North Creek Lake HDR - C&C Welcomed

I really have little idea what I'm doing with HDR. I also kind of just discovered the Shadows/Highlights tool in Photoshop. This afternoon I went for a walk around the lake with my tripod, did a bunch of +/-2 exposures, did Merge to HDR in PS, then adjusted brightness, then did Shadows/Highlights, then touched up brightness again and finished with a USM. I'm grateful for any advice, direction to detailed resources to learn more about doing this, etc. Thanks, now time to go look at the 339 exposures

Sometimes I feel so lost when editing images. I don't know if what I'm doing is right, making it look better. I'll make a bunch of edits and then flip back and forth between the original and my changes and not even know which I think is better. I just played with some selective color changes on this, then bumped up brightness and contrast after that.

Looks good. Have a look to my page. There are a lot hdrs, but many say i overprocessed them

i like the 2nd one best, the splash of color in the water is nice

To simplify your task, think about what HDR basically does. It enables you to use multiple exposures to provide detail in the shadows and detail in the really bright areas. Then, when you go out to shoot HDR start with basic composition, for without composition the shot will probably be so-so anyway. Then look to see what areas need the 'help' of HDR and determine your exposure ranges. If you do this you may reduce your post processing workload because you already know what you want the final picture to look like.

Thanks for the feedback guys. In the second I also slightly adjusted the greens, and make the sky "bluer."

Yeah, HDR is basically extending the light values that can be recorded. I get the concept fairly well, I think. LIke my Canon 40D has a 9 value range. With the +/-2 exposures I get grab details with the highlights the underexposed image (what would blowout in a normal exposure), and details in the shadows with overexposed image (what would clip as black in a normal exposure). My first real deal HDR image was a tree a night where I was definitely getting details I wouldn't be able to get without HDR, I should post that, but need to resize it (currently a 45 MB file).

Generally, my goal is to make it not noticeable that it is an HDR image, but just a camera with a 13 value dynamic range instead of 9. Though the surreal effect is enjoyable from time to time, I don't want to do that regularly. It just seems that when I do "Merge to HDR" in Photoshop it's not popping automatically. I need to figure out my process after that. I need to learn what's wise to do with the histogram slider after the merge before opening in Photoshop proper. HDR merging is also the first time I've had to change the mode to less bits in order to be able to use most image adjustments.

I like the color of the second one best. The sky and water are beautiful, but the trees are a bit dull compared to the rest of the scene. I think it looks a little bit crooked or maybe it's the perpecitve? Like it should be rotated slighlty to the right? Nice photo though.

katgrl82 wrote in post #14338621
I like the color of the second one best. The sky and water are beautiful, but the trees are a bit dull compared to the rest of the scene. I think it looks a little bit crooked or maybe it's the perspective? Like it should be rotated slightly to the right? Nice photo though.

Thanks for the kind words. I didn't see the alignment issue until you mentioned it. It's very subtle, but I think might be right. I'll have to play with the lens correction in PS to see if I can make it look more correct.

I actually prefer the subtlety of the first one. I don't do much HDR, but to my eyes it looks the best. KUDOS to you.