HDR what gives?

[Morlock]

I have tried tentatively to create some HDR now I have a half decent camera that I can bracket the exposure on. However...........I have shot a load of pix on urbex and others just to play around with. Whacked em on the old CS4 and hey presto - and ordinary looking pic with NO obvious changes. :(

What the feck am I doing wrong? I am still 'learning' to use my new digital Nikon so not too sure if I'm correcting the exposures right. I dont intend to post HDR pics rather, to further my photographic skills. Been doing this since 110mm cameras and dark rooms and STILL not much good. Must have over 5000 images on my portable HDD - one day I suppose I'll take a decent snap :p

Can anyone give me some pointers?

[Scotty]

are you tone mapping the pics after you joined them?

also, use photomatix. i find it better to use than CS3 or CS4 or carol.
the new version uses dual CPUs so should be quicker.

[UrbanExplorer]

I used this (http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/colin/hdr-photoshop-cs3-tutorial.html) tutorial and the results i got where good for me first time.

Photomatrix is easier and gives stronger HDR results. Photoshop results come out to low in colour saturation for me so you have to adjust that afterwards although if you find the Photomatirx results too much then PS might be a better start.

Also, i had a play with HDR from a single frame this morning, adjusting the exposure in MS Office picture manager (cos i get quicker results in that, but that's probably just cos i'm new to PS) to get the three raw images for HDR merging.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3126/3162606327_f2b94983f3.jpg?v=0

[Morlock]

thanks for that guys I'll have a go with photomatix.

sounds like a character from Asterix the Gaul :p

[fusian]

If your using a max, Hydra is a good tool also :)

[Power Junkie]

sounds like a character from Asterix the Gaul :p


You might be right there as it goes!

...time to dust off the Asterix collection.

[styru]

Use Photomatix, theres serials for it everywhere and it's too easy.

I'll second that it is a great little program. Unfortunately I lost my registered copy when my PC died recently.

Clearly I need to buy a new copy (note, as I am a law abiding citizen I hope no-one PMs or emails me a spare key to the email address shown in my signiture)

[Power Junkie]

I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing.

[styru]

thanks to those that have pm'd and emailed me to remind me to 'buy' my own - much apppreciated.

Cheers.

[AndyM]

Remember also not to abuse HDR and turn it into some kind of horrific nightmare cartoon accident. HDR should be subtle, unlike some of the nonsense thats on Flickr at the moment..............

[SaltGeorge]

There's some right HDR-tosh on Flickr.. it's also odd that so many people think that playing with the dynamic range is a magic cure for a crap composition :D

[Defqon]

Remember also not to abuse HDR and turn it into some kind of horrific nightmare cartoon accident. HDR should be subtle, unlike some of the nonsense thats on Flickr at the moment..............

Why not? He / She can do what they like with it.

Baked HDR FTW!

[Alias]

Remember also not to abuse HDR and turn it into some kind of horrific nightmare cartoon accident. HDR should be subtle, unlike some of the nonsense thats on Flickr at the moment..............

I majorly disagree with this the OP can do what they like with THEIR images.

[Power Junkie]

Baked HDR FTW!

Amen brother!

http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp68/The_Power_Junkie/Test.jpg

[AndyM]

Yuk, I thought overdone HDR was banned on 28DL?

:thumb

[Oxygen Thief]

Yuk, I thought overdone HDR was banned on 28DL?

:thumb

A few get by, but most HDR is minging and pointless. We want to see a place how it really is.

[Ishmail]

A few get by, but most HDR is minging and pointless. We want to see a place how it really is.

Oh well, in for a penny... lets see if this causes some controversy...

HDR is NOT pointless, although I agree the way it is practiced sometimes leaves a lot to be desired.

