Still struggling w/ HDR

[Efergoh]

Alright dammit...

I'm still not getting it right...at least I don't think so. I'm not trying for the over the top hyperreal effect, but I'm still loosing detail in my attempts.
The method I'm using is overlays and erasing bit of layers that I don't want and adjusting the opacity of the individual layers. Any suggestions?

These are the originals:

This is the result:

 

[abraxas]

Maybe initial processing as hdr with photomatix or cs2 would give you more to work with off the top. Layer work seems too complicated without giving actual hdr a go.

photomatix

cs2

hdr images can be created without going wild with tone mapping.

 

[Efergoh]

hdr images can be created without going wild with tone mapping.

I hope so...I don't even know what tone mapping is.

 

[Lackoffunding]

This picture isnt one I would really choose to make an HDR of. The exposure is really good to begin with. Maybe try something with more shadow or a backlit situation. If you type in photomatix into google, you can get a free trial that watermarks the images. Just get all the files you want open, Merge to HDR and then mess around with the tone mapping.

 

[abraxas]

I hope so...I don't even know what tone mapping is.

The tone mapping in photomatix is where levels of luminosity, saturation, strength, microcontrast and a few 'whatnots' are adjusted.

Less luminosity and saturation usually produce a more natural looking photo. I try not to do everything in photomatix and leave most pp to cs2 after I've created the hdr.jpg.

I haven't been too pleased with cs2 hdr generation- However, I haven't done too much with it. Photomatix is what I've been using for my work shots. The 'art' end of my photography I've been working with RAW (I seem to be able to screw up saturation just fine without going hdr ).

I'm sure someone here can give you more detailed info as my pp skills are limited to experimenting over-and-over-and-over... ad nauseum... until I get what I want,... occasionally.

The photomatix trial is worth a download.

 

[xfloggingkylex]

The idea of tonemaping is correcting the HDR image and compressing it so that mediums such as your computer monitor can display them. Since true HDR uses the amount of colors your eye can see and monitors cannot display nearly as much information.

Here is a quick work in FDRTools. I backed down the "contrast" to keep a natural look, a bump in "compression" for that HDR look, and a bump in "smoothing" to keep things looking neat and not harsh. Very slight saturation increase.

Then using GIMP I cloned out the large dust spot at the top.

 

[mysteryscribe]

I hope you don't mind me playing with this a second. I don't know anything about layers (except in cakes) so this is just old darkroom style stuff tossed on a digital editor type program. But it was a challenge

 

[shorty6049]

heres what i got in photomatix, thats what i always use to do HDR because the tonemapping function is real easy. This looks like kyles, but i think the saturation is a little higher