Slowly coming round to the idea of HDR, a test shot inside..

[sam_justice]

So I'm slowly coming round to the idea of HDR as I've seen some very nice pics as of late.
Here's my first attempt at a proper HDR picture, I'm not sure on it really.. I think I went a bit crazy with the saturation.

 

[sam_justice]

Bump?

 

[RobNZ]

Hey Sam, nice to see you having a play with HDR.

Any chance of seeing the best exposure you got processed normally?

First thing I noticed is the horizon is not level.

The saturation is a hard call, but if youre going for a realistic look you know what it looked like in reality, so process it to get that vision, you should have the dynamic range to do that.

 

[sam_justice]

Hey Sam, nice to see you having a play with HDR.

Any chance of seeing the best exposure you got processed normally?

First thing I noticed is the horizon is not level.

The saturation is a hard call, but if youre going for a realistic look you know what it looked like in reality, so process it to get that vision, you should have the dynamic range to do that.

Yeh sure, I haven't touched it up in PS yet (horizon etc) as this is straight from photomatix.
Here's the original -

 

[RobNZ]

How many exposures did you take and over what range?

The original pic seems to show that quite some time elapsed between shots based on the difference in cloud structure and position, that could make it quite difficult.

I use exposure bracketing in continuous shooting mode, I set my exposure comp first to +2 then set up the bracketing 2 stop increments which gives me 3 shots @ 0, +2 and +4, then I quickly change the exposure comp to -2 and fire 3 more as quick as I can. I end up with -4, -2, 0, 0, +2 and +4.

Thats if the scene requires that much of a range, typically I leave the exp comp at 0 (or predifined best exposure) and auto bracket 3 shots.

The HDR version has the sky almost blown middle right and there is a funky white band just above the horizon, doesnt appear to be haloing at this res though.

I try to get my toning (from the RAW files) to look as close as possible to the original scene and add some finishing adjustments in photoshop.

One other thing on your original saturation question, the boat and sky dont look to bad, but I think the pebbles on the beach may be throwing you off, consider adding a saturation layer mask, adjust to tone (a little more than required) down the pebbles, invert and paint the pebbles back in at the new saturation level, then play with that layers opacity to find the right balance, just an idea.....

 

[DerekMellott]

I found it a little bright, I made some adjustments to the brightness, saturation, and vibrance.

I feel weird about editing other peoples photos, sorry if you don't like it, I'm new here.

I think I may have taken away too much of the hdr-ness

 

[sam_justice]

How many exposures did you take and over what range?

The original pic seems to show that quite some time elapsed between shots based on the difference in cloud structure and position, that could make it quite difficult.

I use exposure bracketing in continuous shooting mode, I set my exposure comp first to +2 then set up the bracketing 2 stop increments which gives me 3 shots @ 0, +2 and +4, then I quickly change the exposure comp to -2 and fire 3 more as quick as I can. I end up with -4, -2, 0, 0, +2 and +4.

Thats if the scene requires that much of a range, typically I leave the exp comp at 0 (or predifined best exposure) and auto bracket 3 shots.

The HDR version has the sky almost blown middle right and there is a funky white band just above the horizon, doesnt appear to be haloing at this res though.

I try to get my toning (from the RAW files) to look as close as possible to the original scene and add some finishing adjustments in photoshop.

One other thing on your original saturation question, the boat and sky dont look to bad, but I think the pebbles on the beach may be throwing you off, consider adding a saturation layer mask, adjust to tone (a little more than required) down the pebbles, invert and paint the pebbles back in at the new saturation level, then play with that layers opacity to find the right balance, just an idea.....

Thanks, I'm using a D90 and I'm not sure how flexible its bracketing is. The setting I use is the standard one on the cam for 3 shots. Both the highlights and the shadows are two stops apart. I use the Nikon remote as well so I never touch the shutter and it fires off in quick succession. Altogether this picture took under 2 seconds to capture all 3 exposures without me touching the camera so I'm not sure why the clouds appear to have movement in th. Could be something photomatix is doing? (I'd much rather use PS to create HDR but everytime it processes the 3 exposures it crashes on me :-()

 

[caveman]

I like it, though perhaps a tad too light as mentioned. I think when HDR improves an images tonal range this is when it should be used. I just don't like those over worked HDRs that have halos and all manner of artifacts showing.