Bad HDR

[Derrel]

It's got a painting effect. Normally I would agree with over cooking an HDR but I like this one.

Yeah...I do not care how it was processed--I like "the picture".

 

[The Barbarian]

The important thing is that a raw image will capture more data than can be shown in a normal jpeg. So you can process the raw file to make three images showing different information, that can be then processed to make an image with more visible detail than would otherwise be possible.

I don't care what people want to call it; it works and often allows one to show an image that looks more like the original scene than would be otherwise possible.

And my intention was to have a little fun with the image.

 

[The Barbarian]

I am not even sure how to respond to this. HDR isn't an "art" thing. It's a technical thing.

Yep. It's a tool, not an aesthetic or a set of standards.

 

[unpopular]

If I process a single image using "standard" digital imagine techniques, vs. arbitrarily taking 3 images and combining them, but the end result in each is very very similar, is one not HDR simply but the method in which it was processed?

Arbitrarily, then no, not necessarily. Though this has more to do with how people "do" HDR than it is about HDR. People often don't meter when they expose for HDR, they just, as you point out, arbitrarily choose a range and go with it.

Personally, I don't consider anything HDR unless the data occupies a significant portion of the 32-bit float space and is processed through a 32-bit pipeline. Though I will concede that this definition probably isn't about photography, but rather visual effects.

 

[unpopular]

The important thing is that a raw image will capture more data than can be shown in a normal jpeg. So you can process the raw file to make three images showing different information, that can be then processed to make an image with more visible detail than would otherwise be possible.

I don't care what people want to call it; it works and often allows one to show an image that looks more like the original scene than would be otherwise possible.

And my intention was to have a little fun with the image.

This is an entirely valid way to process an image, but it is not true that the data cannot be recovered any other way. The camera typically sameples at 12 or 14 bit, and yet are processed in a 16-bit pipeline. So there is plenty of headroom. Tone-mapping a 16-bit TIFF from a 14-bit camera will provide no greater dynamic range provided that there is no clipping performed in the raw conversion. But it's really just that, an LDR image being passed through a tone-mapper, and detail can be just as easily compressed using a curve adjustment.

Maintaining SNR is where the problem is here, but can be mitigated through careful ETTR.