Why aren't there more posts here for HDR? Newbie question

[The Barbarian]

Wasn't calibrated when I did the courthouse square shot. But my intention was to make the colors more muted. Would I do it differently today? Maybe so. I look back five years and cringe at how bad I was then. Looking back 30 years, I don't want to talk about it.

 

[JTPhotography]

In general, I think you will find that the "good" HDR is done by people who are good, well rounded photographers, ones who know their sh#t, and use it, as others have said, to extend dynamic range when necessary. The "bad" HDR is done by beginners who are too lazy to spend time learning the craft and/or who are looking for a quick way to make their crappy photos look good and get a bunch of "likes" on facebook.

PS: Until I began using Facebook as a marketing tool, I never realized there was such a huge disconnect between good photos and bad photos and the people who recogninze the two. But that is another topic for another day.

 

[Murray Bloom]

Barbarian's night shot reminded me of this one. It was strictly a spur of the moment image, taken as I walked back to my room. No tripod, but I put the camera on a nearby rock. I wanted to see if I could hold detail in the sign (the main light source) while not giving up too much of the shadows (it was, after all, night). Four shots.



The original HDR image has a lot more shadow detail. The deepest darks were a victim of the JPG conversion.

 

[The Barbarian]

Not bad at all. In a screen-filling version of it, I get a strong feeling of separation and loneliness. I used to have a job that put me on the road a lot. This brings me back to those little country towns and those cabin motel "tourist courts."

 

[The Barbarian]

The "bad" HDR is done by beginners who are too lazy to spend time learning the craft and/or who are looking for a quick way to make their crappy photos look good and get a bunch of "likes" on facebook.

Sadly true for many. But a lot of beginners are just feeling their way through the process, and may very well become proficient in using the processing a restrained and useful way. Encourage them in that journey.

 

[weags77]

Speaking as a beginner I used to be all too reliant on HDR, but I was learning. And I'm still learning and not using it so much, pretty much hardly at all. However I feel most of the so called "pros" or "experts" are guilty of the same thing beginner photographers are. They focus too much on the fact that its HDR as opposed to basic fundamentals of a good photo. Instead of commenting about composition, lighting etc as soon as these experts see that HDR processing was used, they discredit the entire photograph. Often times searching for anything to say negatively about it.

And yes many HDR photos suck, I'm guilty plenty. But it does nothing for those of us just getting our feet wet to hear "oh HDR sucks" or "it wasn't needed there", when actual constructive criticism would be more say, constructive. From a personal standpoint, i cant stand the know it alls who want to just bash photos based on style while not offering any actual help. And it happens just as often as bad HDR photos are made.

IMHO the people who do this are just as bad for photography as the people who abuse HDR. I mean many of you guys speak as though you were creating masterpieces the minute you picked up your camera. And you forgot what it was like to learn and experiment.

Many of you guys do help out a lot and I'm very grateful for it so I don't want this to sound like a "pro" hating rant. Meant more for the guys who forgot where they came from and are too busy superficially tearing apart a photo because of the style it was processed in, than adding anything of value.

 

[Murray Bloom]

Good post, Weags. However, one distinction that's seldom made is the difference between how HDR is approached by already accomplished photographers and those just learning the craft.

Experienced photogs were often shooting for extended dynamic range for years, sometimes decades. The advent of digital HDR just made it easier, more automatic and repeatable. It became a useful tool, but far from the only one.

It's a different story for those just starting out in photography. Newbies, in general, would like to produce distinctive photographs. The Internet, and forums like TPF in particular, bombard said newbies with many beautiful and distinctive images, giving them a lot to aspire to. So, what often happens is at a stage when they still haven't mastered composition, lighting and the technical elements of 'straight' photography, and once they've learned about this thing called HDR, many latch onto it because they think it gives their photos the distinctiveness that they covet.

Often, it's not even HDR that's being used, but simply tonemapping. Unfortunately, those beginning photographers don't yet realize that grungy and overprocessed images have pretty much seen their day, which is why they often encounter so much resistance to their images; and often blame the critic, imagining a host of sinister motives. The truth is that the "HDR look" is no longer distinctive. With rare exceptions, their images become more about the process than the picture. In truth, the best HDR images are those where its use is virtually invisible, having no real 'look' at all beyond getting a bit closer to visual perfection.

This is why the "HDR Hole" is so aptly named. It's so easy to become addicted to making images that look distinctive, but only to learn later that they're just one of the crowd; blaming those who criticize their work for what it often is, a shortcut to making what they think are 'artsy' images. Eventually, everyone climbs out of the 'hole' after a few months or years, and they have hopefully learned something about photography while down there.

