HDR Fun (Picture heavy)

Q4kntmare

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I took some HDR shots from my trip to Canada and decided to play around with them. I apologize for the water marking as I am trialing out both photomatix and photoshop. I am also very new to editing, so there are some spots of overblown color/whiteness which I don't know how to fix.
1.
HDR 2 small.jpg

2.
Maligne Canyon small.jpg

3.
Untitled_HDR2 small.jpg

4.
Untitled_HDR6 small.jpg

5.
Untitled_HDR8 small.jpg

6.
Untitled_HDR101 small.jpg

7.
Untitled_HDR4 small.jpg
 
these *looked* like great shot.
 
They all cook supper cartoony! Honestly I don't think any of them needed HDR treatment.
 
They all cook supper cartoony! Honestly I don't think any of them needed HDR treatment.

I've seen on other posts that your not a fan of HDR pictures. How exactly would you process these? I'm happy to post an unedited picture.
 
I saw the originals in your other thread and thought all they needed was some little pp. HDR is not necessary for these pics and probably ruin what looks great naturally. But if this is what you were going for and like them that is all that matters. Everyone has different tastes.
 
Johnston Canyon small-3.jpg


This is a simple edit from the image from your other thread.
 

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A pretty good start if you're new to HDR.

It can be very tempting to make every part of an HDR image in equal brightness. But the issue is you lose contrast and the image becomes flat and, as they said, cartoony. Personally, I would refer back to the bracketed exposures and see where the shadows should be and try to retain that in post-processing. Having contrast means your image has more depth and look more realistic.

I thought the second image looks amazing. For me, I would tone down the brightness in the sky and reduce the clarity (or increase the haze, which ever you prefer) because mountains in distance are never clear or sharp in reality. Again, this is my personal choice - the water has too much details, I prefer to smooth it out with a longer exposure.

In Photomatix, you can select Contrat Optimizer or Tonal Compressor instead of Details Enhancer for a more natural look. Also, in Details Enhancer, avoid dragging the slider for Strength all the way to the right :)
 
Just because we CAN use HDR on every photograph doesn't mean that we SHOULD use HDR on every photograph.
 
View attachment 144920

This is a simple edit from the image from your other thread.

I see the slight adjustment there, certainly a more natural picture for sure.

I saw the originals in your other thread and thought all they needed was some little pp. HDR is not necessary for these pics and probably ruin what looks great naturally. But if this is what you were going for and like them that is all that matters. Everyone has different tastes.

I obviously posted these here knowing there would be push back and the majority of people disliking the pictures. I've always looked at HDR pictures on this sight and been amazing at their ability to create the "perfect" picture.
 
A pretty good start if you're new to HDR.

It can be very tempting to make every part of an HDR image in equal brightness. But the issue is you lose contrast and the image becomes flat and, as they said, cartoony. Personally, I would refer back to the bracketed exposures and see where the shadows should be and try to retain that in post-processing. Having contrast means your image has more depth and look more realistic.

I thought the second image looks amazing. For me, I would tone down the brightness in the sky and reduce the clarity (or increase the haze, which ever you prefer) because mountains in distance are never clear or sharp in reality. Again, this is my personal choice - the water has too much details, I prefer to smooth it out with a longer exposure.

In Photomatix, you can select Contrat Optimizer or Tonal Compressor instead of Details Enhancer for a more natural look. Also, in Details Enhancer, avoid dragging the slider for Strength all the way to the right :)

I will try your suggestions, thank you!
 
I've seen on other posts that your not a fan of HDR pictures.

The point of HDR is to overcome the dynamic range limitations of the camera. If your scene has a dynamic range that is greater then what your camera can capture then taking multiple exposures and processing them via HDR software is a great way to overcome the limits of the digital sensor.

A well done HDR wont make you immediately say thats an HDR image.

What you have done is made the processing the subject of the photo instead of the scene you photographed.
 
Some people would call these aggressively tone-mapped images, not necessarily HDR images. These immeduately appear to be, meaning trhey immediately look like, they have been aggressively tone-mapped, and the normal and expected tonal realtionships that well all know, have been aggressively RE-mapped, in a somewhat artificial manner.
 
Some people would call these aggressively tone-mapped images, not necessarily HDR images. These immeduately appear to be, meaning trhey immediately look like, they have been aggressively tone-mapped, and the normal and expected tonal realtionships that well all know, have been aggressively RE-mapped, in a somewhat artificial manner.
I would agree. The purpose of that software is to do exactly that. I appreciate the feedback.
 
"I get" that people enjoy heavily tone-mapped images. It's a new trend, recent in its development. It was formerly not possible to process images in this way. In the early 2000's, I did some of this myself with images I shot, using Photoshop, and made a handful of highly successful images this way. Nowadays, it's much,much easier and faster to do this type of re-mapping than it used to be, before Photomatix and other similar apps had even been develpoed.

I consider this syle of processing to be suited to certain types of photos more so than other types of photos. It can look a lot like older, magazine illustration type "heavy airbrush" work, or like pastel drawing work, in the style of say famous glamour illustrator Vargas.

I think if you like it, you should keep doing it! I will never diss a processing style, because at times, anything can or will "work" on an image. I am also super-bored of reralistic color, and the Macbeth Coor Checker type of white-balance and color-accuracy fanatacism that permeates so many internet photo communities.
 

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