HDR is a self esteem booster with me.

[killerseaguls]

I have to agree that #2 is the better picture. I'm curious about HDR myself as it makes some pictures really great.

If a picture has the dynamic range you'd except to see with your eyes, then it's HDR. If you simply take a photo and apply some shadow recovery to bring out more detail where the sensor under-exposed -- due to limitations of a sensor vs. an eyeball/brain -- you've just done HDR.

If a picture looks like what the OP posted, it's not HDR but tone-mapping.

Unfortunately for me I'm so new that I just try and take good pictures because my editing skills suck as I have never went in depth with settings and how it works.

good; focus on taking better pictures. Or at least stop worrying about "editing" photo, but learn how to do simply post-processing.

So, most of these pictures that look like...paintings for lack of words is really tone mapping and not HDR?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Braineack]

So, most of these pictures that look like...paintings for lack of words is really tone mapping and not HDR?

correct.

HDR is high dynamic ranging.

it's made to extend the dynamic range of film or a digital sensor to be able to more closely mimic reality instead of mechanical limitations.

I'll use cats as an example:


Pookie in Sun by The Braineack, on Flickr

in this shot I exposed for the sunlight, causing everything else not directly in sunlight to be underexposed.

The room actually looked more like this:


Hobbes with Pookie by The Braineack, on Flickr

In most situations a camera simply cannot capture an image how your eye sees.

Had I exposed the first so the room looked like the second image, Pookie's face/fur would have no detail whatsoever and just been completely white.


much like this:

But if I try to make it so his face is not blown out:

HDR would be trying to combine those to make something closer to this:

notice how it doesnt look like a cartoon or a "painting", but just a little more like what you'd probably see in real life.

 

[killerseaguls]

Understood! I just always thought the "tone mapping" pictures (specifically nature pictures) looked interesting and wanted to play with it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Braineack]

Most of the time I see them I see poor photography coupled with a processing technique popularized like 10-15 years ago.

I dont find the processing interesting, quite the opposite, coupled with photography that would be sub-par without a gimmick. There are always exceptions to this rule.

 

[Scatterbrained]

............If a picture has the dynamic range you'd except to see with your eyes, then it's HDR. If you simply take a photo and apply some shadow recovery to bring out more detail where the sensor under-exposed -- due to limitations of a sensor vs. an eyeball/brain -- you've just done HDR.

If a picture looks like what the OP posted, it's not HDR but tone-mapping..........................

Personally, I would call this a poor qualifier of what HDR is. There are plenty of scenes where the camera is perfectly capable of capturing the DR in one exposure. That doesn't make the images HDR. If you used one exposure to create the image it isn't HDR, it's just tone mapping. HDR specifically deals with using multiple exposures to capture a range of light and shadow that can't be encapsulated by a single exposure of the camera. Granted lots of people use HDR processing to tone map single images, often because they don't know any better; and many people use multiple exposures on scenes that don't require them, simply because it's easier for them to load 24 images at 1/3 stop intervals into an HDR engine than it is to learn how to process a single image.

 

[SCraig]

HDR done properly looks good since, as the name implies, it increases the dynamic range of a photograph to more closely mimic what the human eye can see. HDR done poorly looks like something from a comic book. Poorly done HDR is usually easy to spot; over-saturated, high-contrast, gaudy, unrealistic colors. But some people like it so more power to them.

 

[Braineack]

............If a picture has the dynamic range you'd except to see with your eyes, then it's HDR. If you simply take a photo and apply some shadow recovery to bring out more detail where the sensor under-exposed -- due to limitations of a sensor vs. an eyeball/brain -- you've just done HDR.

If a picture looks like what the OP posted, it's not HDR but tone-mapping..........................

Personally, I would call this a poor qualifier of what HDR is. There are plenty of scenes where the camera is perfectly capable of capturing the DR in one exposure. That doesn't make the images HDR. If you used one exposure to create the image it isn't HDR, it's just tone mapping. HDR specifically deals with using multiple exposures to capture a range of light and shadow that can't be encapsulated by a single exposure of the camera. Granted lots of people use HDR processing to tone map single images, often because they don't know any better; and many people use multiple exposures on scenes that don't require them, simply because it's easier for them to load 24 images at 1/3 stop intervals into an HDR engine than it is to learn how to process a single image.

its like literally the definition of HDR.


end all from wiki:

High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI or HDR) is a technique used in imaging and photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. The aim is to present the human eye with a similar range of luminance as that which, through the visual system, is familiar in everyday life. The human eye, through adaptation of the iris (and other methods) adjusts constantly to the broad dynamic changes ubiquitous in our environment. The brain continuously interprets this information so that most of us can see in a wide range of light conditions. Most cameras, on the other hand, cannot.

you cannot debate this. its fact.

 

[Scatterbrained]

............If a picture has the dynamic range you'd except to see with your eyes, then it's HDR. If you simply take a photo and apply some shadow recovery to bring out more detail where the sensor under-exposed -- due to limitations of a sensor vs. an eyeball/brain -- you've just done HDR.

If a picture looks like what the OP posted, it's not HDR but tone-mapping..........................

Personally, I would call this a poor qualifier of what HDR is. There are plenty of scenes where the camera is perfectly capable of capturing the DR in one exposure. That doesn't make the images HDR. If you used one exposure to create the image it isn't HDR, it's just tone mapping. HDR specifically deals with using multiple exposures to capture a range of light and shadow that can't be encapsulated by a single exposure of the camera. Granted lots of people use HDR processing to tone map single images, often because they don't know any better; and many people use multiple exposures on scenes that don't require them, simply because it's easier for them to load 24 images at 1/3 stop intervals into an HDR engine than it is to learn how to process a single image.

its like literally the definition of HDR.


end all from wiki:

High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI or HDR) is a technique used in imaging and photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. The aim is to present the human eye with a similar range of luminance as that which, through the visual system, is familiar in everyday life. The human eye, through adaptation of the iris (and other methods) adjusts constantly to the broad dynamic changes ubiquitous in our environment. The brain continuously interprets this information so that most of us can see in a wide range of light conditions. Most cameras, on the other hand, cannot.

you cannot debate this. its fact.

Read your original post, where you stated that "if a picture has the dynamic range you'd expect to see with your eyes, then it's HDR".

 

[407370]

Who cares if it is HDR or Tone Maping????
The longer you spend taking photographs the better you will become at getting closer to the image you want. Sometimes you will achieve what you want 100% through the viewfinder, sometimes you will need to adjust the photograph by editing and that is where people will place personal limitations on the use of particular processes or software packages. Whatever processing limitation anyone sets is a personal choice and not right or wrong.
Find your own happy place for processing and change it whenever you feel like it.