 

[EIngerson]

Here's one of my oversaturated 3 stop HDR's. It's way over done and I still like it. lol.


Fukushen-3 by Ingerson Photo, on Flickr

And.....


Apocalypse by Ingerson Photo, on Flickr

 

[weags77]

Good post, Weags. However, one distinction that's seldom made is the difference between how HDR is approached by already accomplished photographers and those just learning the craft.

Experienced photogs were often shooting for extended dynamic range for years, sometimes decades. The advent of digital HDR just made it easier, more automatic and repeatable. It became a useful tool, but far from the only one.

It's a different story for those just starting out in photography. Newbies, in general, would like to produce distinctive photographs. The Internet, and forums like TPF in particular, bombard said newbies with many beautiful and distinctive images, giving them a lot to aspire to. So, what often happens is at a stage when they still haven't mastered composition, lighting and the technical elements of 'straight' photography, and once they've learned about this thing called HDR, many latch onto it because they think it gives their photos the distinctiveness that they covet.

Often, it's not even HDR that's being used, but simply tonemapping. Unfortunately, those beginning photographers don't yet realize that grungy and overprocessed images have pretty much seen their day, which is why they often encounter so much resistance to their images; and often blame the critic, imagining a host of sinister motives. The truth is that the "HDR look" is no longer distinctive. With rare exceptions, their images become more about the process than the picture. In truth, the best HDR images are those where its use is virtually invisible, having no real 'look' at all beyond getting a bit closer to visual perfection.

This is why the "HDR Hole" is so aptly named. It's so easy to become addicted to making images that look distinctive, but only to learn later that they're just one of the crowd; blaming those who criticize their work for what it often is, a shortcut to making what they think are 'artsy' images. Eventually, everyone climbs out of the 'hole' after a few months or years, and they have hopefully learned something about photography while down there.

I agree Murray. In my own personal case I feel HDR and its ability to somewhat easily produce what a newbie thinks is a distinctive photograph, can actually give someone the confidence and the drive to learn more about the actual craft. Not everyone has the time or the willingness to study for hours, days and years only to churn out crappy photo after crappy photo. Everyone's lives are different, how everyone learns is different. Who are we to criticize taking a shortcut if we don't know how long the journey is gonna be ?

We are often our own toughest critics, while some here are their own biggest fans. So being able to create something that pleases our untrained eyes in a fairly short amount of time and with fairly little technical education, can mean the difference between igniting the passion needed to pursue the photographic art or crawling back into that hole of not being good enough or not wanting to make the commitment.

For me personally HDR ignited my passion. And while I look back at some of my early "art" And think "what the hell was I thinking ?" I can't help but be thankful for it. I know my place, I have a LOT to still learn, but if it wasn't for HDR and those eye catching early photos, those Facebook "likes", and some very honest yet helpful criticism, I may never have been willing to put in the time to discover and learn about something I am now so passionate about.

Some of these "anti-HDR" guys or anti-"artsy" guys really need to step back and quit taking things so personally. No one shooting HDR or whatever else you wanna call it, is out there shooting to piss them off. So what if a few people say "WOW great photograph" to a marginally decent yet way "overcooked" image. If these guys are that good and successful and confident enough in their knowledge and abilities they shouldn't be the least bit concerned with someone they see as an OBVIOUSLY less skilled photographer.

I guess my thing is if you don't like it, but can't teach someone how to make it better or what they did wrong, besides the type of processing they used, it's really no more helpful than telling me I'm using the wrong camera.

 

[The Barbarian]

 

[NancyMoranG]

Barbarian, where do I sign up for lessons? Great shot/pp
Nancy

 

[The Barbarian]

I'm self-taught on HDR. So I do it "wrong" by most measures. But here's what I did on this one;

A single raw image, low ISO.

In Raw Therapee, I took five different jpegs, one "correct" exposure, and two stops each way. I then denoised them in Neat Image. Then I used Luminance to combine them into one image. I moved the contrast slider until it didn't look gritty to me. I set the saturation to 1.0, and the gamma back to 0.7.

Final tweaking in GIMP, with unsharp mask set to the level where I can just barely notice a difference, and (I forget) a slight adjustment in curve.

There's a reason I use those. When I "retired", I became a school teacher, and I have an informal club of students who want to learn photography. Some of them are quite poor. For some of them, their camera is their telephone. Many have only the school computers for processing. So, they are limited to using whatever is free.

So I became proficient in that software set because it could be obtained for nothing. UFRaw is pretty good, but it's troublesome with Windows 7.

 

[Patrice]

View attachment 57074View attachment 57087

Regardless of how the photo of the stream was done I'd like to drift a #22 size midge on it using a 2 wt fly rod. Might be a nice little rainbow under the bushes on the right.