The digital sensor in a digital camera is estimated to allow anywhere between 5 to 9 stops of latitude, although most estimates tend to average around 6 stops. The human eye/brain is estimated to allow nearly 24 stops of latitude- although in everday use, when focussing on scenes of varying brightness and contrast, this is narrowed down to 10 to 14 stops of "instantaneous dynamic range" (where our pupil opening is unchanged).

Thus the digital sensor cannot equal the human eye when assessing and interpreting a scene before it without some degree of intervention and assistance.

HDR only seeks to allow the image to be represented as the photpgrapher originally saw it or envisaged it in its final form. HDR is, therefore, only a modern equivalent to the darkroom manipulation carried out when printing a negative and adjusting chemical development and paper combinations with variable exposure techniques.

Give HDR a break and encourage its considered use. Personally, I absolutely hate oil paintings with a passion, yet the art world adores them...

[Alias]

hmmm u are correct about HDR, but what people object to is the tone mapping after.

[jonesyb]

HDR to achieve a photo with a proper dynamic range = good.

HDR, tone mapped to fuck that looks like a cartoon = looks absolutely terrible.

The above is of course just my own opinion before people think about getting on thier internet high horses about it.

[BaldOne]

I thought I'd give some of my pics the HDR treatment as well, but bugger me, I forgot to keep the serial number of my fully licensed copy when I was forced to do a full system restore on my useless Dell pc!
I'd just like to say, the people on 28DL are some of the most friendly and helpful people (crosses fingers for a PM... ;) ) :freak

[exis7]

I had a couple of goes with HDR, comments welcome:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3210/3144228563_9e61f0e5bd.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3093/3152476309_f9945befd1.jpg?v=0

[rookinella]

http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp68/The_Power_Junkie/Test.jpg

I'm sorry but that is horrific. It's like one of those foil embossed birthday cards my Gran gave to me complete with wibbly wobbly writing...blurrghh:(

[Power Junkie]

Erm...it was kinda deliberate in response to "Baked HDR FTW!"
Any more baking and it'd be crispy burnt.

As for Xmas cards, nothing beats the feeling of sending the shittiest one in the pack that's usually a limp thickness card of a cheap photograph of a candle with a bit of tinsel next to it.
You know you're hated when that turns up.

[rookinella]

Ha ha ha what a fool I am, always the last one to get the joke:o

It's the Christmas cards that are thinner than toilet paper. I used to call them "Kitchen Drawer Cards" because you know the person has taken some generic "Happy Grandma" card and given it to you in some flimsy envelope in the hope that you won't realise that not only did they forget your birthday, they also thought they'd try and wing it with some piece of shit they bought 5 years ago specially reserved for situations like that.

[Power Junkie]

I see your Kitchen Drawer Card and raise you a "Isn't He Talented Card", usually made by some club fisted, palsied halfwit child as part of a Christmas art project.

If I wanted a 'Take Hart' gallery reject picture, I'd have fucking drawn one myself.

[rookinella]

Ha ha ha ha "He's so creative!!!"

Yeah it's a fucking stick man with a giant orange head and hands the size of tree branches:p

Sorry, this thread is going wayy off:p

[Power Junkie]

I hate childrens art.
I just can't bring myself to say "Aaww" when I'm looking at the equivalent of multicoloured vomit on a piece of bastard A4.

The look I give, is a bit like what you'll see at exactly 0:58 seconds in this video.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MMb8Csll9Ws



...anyway, before this thread gets derailed like a third world train, I'll bow out.

[Bash]

Just take one decent shot and load it into Adobe lightroom, adjust the exposures and export.

This was made from a single JPEG:

http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v345/159/49/651286492/n651286492_1231848_2816.jpg

http://photos-h.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sf2p/v357/159/49/651286492/n651286492_1253911_4246.jpg

[Power Junkie]

HDaarrrrrr me hearties

http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp68/The_Power_Junkie/Cane_Hill_2/24.jpg

[AndyM]

A couple from me, both made from 3 RAW files, and tone mapped.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3263/3160386817_4c520755ec.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3038/3015843358_4cdaff9acf.jpg

[compound eye]

The thin sooty effect comes from flattening the image too much from choosing a 'low' amount of light smoothing - personally I prefer 'mid' to 'high' levels for a more natural effect.

