Old Barn

this was a fast creation, I took a single image made three copies adjusting the exposure, Then merged them in LR. I was getting better detail in the clouds and contrast this way. any comments and help are welcomed. I'm very green in this post work but thanks for looking.

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lijoec wrote in post #18397257
this was a fast creation, I took a single image made three copies adjusting the exposure, Then merged them in LR. I was getting better detail in the clouds and contrast this way. any comments and help are welcomed. I'm very green in this post work but thanks for looking.

Hosted photo: posted by lijoec in
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forum: HDR Creation

As I understand it, there is no advantage in generating 3 images from a single RAW before processing. The whole dynamic range is in the RAW file and there 3 secondary images have nothing extra, you mightas well process the single RAW. I don't know if you can do this in Lightroom but you certainly can in SNS-HDR, easyHDR or Photomatix.

Stiga wrote in post #18397679
As I understand it, there is no advantage in generating 3 images from a single RAW before processing. The whole dynamic range is in the RAW file and there 3 secondary images have nothing extra, you mightas well process the single RAW. I don't know if you can do this in Lightroom but you certainly can in SNS-HDR, easyHDR or Photomatix.

I'll have to look into those softwares. I was surprised the difference I was getting , like you said all of the IQ is there, I just couldn't get it out. It very well could be my knowledge and experience (or should I say lack of) in post work. In the past I was just doing sports and candids where it was just about timing, framing and exposure.

thanks for your help,
Joe

there is definitely a benefit to merging multiple edits of one image. Not every image will benefit from doing so, but some can, hard to say if this is one of those images, typically an overcast day doesn't have that much DR and if it does, the results come out looking fake.

as a practice exercise I guess your photo is okay. The clouds are very dark in spots yet the foreground does not look like it is about to storm. This is the main problem people have with HDR, again, fake

many years ago i was given the advice to take an edit way too far and then bring it back to reality. Doing so helped me learn to recognize that it is often subtle changes that look the best. It is one thing to try to recover a bit of blown out detail, it is something all together different to bring out detail that shouldn't be there.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18403182
there is definitely a benefit to merging multiple edits of one image. Not every image will benefit from doing so, but some can, hard to say if this is one of those images, typically an overcast day doesn't have that much DR and if it does, the results come out looking fake.

as a practice exercise I guess your photo is okay. The clouds are very dark in spots yet the foreground does not look like it is about to storm. This is the main problem people have with HDR, again, fake

many years ago i was given the advice to take an edit way too far and then bring it back to reality. Doing so helped me learn to recognize that it is often subtle changes that look the best. It is one thing to try to recover a bit of blown out detail, it is something all together different to bring out detail that shouldn't be there.

Thank you, now that you mentioned that , I know see what your saying.

BTW here is the original,

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/VvbM​uJ

and here is the single exposure adjusted.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/VxTU​JZ

as I suspected, the dynamic range here is not that great, except maybe in the deepest shadows, but since those aren't the subject, it is often better to leave them with little detail. Same could be said for the sky, which is why bringing it out too much is distracting.

so here I have the image in photoshop and have placed two color samples on the image. One is on the barn, hard to see at the bottom right of the info palette and the other is in the sky. The info palette shows the color under each labeled as #1 and #2. The numbers by each R, G, and B are before / after - in the first image there has been no adjustment so they are the same.

Once I opened the Curves dialog box (on the right of the screen cap) I control clicked (mac) on both color samples to set the little dots on the diagonal line. Doing this allows me to adjust each "color" somewhat independently. This is vastly different than just boosting exposure which would end up with blown highlights as in your post #6

Again the first pic shows no changes.

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