HDR Landscape

[Nicks Pics]

If I may express my opinion, I did like the "house" in the image; it looked to me like a ranch out-west, which many people think of as a pleasant thought. As for the trees, perhaps they, or at least their obstructive positions (though I think they would be of benefit to the image if positioned ideally), are a situation in which two wrongs don't make a right if you take them out. (though whomever did that did a clever job of it!) Plus, I relate to there being trees in the way of everything in my neck of the woods, so perhaps to me they added a realistic feel. No offense to any of those commenting, but I don't like any of the revised versions better.

[ajohnw]

This is why I used the term effect earlier as it looked very much like it wasn't hdr to me. Sorry about the clouds but I didn't like them so tried something that didn't work out.

To me it looked like the work of a plugin. There is one for the GIMP that can have similar effects and often leaves halo's on higher contrast boundaries. It's caused by blurs applied to the layers that are used to create the effect. There is a guy called Nasca Octavian who produced a utility called LDR Tone Mapping that allows the degree of blur to be set but it can still be a problem. I only found it recently but it can apply the effect in 4 stages. It appears that it might be best to set blur to zero on the last 3 if they are used. It does allow the blur to be tuned to the degree of hdr applied on all 4 stages, Like most I feel the shots it produces would benefit from more PP. Noise often crops up so the built in sharpening might not be as useful as it seems.

I haven't got any shots that are really suitable but taking one like this and using things rather extremely it can take a shot like this that I just took because it was there



And give this



Several things can then be done say saturation and maybe contrast, but I made not attempt to remove the "glow" but I did knock back the noise.



On the other hand if done via layers and no blur the starting point for more PP can look like this



All more extreme than what I would be inclined to use. :D My picture rating would be Photo 0/10, Composition 0/10 and processing not much better.

John
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[Polar01]

John it appears that you did applied this method to a single image, a really good HDR quality image taken with multiple images should look like any other image but with more detail showing in the shadows and highlights. Then again the images can be processed to give a more painterly look to it.

Cheers: Allan

[ajohnw]

John it appears that you did applied this method to a single image, a really good HDR quality image taken with multiple images should look like any other image but with more detail showing in the shadows and highlights. Then again the images can be processed to give a more painterly look to it.

Cheers: Allan

i am well aware of that but the OP posted a so called hdr effect image. The other type where multiple exposures are used needn't look even remotely like these. In fact it can be impossible to tell it's been used. In fact even these need look like this.

For amusement as it's raining I just did another with Rawtherapee



Again way way over the top.

John
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[csa mt]

what was the EV range you used? Can you please share histograms of each shot used for HDR?

This was only one shot, then ran thru the program of "Auto HDR".

[ajohnw]

May as well post some real dynamic range extension work - that term is likely to replace HDR at some point to avoid confusion.

As there is something that I want to photograph at some point that will need dynamic range extension I tried one on our living room. There are several problems with the result not least how it made our living room look but PP could fix that. We aren't minimalists.

These are the shots used



One of the reasons I chose such a rather large range was comments in another thread about flash and hdr. In this one it would clearly pay to use flash to avoid the 5 sec exposure. Trouble with exposure that long in situations like this is that the odd lighting effects will be there and could be difficult to remove.

This is one of the results after some minor PP on each of the shots



That one is Enfuse based. Looks like I needed yet another exposure for the bottom left corner but the main problem is the 5 sec exposure. In fact more exposures would help in other areas any way. I did it by setting exposures to avoid clipping any of the major light variations. I also tried camera based bracketing over a rather large but found that none of the exposure were really correct for any of these.. 15 stpos coverage if I remember correctly.

I also tried a conventional extended dynamic range package but feel that the results weren't so good.in certain ways but in some respects it's better, It was difficult to get the parameters correct and some slight HDR look always occurred.



John
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[bnnrcn]

Hi Carol I like the image with Mark's edit


Mark,I think your cloning skills improved after Colin's tips on John's thread, good work

[csa mt]

Hi Carol I like the image with Mark's edit


Mark,I think your cloning skills improved after Colin's tips on John's thread, good work

I agree on both counts!

[Mark von Kanel]

Hi Carol I like the image with Mark's edit


Mark,I think your cloning skills improved after Colin's tips on John's thread, good work

LOL improved??? theyd just started! but yes Colins tips did help me speed the process up and make me more proficient, but ive a long way to go! id love to get my hands on the original file and have a go at doing the whole thing, but ill have to shoot something similar at home... when i get home. Ufortunatley as Colin has now left CIC i wont be able to get his help any more,

But thank you both for your compliments.