You also get a lot of noise at any ISO over 200 or if your micro-smoothing is down too low.

HDR is indispensible in urbex where one black hole and one smashed window can mean unpenetrable dark and burnt out white all in the same image - a bit of intelligent bracketing and Photomatix Pro 3 can help you to expose the lowlights whilst holding back the blown highlights.

Here's one I baked earlier, at gas mark 6 for 20mins in a greaseproofed tin...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3121/2476806570_1f57477ac4.jpg

[Red16]

totally agree about HDR being great for urbex, with regards to burnt out white and overly dark black holes.

couple of my images to go along with this opinion, one ordinary exposure, one HDR image.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/Red16/Broadwood/BroadwoodQuarry2302.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3075/3147533383_b9a51a7798.jpg

sorry for the difference in sizes :(

[TheSmurfinator]

I've just started to play around wih HDR but don't really know what I'm doing.... i've noticed that when I take pics in Raw format i get two file for each shit or series of shots.... in preview they come up as ORF files and XMP files.. what do these mean?
Also, I've noticed that a lot of my shots are quite noisy, mainly the ones taken in low light, is there anything I can do about this?

[Red16]

I've just started to play around wih HDR but don't really know what I'm doing.... i've noticed that when I take pics in Raw format i get two file for each shit or series of shots.... in preview they come up as ORF files and XMP files.. what do these mean?
Also, I've noticed that a lot of my shots are quite noisy, mainly the ones taken in low light, is there anything I can do about this?

I'm assuming you have an Olympus camera, the ORF is Olympus Raw Format, different brands of camera save their RAW images in different format, eg Nikon uses .NEF compared to the Olympus .ORF format.

It sounds like whatever program youre using to open your RAW images is saving a copy of that file as a .XMP file, have a look through the programs settings to see if you can change this.

If you're shooting in dark lighting conditions and you've been upping the ISO to allow you to go freehand with the camera, try using a tripod and lowers ISO but with long exposures, this will reduce the noise in your photos, but obviously take a lot longer.

[Johno]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3317/3187604365_f4dec7d63b_b.jpg

My first attempt from the weekend. Fairly pleased with it

[compound eye]

I've just started to play around wih HDR but don't really know what I'm doing.... i've noticed that when I take pics in Raw format i get two file for each shit or series of shots.... in preview they come up as ORF files and XMP files.. what do these mean?
Also, I've noticed that a lot of my shots are quite noisy, mainly the ones taken in low light, is there anything I can do about this?

RAW is just unecessary hassle, you don't need it for HDR. Shoot Jpeg! As to noise, well... for starters a tripod and iso below 200 [or as low as your camera goes] will improve things a lot, also don't go for low light smotthing levels when processing as thats 'soot city!', finally a little micro smoothing between 1-4 usually works wonders.

[Defqon]

RAW is just unecessary hassle, you don't need it for HDR. Shoot Jpeg! As to noise, well... for starters a tripod and iso below 200 [or as low as your camera goes] will improve things a lot, also don't go for low light smotthing levels when processing as thats 'soot city!', finally a little micro smoothing between 1-4 usually works wonders.

Hows it un-necessary? Take one photo or three -?? Hmmmmm

[TheSmurfinator]

I'm assuming you have an Olympus camera, the ORF is Olympus Raw Format, different brands of camera save their RAW images in different format, eg Nikon uses .NEF compared to the Olympus .ORF format.

It sounds like whatever program youre using to open your RAW images is saving a copy of that file as a .XMP file, have a look through the programs settings to see if you can change this.

If you're shooting in dark lighting conditions and you've been upping the ISO to allow you to go freehand with the camera, try using a tripod and lowers ISO but with long exposures, this will reduce the noise in your photos, but obviously take a lot longer.

