False HDR - My First Attempt!

pugnacious33 · Dec 1, 2008

I'm somewhat pleased with the results. I can see myself experimenting with this in the future, but I think it requires a certain kind of image to be effective, namely a wider angle landscape/panorama with varied colors. I'd love the hear what you all think, especially those with any experience in fooling around with HDR.

Original.

Post HDR processing.

kevinblahh · Dec 1, 2008

honestly, i like the original better

Battou · Dec 1, 2008

I feel it was a poor subject for the attempt to be downright honest with you.

However, a similar methoed of processing might help with the exposure a bit. If it's alright with you I would like to try?

pugnacious33 · Dec 2, 2008

No problem. But i'd appreciate if you'd explain exactly how you made the changes. I'm really just now delving into the world of post processing. Thanks.

ann · Dec 2, 2008

not to be a jerk, but you will get much better results if you use more than one exposure, as that is what the technique is for.

your correct that it takes a certain type of image, and that is one that has a long tonal range that can't be held on one exposure.

nothing wrong with playing around but i really think you will be much happy with yourself and the final results with the use of more than one exposure.

just my 2cents.

Battou · Dec 2, 2008

pugnacious33 said:
No problem. But i'd appreciate if you'd explain exactly how you made the changes. I'm really just now delving into the world of post processing. Thanks.

Alright I'll start with just the for web preview you posted. Be advised this will be of lesser quality than working with the original.

It's not perfect but here is how I came to that result

Starting here

I went into Photoshop CS3 and tampered with the exposure compensation. However it is not the standard +2, +1, 0, -1,-2. I am assuming that is the process you took Correct?

Anyway, I pushed it a little farther to with a +4, +2, +1, 0, -1. resulting in these:

(original)

I then opened those five in Photomatix Pro 2.4.1 and ran the Generate HDR on a manually set EV of 1 (+2 ,+1, 0, -1, -2). Once the HDR was generated I enetered into the tone compressor.

This is where it gets a little funkey.

I pushed the contrast adaption slider all the way down (-10) and the tone compression and brightness all the way up, ten of ten. Saved as harbor_1

Hit "undo tonemapping" in the menue and tonemapped again this time brightness at at five of ten. Saved as harbor_2

Hit "undo tonemapping" in the menue and tonemapped again this time brightness at at zero of ten. Saved as harbor_3

Hit "undo tonemapping" in the menue and tonemapped again this time brightness at at negitive five of ten and pushed the contrast slider to negitive five. Saved as harbor_4

Hit "undo tonemapping" in the menue and tonemapped again this time brightness at at negitive ten of ten and pushed the contrast slider to zero. Saved as harbor_5

Now again I have five images, so I close all in Photomatix and open the five new images in Photomatix Pro 2.4.1 and ran the Generate HDR on a manually set EV of 1 (+2 ,+1, 0, -1, -2). Once the HDR was generated I enetered into the tone compressor. Monkeied around with the sliders untill it looked desent on this computer (Be advised my moniter is a peice of shit). and got this

Opened it in Photoshop CS3 and ran some basic color correction and stuff, I ended up having to do the color correction twice due to an error on my part so I can't exactly remember everything I did on the PS end of things.

I was rushing with the processing a bit and actually was not too overly concerned about the result because this is prettymuch just a demonstration. I figure you will prolly give this a try on your own. I guestimated the EV's on the fly during the initial exposure tampering. and under Normal circumstances I prolly would have run the five tonemapped images threw color correction before regenerating the HDR in Photomatix but....

It is a lot of work and generally not going to be necessary but it can be done with some time. A GND filter would prolly be much easier.