School me on my first HDR attempt PLEASE!!

[BuZzZeRkEr]

Hey guys/gals.

Tried my first TRUE HDR photo today. Didn't turn out very good, but thats why I'm asking for your help

I don't think i used to best subject first of all. Boring woods scene but best I could do in 15 minutes. Better than parked cars and streets..i guess. I used the stock 18-55mm lens.

I left the aperture wide open on all shots for better focus, however, I might need a faster lens 'cuz my darkest (fastest) exposer was still pretty bright...and it was cloudy.

Well here are the exposure and what CS3 spit out. Is there more to rendering HDR in CS3 than just clicking on the 3 images? I played a little with the levels but thats about it.

#1

#2

#3

And what CS3 gave me (which doesn't look much different than #2)

Not much difference....oh well. Actually it doesn't look like an HDR image at all. If someone wants to.....please feel free to use #1 #2 #3 and run them through HDR and post a better result. But please tell me how you did it.

Any tips? Thanks all!

 

[mrodgers]

Your attempt looks just like what my attempt looked like. The combined HDR photo pretty much the same as the correct center exposure. I think if you are looking for realistic looking HDR, you need big highlight and big shadow area. The point of HDR is to tone down the highlight such as the sky and brighten up the shadows into one overall fully exposed photo. At least that is what I gather from it.

I don't know how they get those really good looking HDR photos that are just slightly past the actual realistic view of the scene. I'm having some really crappy weather for my camera with too much overcast necessating too high of ISO for my camera to do much with attempting HDR, or any shooting outside actually. I have some good scenes I think will work well if we ever get some decent weather and for when I get a tripod. My sources tell me a tripod is coming on Valentine's Day.

 

[|)\/8]

I gave it a try, here is the result. I am working on an uncalibrated monitor so I hope the brightness and contrast is OK. Of course it is not the best to work with small jpegs :cry:.

 

[Parkerman]

Did you play with any of the tone mapping? or just.. merge them into an HDR and hit ok?

 

[domromer]

Download photomatix. I had a really nice version of your woods scene but my copy of photomatix keeps crashing.

Photomatix does a much better job of making the images look surreal.

 

[Parkerman]

There was my go at it.

 

[domromer]

Photomatix version


By dsrphotography

 

[BuZzZeRkEr]

Did you play with any of the tone mapping? or just.. merge them into an HDR and hit ok?

Yeah, I just pretty much hit the HDR Merge and pressed ok. really didn't play with anything else. So how did you get your result? pretty cool!

 

[BuZzZeRkEr]

Photomatix version


By dsrphotography

THIS IS AWESOME! Excactly how I pictured it should've turned out on CS3! How did you make it come out that good with photomatix? Or did you have to adjust anything? Thanks for prcoessing it....but please tell me what you did to achieve the result in photomatix.

 

[BuZzZeRkEr]

Played with some PP after HDR and got something a little more interesting.
I still like the photomatix one though

 

[KhronoS]

From what i used, photomatix is the best on the market at HDR. It gave me a lot of great results comparable to PP CS3.

 

[domromer]

THIS IS AWESOME! Excactly how I pictured it should've turned out on CS3! How did you make it come out that good with photomatix? Or did you have to adjust anything? Thanks for prcoessing it....but please tell me what you did to achieve the result in photomatix.

I did adjust.

You gotta play with the settings.

Here are the ones I mess with.

Strength
white point
black point
gamut
saturation
miro smoothing

Although I didn't on this one, I will usually bring it into PS and adjust the levels.

It takes a bunch of tries to get an idea of how hdr works. Keep at it.

 

[Parkerman]

Yeah, I just pretty much hit the HDR Merge and pressed ok. really didn't play with anything else. So how did you get your result? pretty cool!

First i played with the tone mapping to get everything generally how i wanted it to look. Then from there i went and adjusted the exposure to get more contrast in certain area's, Then i went in and played with the Shadows/Highlights. Upped the saturation a little bit. Saved it.. opened it in lightroom, did the "punch" pre adjustment.. and thats pretty much it if i can remember it right.. and resaved it as a Jpeg.

 

[GwagDesigns]

Heres my version, but unlike most people i use a different program called Dynamic Photo HDR, which i usually use over Photomatix (have both) practise , makes perfect, dont be hesitant to mess with every control

 

[domromer]

Here's a tutorial for you.