First Attempt At HDR C&C

smoke665 · Apr 16, 2016

manaheim said:
When you're saving images for web display you want to save them using the RGB color space as most browsers do not handle color correction properly or consistently. RGB is the "safest".

Ok I sure hope you're right as I've been fighting with the color difference problem for a couple of weeks. I know I've made some changes recently to the software so here goes another try. This time as a RGB 8 bit.

smoke665 · Apr 16, 2016

eal76 said:
Don't let your frustration stop you, study and practice and it will come. I'd hate to see you discouraged by the comments on here (btw I agree with the comments, ironically).

No please don't misunderstand, I'm not frustrated with the comments because I also agree with what they are saying, and welcome the constructive criticism and assistance I've received here. My frustration was coming from "knowing" what I wanted in my mind, seeing one thing on my monitor, and then seeing something entirely different show up online. While the earlier comment about color works space, won't cure all my problems it will sure help. The colors are now the same on multiple devices. This site is great thank you for all the great advice.

manaheim · Apr 16, 2016

What's really going to drive you bonkers next is that your monitors are not calibrated.

And don't even get me STARTED on cheap LCD panels and their color atrocities.

At some point you're going to want to invest in a calibration device at the very least. (They can be had fairly inexpensively)

BTW, what you have looks quite a bit better.

Also... I realize I told you the wrong way to change the color space in photoshop. You have to click Edit->Convert to Profile. Looks like you figured it out, though.

spiralout462 · Apr 16, 2016

The image is MUCH easier to look at now, however the composition is still weak. This is where I struggle. I can take a very technically sound picture but presenting a thought provoking subject that will make people want to view for several minutes is difficult for me.

In my opinion, this should be the FIRST thought when looking at a scene! Before exposure settings. Before HDR. It seems that to many people want to wow the Facebook crowd with crazy, wild colors without any attempt to create a great photograph. I'm not saying that's you! I believe you are on the right track. Just sharing some ramblings.................

Watchful · Apr 16, 2016

Go with sRGB in 16 bit for more accuracy in color reproduction when printing.
I like the unedited version too.

manaheim · Apr 17, 2016

Watchful said:
Go with sRGB in 16 bit for more accuracy in color reproduction when printing.
I like the unedited version too.

We're not talking about printing, though. And... last I checked... most of the printing houses I have worked with recommend sRGB 8 bit. Granted, I send them Adobe/16 anyway, but I'm a punk.

smoke665 · Apr 17, 2016

manaheim said:
When you're saving images for web display you want to save them using the RGB color space as most browsers do not handle color correction properly or consistently. RGB is the "safest".

First of all, thank you for the catch on color. This has been a pain in my rear for the last few weeks. I was set to sRGB 16 bit. I've reset to Adobe RGB 1998 8 bit. Have some questions though?

I'm assuming the problem was with the 16 bit vs 8 bit setting, and I can go back to sRGB using 8 bit ?
I was under the assumption that editing should be done in 16 bit? Is that a correct assumption?
I use Nations for prints, and specify no color correction. Should I be sending them sRGB or Adobe and 16 bit or 8 bit?

manaheim · Apr 17, 2016

Unfortunately I don't recall what profile I saw your image in, but I could have sworn it wasn't even sRGB. However... from what I understand sRGB 8 bit is the most "safe" for web display as most browsers won't do bad things with it. TBH it's been a while since I've even tried posting stuff on the internet, so my knowledge may be a little rusty here and it may be worth some experimentation to see. (I'll be playing with it a bit today myself so I'll let you know what I find)

The way I do it is this... I edit in Adobe/16 or ProPhoto/16. I save anything I care about as a PSD (photoshop, no compression). When I want to share something I convert the profile to sRGB/8, knock the size down, add my watermark, save as JPEG, etc. Then I post it and share it. The trick is that all the stuff you do to make it available for people to see on the web winds up losing data, so you don't want that as your original (also why people shoot RAW).

For your print shop, look to see what they recommend and stick with that. If they don't tell you, consider looking for another shop.

smoke665 · Apr 17, 2016

Before I get slammed on the composition, my examples are being posted to glean comments on the technical aspects of HDR. Thanks to previous poster, I'm now showing images online correctly. Two shots, one original somewhat bland, second a (3) image combined HDR at +-2 over/under.

manaheim · Apr 17, 2016

So this is fun...

It APPEARS that IE11 totally goes mental if:

- You have a wide-gamut color monitor
- You color correct your monitors
- You use color profiles of any kind
- You upload your picture and it is viewed in IE

Firefox and Chrome handle it fine.

BTW, it also appears to be most notably a problem with over-saturated reds... so more of a problem with some images than with others.

I'm still playing with some of the iterations... like I suspect if I view something I cced on my home system on my work display that it'll likely come out fine in IE.

Anyway, if you're not on a wide color gamut monitor and color corrected you're likely fine-ish. But save in sRGB/8 for web display to play it safe.