HDR Seagull

[Meximazing]

Just messing around with Photomatix and thought I'd share this! Shot with a Nikon P80. It's probably a little over done

 

[musicaleCA]

Er...first question. Why? This image doesn't look like it demanded HDR processing at all. Even a P&S should have enough dynamic range to acceptably capture this. Furthermore, did you actually shoot differently exposed images and combine them, or is this an attempt to tone-map a single photo?

Aside from the subject being centred and the background not contrasting with the subject (neither tonally nor in terms of luminance), the tone-mapping has magnified problems that were probably well-controlled in the original photo.

The first major one is chromatic aberration. As I said, this problem may have been well controlled originally, but HDR processing magnifies every flaw in an image, and CA is one of the worst. It's one of the reasons why HDR really has to be done with the best equipment available to you, otherwise you run into these problems in post. The processing here has over-saturated the purple fringing (lines around the sand and bottom of the shadow) and green/blue CA (top of the bird's body and wings, top of the shadow).

The second major problem is the white balance difference between the shadow and the rest of the image. Again, this wouldn't be much to consider if it were just a normal exposure. Again, tone-mapping makes this issue worse. The colours have been over-saturated in the shadow areas, making them appear blue. This is because the temperature of those areas is around 7000-6000K (shade), whereas the light areas are around 5200K (daylight). The former, being more blue, gives a bit of a blue tint to those shadow areas. This should be corrected in each exposure locally (colour balance adjustment layer in photoshop) before HDR processing. Assuming you actually used multiple exposures.

Next, the highlights, which were probably blown (which TBH is quite acceptable if they bird actually has, you know, white wings, as long as you can afford the loss in detail; left of the bird's head), have been turned into a mat grey by the processing used. This lessens the contrast of the image, and removes any real interest the bird may have presented.

I suggest you try again, with a better subject that calls for the use of HDR processing, and take into consideration the above problems that you will face with HDR.

 

[Meximazing]

It's a total Faux HDR. It's only one exposure tone mapped. I just thought the result was semi appealing.

Holy informative, Thanks man. I'll see if I can't take some of your advice and put it towards my next HDR photo. I'll try and post one up soon for C&C.

 

[musicaleCA]

Holy informative, Thanks man. I'll see if I can't take some of your advice and put it towards my next HDR photo. I'll try and post one up soon for C&C.

Phew. I'm glad you took my comments for what they were, and not personally. Good luck on your next attempt.