Water Level is 32 - C&C Please

[PureRumble]

HDR image originally. Exposure, contrast, tonal curve and saturation fixed with lightroom. Annoying details removed in Photoshop. Ofcourse a little bit cropping has also taken place. Any thoughts?

"Water Level is 32"

 

[D-50]

I have noticed in your two posts that you are creating HDR images, what program are you using and are you creating the images frommultiple exposures or are you taking one exposure and changing the exposure through a RAW editing program? Also both the images you have posted are very flat.. I know you say you are adjusting the contrast but I think you need to go a bit further with that. It could be the monitor Im using though. Does anyone else find this image flat? Try to find subjects with a bit more too them as well, this is just my opinion but I am not drawn to any part of this photo, well maybe a little to the water.

 

[Chicago1980]

Yeah took me awhile to even see that there was water in the picture...you get no concept of the size of this with the picture.

But that being said, after I noticed it I like the movement of the water.

 

[astrostu]

I agree with the above post in terms of flatness in tonal range. The purpose of HDR is to record brightness ranges that your eye can see but aren't recordable on film or digital sensors because the electron wells aren't deep enough and the A/D converter doesn't have enough bits. Hence when creating an HDR, you're "supposed" to be representing a very large range of dark through light colors, yet this photograph seems to have an extremely narrow range.

I also would not have known that the cloud-like substance was water if I didn't read your title.

 

[PureRumble]

I have noticed in your two posts that you are creating HDR images, what program are you using and are you creating the images frommultiple exposures or are you taking one exposure and changing the exposure through a RAW editing program? Also both the images you have posted are very flat.. I know you say you are adjusting the contrast but I think you need to go a bit further with that. It could be the monitor Im using though. Does anyone else find this image flat? Try to find subjects with a bit more too them as well, this is just my opinion but I am not drawn to any part of this photo, well maybe a little to the water.

I've already put the contrast to +35 in Lightroom? How much further do you suggest I should go, or do you mind showing me by adjusting the contrast?

I use Photomatix Pro. Differently exposed originals, as the other option (only one original) almost always gives rise to noise.

I'm supposed to be messing around with the tone curve to fix the depth, and not really the contrast, or did I get this wrong?

Exactly what "two HDR pictures" are we talking about here? Do you mean the forest and the sunset that I have posted in this "General Gallery" too?

Thx!

 

[PureRumble]

I agree with the above post in terms of flatness in tonal range. The purpose of HDR is to record brightness ranges that your eye can see but aren't recordable on film or digital sensors because the electron wells aren't deep enough and the A/D converter doesn't have enough bits. Hence when creating an HDR, you're "supposed" to be representing a very large range of dark through light colors, yet this photograph seems to have an extremely narrow range.

I also would not have known that the cloud-like substance was water if I didn't read your title.

I thought having a "narrow range" means that some parts of the photo are either way too underexposed or overexposed, and hence the dynamic range of the camera is not wide enough. But maybe I got all of this all wrong. I'm trying to fix the depth with the tone-curve of Lightroom... but obviously I'm doing something wrong here.

Do you think more contrast will fix this?

 

[astrostu]

I tightened the levels and adjusted the Curves to give a medium contrast. It's not great, but it's what I was referring to in terms of more dark stuff.

 

[PureRumble]

I tightened the levels and adjusted the Curves to give a medium contrast. It's not great, but it's what I was referring to in terms of more dark stuff.

OK! Now I'm confused! You say you adjust "the Curves" to fix the contrast? Are you talking about the Tone Curves?

I thought I knew what contrast means but I seem to be lost. Help please?

 

[D-50]

Astrotu that is a nice edit. Im not familiar with lightroom at all soI do not know what +35 means,I use Nikon capture where you can adjust the exposure up to +-2 stops. If you are using different images you should not need to adjust the exposure at all that should have been done at the time of shooting. I have heard that Photoshops contrast adjustment is not that great in terms of the way it reinterprets the photo, however Ifind the results look good to my eye. Curves works fine as well, just go a little further with your adjustments, always go over the line and scale back, you need to see what is toomuch rather than just slowly creeping up on a point you feel is right.
If you are new to photography and or photo editing on a computer I would say stay away from HDR programs. You need to understand proprer editing first before you get into a higher level like HDR. Its like buying a pair of skis and heading straight to a double black diamond. Many of the people on this site who are posting HDR images are very skilled at photo maipulation and understand how to take an HDR image and allter it in Photoshop to create a stunning image. I have been working with editing for about two years now and have just recently got into HDR. I think I've gotten pretty good at it but a photo can take up to 45 minutes or an hour to get the way I want it.

 

[astrostu]

OK! Now I'm confused! You say you adjust "the Curves" to fix the contrast? Are you talking about the Tone Curves?

I thought I knew what contrast means but I seem to be lost. Help please?

I haven't used Lightroom so I don't know what they call it.

There are different ways to adjust contrast. There's the simple "Contrast / Brightness" adjustment. I'm not sure what algorithm they use there.

Another way is to adjust the curves (in photoshop, this is just called "Curves"). To get contrast by adjusting curves, you set a point on the first half below the line and a point on the second half above the line. In other words, you make the colors that are darker than 50% gray darker, those above 50% gray lighter, with a net result of stretching the stuff in the middle.

This just takes experimentation.

 

[PureRumble]

Astrotu that is a nice edit. Im not familiar with lightroom at all soI do not know what +35 means,I use Nikon capture where you can adjust the exposure up to +-2 stops. If you are using different images you should not need to adjust the exposure at all that should have been done at the time of shooting. I have heard that Photoshops contrast adjustment is not that great in terms of the way it reinterprets the photo, however Ifind the results look good to my eye. Curves works fine as well, just go a little further with your adjustments, always go over the line and scale back, you need to see what is toomuch rather than just slowly creeping up on a point you feel is right.
If you are new to photography and or photo editing on a computer I would say stay away from HDR programs. You need to understand proprer editing first before you get into a higher level like HDR. Its like buying a pair of skis and heading straight to a double black diamond. Many of the people on this site who are posting HDR images are very skilled at photo maipulation and understand how to take an HDR image and allter it in Photoshop to create a stunning image. I have been working with editing for about two years now and have just recently got into HDR. I think I've gotten pretty good at it but a photo can take up to 45 minutes or an hour to get the way I want it.

Seriously man. You think I go take three identical raw-shots and put them into the HDR-program? LOL! I take mine at -2, 0 and 2 EV. And by that I mean I adjust the shuttertime. Sometimes I go a bit further down, since some parts of the motive are so bright that they get overexposed even at -2 EV.


I'm not all newb. I'm just having some hard time understanding what's expected of me.

You still haven't said what the "second" HDR shot of mine you were talking about. I would also like to know which forum you found it in.

THX

 

[D-50]

The other HDR shot is the one of the Sunset. Not sure if your joking in your last post but from looking at your edits I thought you were new to photo editing, unless you are going for a flat look in a photo after editing a photo should have more depth and contrast.

I dont think anything is expected of you, you posted photos and people have critiqued them saying they need more depth, and from your replies it doesn't seem you know how to create depth through editing.

I was not trying to insult you I was just saying you might want to learn about editing a photo before diving into HDR, if these photos have the look you are going for then I stand corrected and you do understand photo editing. If you look at Astrotus edit that is depth and contrats and Astrotu let you know how it was done.