Be Gentle..lol

[RedVixen81]

Hey everyone..i took some of your advice and took a few test HDR photos tonight...i PP in photomatix, but since i dont have the money just yet to buy the full version my pics will have the photomatix water marking...these are of my mom's bike in the back yard..any advice and tip are greatly appreciated... i hope they cut the proverbial mustard..lol

1. I know on this one that the seat is way to shiny for my taste.. couldn't figure out how to reduce it without adjusting the pic as a whole.

HDR Test Bike2 by RedVixen81, on Flickr

2.

HDR Test Bike by RedVixen81, on Flickr

Remember that these are my very first 2 that i have done..i am still trying to figure out the tweaking here and there in photomatix...

Thanks a mil.

 

[vipgraphx]

in order to make further adjustments that you do not like you will have to use photo shop to mask in parts of the original exposures. Not bad for your first time in fact I think they are pretty good.

The first one the tires have a bit of a blue hue which needs some correcting and the white wall tires could use some bumps in the white. not sure what look you like so I will go both ways. Grass may benefit from being a little darker but for me I like it and I like rich saturation thus my photos.. The wood in the background also has a bit of a blue hue in the white areas.. there is a little halo by the front tire on the left but not a big deal.
overall not bad.

second one the sky needs some work. little halo around the trees and the sky is dirty. the tires look a lot better in this one.

Good start and keep on HDR'ing

 

[RedVixen81]

thanks... yeah the sky was getting dark because we had a storm coming in... can i make those adjustments you suggested in GIMP?.. photoshop is out of my budget right now.

 

[vipgraphx]

Not sure I don't use gimp.

 

[DiskoJoe]

thanks... yeah the sky was getting dark because we had a storm coming in... can i make those adjustments you suggested in GIMP?.. photoshop is out of my budget right now.

The temp adjustments you could make in photomatix. One suggestion I will make is watch the histogram carefully when processing and make sure it does not jump off the chart. If it does you are past the usable range and you will gett bad contrast and halos and other problems. You can only push a HDR so far.

 

[RedVixen81]

ok.. i saw a video on youtube mention that when viewing the histogram that what i should be looking for is a bell type shape from light to dark.. would this be correct to say for all images that i process... also i did shoot jpeg, is RAW better when doing HDR?

 

[Bynx]

When doing HDR or any other method, if you are trying for a realistic image, just look at it. If there is something that doesnt look right, then its not right. When you post an image we dont have any reference to what the actual colors were like, the reds more red or less, the greens more blue or yellow so we rely on the OP to decide whether the pic looks right. But if we can look at the image and see there is something wrong then its really wrong, like your sky, in this case. Your first closer cropped image of the bike is great even down to the bright seat. It looks like its wet and reflecting acurately the bright sky above. But in your second shot with the sky, its just all wrong. The sky ruins the image and should be dealt with. Its all fixable and the rest of the image is great. I dont think I was gentle, but honest. And I honestly think you did a good job for your first time out. Better than most Im betting. And finally, you are better off using Raw instead of jpeg for your images. Are you Mac or PC?

 

[RedVixen81]

i am PC...yeah the first image of the bike were 3 different exposures and then the one with the sky are a different set of 3 just zoomed out... so the sky was the same in the first one... and don't worry you were gentle..ha ha