Newbie HDR Mount Fuji

[BaGaTa]

C&C appreciated

More at my blog

 

[SlickSalmon]

Interesting treatment. As an HDR exercise, the image is a little flat, which is an odd thing to say about something with a mountain in it. Personally, I would have dropped the strong vignetting in favor of more subtle edge burning. But, the whole blue against black color scheme works for me.

 

[Marc-Etienne]

It is nice to see that it is not overdone, but like slicksalmon said, it is a little flat and the vignetting bugs me.

 

[molested_cow]

I've never been to Mt Fuji myself. My sister lived there for 4 years and always tells me how great it is when it shows up (it's mysterious because of constant fog).
Once I was flying out of Tokyo and I could see mt Fuji's peak poking out of the sea of clouds. It's indeed beautiful.

I also think the photo is a bit flat. It looks more like a bad cloudy day.

 

[spacefuzz]

I concur flat and vignetting a bit overdone.

But great clouds, add some pop and the image will shine!

 

[BaGaTa]

Thanks a lot for all the feedback. How can I make it not that flat? Any tips for that? Because I am new to HDR, maybe I am using the wrong approach?

About the vignetting, it bugs me also. The HDR image have some vignetting at the left side, I guess its from the lens itself. So I am forced to add in more vignetting so that it looks more natural, instead of vignetting at one side. Not really like the idea of vignetting the picture also.

 

[SlickSalmon]

Thanks a lot for all the feedback. How can I make it not that flat? Any tips for that? Because I am new to HDR, maybe I am using the wrong approach?
.

It's a post-processing issue. The essence of HDR is push values to the middle of the luminosity scale in order to uncover the shadows and highlights. You can see it in a typical HDR histogram -- it's humped in the middle. The treatment is to darken the shadows, brighten the highlights, and increase mid-tone contrast. In Photoshop, that's done by applying an S-curve.

At the risk of being presumptuous, here's the kind of thing you can do quickly:

I'm sure this can be improved upon with a little effort.

 

[BaGaTa]

Thanks a lot for all the feedback. How can I make it not that flat? Any tips for that? Because I am new to HDR, maybe I am using the wrong approach?
.

It's a post-processing issue. The essence of HDR is push values to the middle of the luminosity scale in order to uncover the shadows and highlights. You can see it in a typical HDR histogram -- it's humped in the middle. The treatment is to darken the shadows, brighten the highlights, and increase mid-tone contrast. In Photoshop, that's done by applying an S-curve.

At the risk of being presumptuous, here's the kind of thing you can do quickly:

I'm sure this can be improved upon with a little effort.

SlickSalmon, thanks for the quick editing.

I see, thanks for the tips again. Darken the shadows, brighten the highlights and increase mid-tone contras, noted on that. Will try to take note on the histogram curve next time.

By the way, who do you remove the vignetting? Would really love to learn how to do that.

 

[SlickSalmon]

A little bit of Photoshop's healing brush tool and some careful cropping.

 

[BaGaTa]

A little bit of Photoshop's healing brush tool and some careful cropping.

Okay bro... No wonder the picture looks a bit weird, now I know the reason

Thanks again!

 

[MisplacedAngler]

Sweet pic. I gotta sunset HDR pic from the side of Fuji in my avatar.

 

[BaGaTa]

Sweet pic. I gotta sunset HDR pic from the side of Fuji in my avatar.

Thanks MisplacedAngler, glad that you like it