I'm not using anything to open the files - that is how they appear on my card when I use just the card reader...

Also I would have used a tripod but these are my pics from Chernobyl and you aren't allowed to place any camera equipment on the ground :)

Anywa, so I should be using the orf files to upload into photomatix then?

[Defqon]

I'm not using anything to open the files - that is how they appear on my card when I use just the card reader...

Also I would have used a tripod but these are my pics from Chernobyl and you aren't allowed to place any camera equipment on the ground :)

Anywa, so I should be using the orf files to upload into photomatix then?

Or as a plus to what red16 is saying, try get your aperture at as a low a number as possible. make as much light go in as possible

[Red16]

I'm not using anything to open the files - that is how they appear on my card when I use just the card reader...

i dont know why that is then

Also I would have used a tripod but these are my pics from Chernobyl and you aren't allowed to place any camera equipment on the ground :)

as just said, use as low an aperture number as possible. could always by yourslef a nice big flash gun to go on the top of the camera, that would help, but be a little less practical to carry around etc.

Anyway, so I should be using the orf files to upload into photomatix then?

Yeah you can just use the ORF files in Photomatix

[jonesyb]

This thread is making my eyes bleed.

Can someone get it out of the way and start a 'tilt shift' thread then we can have that one out of our systems too?

Nice one. Cheers.

[Red Face]

You start one Ben, and I'll show you my effort.

[horrgakx]

Everyone who's done HDR has been slagged off in some way, whether on here or elsewhere. I do it some of the time to pull detail and lighting out of something and other times I do it for 'art'.

Examples;

This picture of the Kangol factory as standard and then HDR.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/horrgakx/kangol/IMGL8499.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3060/3032708678_2c367788f5.jpg

If you want to see my set of HDR photos, I've put most of them up here in one place;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/horrgakx/sets/72157610193685011/



Images above hosted by Flickr.com

[CrysAk]

Everyone who's done HDR has been slagged off in some way, whether on here or elsewhere. I do it some of the time to pull detail and lighting out of something and other times I do it for 'art'.

Examples;

This picture of the Kangol factory as standard and then HDR.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/horrgakx/kangol/IMGL8499.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3060/3032708678_2c367788f5.jpg

If you want to see my set of HDR photos, I've put most of them up here in one place;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/horrgakx/sets/72157610193685011/



Images above hosted by Flickr.com

imo, that looks great IF thats the look you want to go for, looks almost like concept artwork / painting, for me, i think its a little too "in your face", much prefer the more subtle HDR shots

non the less, looks great

[Red Face]

Here's one I did of a church for my mates sons christening.

Done in photomatix.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y58/redface/DSC_0041_3_4_tonemapped-1.jpg

[hoRrid]

Not a massive fan, although urbex photography seems to be an area where a bit of subtle hdr can work well.

[Johno]

This thread is making my eyes bleed.

Can someone get it out of the way and start a 'tilt shift' thread then we can have that one out of our systems too?

Nice one. Cheers.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3071/3041910394_3469dca17a_b.jpg

:D

[TheSmurfinator]

well, here's my first attempt at HDR, from one raw file... comments appreciated :)

Edit - image redone, see below

[spungletrumpet]

That one looks quite natural for HDR..

What's the access like? ;)

[horrgakx]

I like it, no halo effect, looks natural.

[TheSmurfinator]

What's the access like? ;)

the actual reactor? you got more chance of getting in a nun's knickers....

thanks guys, I'm still finding my way around the various programs.
I took a load of bracketed shots while I was in Kiev, of the lovely domed buildings and churches, but my card seems to have gone tits up, GUTTED! I've lost 1 gig out of the 3gig of pics I took in the Ukraine :(

second attempt...

http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/rr314/forsakenplaces/Ukraine/reactor1-1.jpg