

The sky looks too processed, try cloning in a natural sky.

[Jack McEntire]

My advice would be try to process it to make it look exactly how it did in real life - after all, that's the true point of HDR. Once you've done that, have a little play around with it, and really spend some time in Photomatix (I assume?) nudging the sliders slightly until you eliminate blown areas, correct any softeness done by smoothing and get the saturation and temperature correct. I'd say that the highlights' smoothness needs to go up (the sky looks unrealistically dark and the snow looks too multi-toned), the black and white points need to be played around with alongside the gamma to get the brightness and contrast as it should be, and the saturation needs to be brought down significatly while the temperature should be brought up a little.

If you can't seem to get everything sorted in one swipe then try maybe creating two slightly different tonemapped versions. You can then layer them over each other in Photoshop (or whatever you use) to get the best of both. Perhaps even cut and feather sections you need from one of the images and layer them on top of the other image. This technique won't always look right depending on what you've changed, but sometimes it's worth a go if all else fails.

I've not been creating HDRs for long myself, but I hope this helps you, good luck! :)

[dugcross]

This doesn't look like a true hdr. It just looks like one exposure processed to look like hdr. The reason I say this is because there are no details in the shadows and like the post above mentioned areas in the snow does look blown out. If I am correct on this then that's what's missing, it's not a true hdr. If I'm mistaken then, my apologies.

[stripdshirt]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. Given the environment at the time (snow and clouds) it made it a little difficult to reprocess without making overexpose the snow, or a dark sky.

My fear in superimposing a different sky or different clouds is that it would make it look too out of the ordinary. But given that I could find the correct sky to put there, it could look really nice.

Regardless with the three shots that I took, this is the best real life representation that I was able to come up with.

Again please let me know where improvement is needed.

Thanks

2nd reprocessed shot (http://www.flickr.com/photos/18378590@N05/4281489181/)

[MikeFairbanks]

My advice would be try to process it to make it look exactly how it did in real life - after all, that's the true point of HDR.


That's an opinion.

[stripdshirt]

I did the it with a different sky as well which provided an interesting result.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4066/4283047147_acb29054a4_b.jpg

[MikeFairbanks]

I like the new sky, except there's too much black in some of the clouds. Also, any way to fix that backward S on the bricks? You could clone them out.

[stripdshirt]

done

[Jack McEntire]

That's an opinion.

What's the point in starting silly debates - of course it's an opinion, the vast majority of what's posted on this forum and more specifically in this section is opinion based. I don't think most people would argue, however, that the reason for the existence of HDR manipulation is to synthesise a High Dynamic Range, i.e. one which the human eye could perceive but a camera could not. The majority of people who use HDR software, especially professionals, will use it to regain what could not be captured and to make a photograph look more true to life. Sure, you can use Photomatix to make an amazing piece of 'artwork', but as a photograph, the piece may well be technically incorrect.

For example, you may well like the new sky despite the fact that it is technically incorrect. I'm sure that most photographers would be able to recognise that the sky in the edit does not fit the lighting of the shot and therefore doesn't do it any real favours. As a piece of 'art', you may love it and think that it is perfect. As a photograph - regardless of personal opinion - it is technically not all that brilliant.

Back to the point though, I'm pretty certain that the point of HDR is - or at least was originally - to make photographs more true to life.

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stripdshirt - I think that the reprocessed version you posted first looks a hell of a lot better, nice work; the sky in the second edit above simply isn't complementary to the shot, I personally don't think it looks at all right or appealing. The one thing I would say though is that HDR doesn't have to be (or as I see it, shouldn't be) the end of the processing/manipulation! :p I look at HDR images straight from Photomatix as a base; they tend to lack a lot of contrast and definition purely due to the nature of the processing. What I'd do now is open the image up in Photoshop, carefully remove noise, and experiment with the curves tool and the unsharp mask (if you have that in Photoshop?). You should be able to create something a lot more attractive and eyecatching if you experiment with other PP techniques.

I'd like to see the result if you do decide to do some further work on the image! :) Thanks for posting!

[stripdshirt]

Cleaned with noise ninja...