Does this method of HDR look okay?

[Parker219]

I had the challenge of photographing this living room area while also showing that the property has a water view.

I only took one image while I was at the house, with a flash and -1 compensation.

Then I made 3 images from the 1 image in lightroom and made one image -2, kept one the same, and made one image +1.5 I believe.

Then I used the now free Nik software to merge the photos together and adjusted from there.


I will post the originals and then the what I have so far for the final product.

Thank You for any feedback you can give.

Drum roll...

 

[jcdeboever]

Which one looks like what you seen?

Is it your living room? The balance is way off in terms of furniture placement .... the whole thing is just a mess really.

 

[Parker219]

No, it is not my living room.

Any comments on the processing?

 

[Watchful]

I think it looks fine. I think it would look fine with normal exposure too. I don't really see any harsh enough shadows to need hdr on this.
But I actually like harsh shadows too, being a fan of film noir.
Good practice shot. Try some real bracketed shots and knit them together.

 

[Overread]

You're getting a lot of blow-out in both sets of windows and in the primary window-light reflections. I would try to tone those down in the photo; bright areas draw our eyes attention and that isn't want you want. You might have to treat those areas (esp the window areas) as a different area to work on compared to the darker indoor areas of the photo.

 

[407370]

I am interested in how the OP could have avoided the bright windows issue while actually taking the pic.
This is a problem I have all the time with landscape shots with darker foreground and bright skies. I always reduce exposure to the extent that I can see whats in the sky but that always leaves a nearly black foreground. Even merging bracketed pics always makes the sky look brighter than desired so out comes the dodging and burning tools.
Someone suggested lighting the foreground to make it closer to the sky brightness but he was an idiot.

 

[Overread]

Well for windows its easier; you can manually blend the photos in editing. Just process it in two batches - once for the window and once for the room and then just cut and paste the window into the room shot. For landscapes it can be a bit more tricky; but with the correct use of copy/paste and then the brush and layermask you can get the same effect.

 

[Braineack]

Any comments on the processing?

Looks pretty good. But the windows are still borderline blown out and arent using much from that first exposure that did the outside exposure very well.

I'd also go back and correct for distortion, plumb up those walls.

 

[ronlane]

In my opinion, this is a good image for real estate.

 

[Trblmkr]

I use spot metering vs matrix metering for things like this to make sure I get the right exposure for the outside. The very first picture has a decent shot outside so I would use that one and then blend in the others for the rest of the room. My biggest issue is the walls, ya got to get those verticals vertical. Adjust your camera higher or lower to get them as close as possible, and then use the correction in LR/PS to make them perfect. If you post this on any other board for RE they would tear you apart as this is like the "golden rule" in RE photography. Every thing else can be crap, but if you're lines are off... watch out.

 

[The_Traveler]

I think, just like Overrread, that merging the 'outside' image and the inside with masks would have been easier, probably better and wouldn't have left any decisions in the hands of the hdr program

 

[407370]

Well for windows its easier; you can manually blend the photos in editing. Just process it in two batches - once for the window and once for the room and then just cut and paste the window into the room shot. For landscapes it can be a bit more tricky; but with the correct use of copy/paste and then the brush and layermask you can get the same effect.

What I was getting at is that it cannot be done in camera?

 

[Parker219]

Any comments on the processing?

Looks pretty good. But the windows are still borderline blown out and arent using much from that first exposure that did the outside exposure very well.

I'd also go back and correct for distortion, plumb up those walls.

For $150 for 25 photos, I don't make the walls vertical.


I give the client the option for me to do that and 100 percent of the time they say "I didn't notice that until you mentioned that the walls weren't vertical ".

They want wide shots that are light, bright, and open.

When I shoot more high end commercial shoots, of course I make everything vertical.


Have you seen the photos most real estate agents use for their listings?

 

[Parker219]

I think, just like Overrread, that merging the 'outside' image and the inside with masks would have been easier, probably better and wouldn't have left any decisions in the hands of the hdr program

Makes sense, looking back even the negative exposure photo had the sky blown out, so if I want it perfect, it would have needed to be negative 4 exposure and at that point I cant just make a positive exposure from that one photo later on, that would look good at least.

So I really do need bracketed photos in this case.

 

[unpopular]

I think it looks fine, but you're not gaining any additional information than you would by processing a 16-bit tiff from a raw file, converting to a 32-bit image and tone mapping it in Photoshop; or with careful hilight and shadow processing within LR.

In other words, yes, I think it does work and if the workflow is faster for you then go for it, but you're also not gaining anything by doing so.