So I was trying to figure out HDR today, and I'm not sure if I'm doing it right.

This was made from 3 images, but the lights didn't come out well.



Also from 3 images, wind was whipping around so some branches are screwed up in the compiling, but other than that, is this closer to what I should expect?

Well, without seeing the original images, it's hard to say. How much better do those photos look than the correctly metered exposure? They both look fairly typical of a good single exposure, to me.

What are you using to merge them?

I'll work on resizing the original images in a little while to show you...but not much better, really.

I just took another set that I'm gonna try that I think will work better.

Photoshop CS3

Are you using the automated HDR merging in CS3? If so, you won't get any good results.
There are a few free programs out there that do a better job, but you could always merge them 'by hand'.

^ +1 on CS3's HDR feature. Google a program called Photomatix, you'll get a million times better results, guaranteed!

well thats good to know. I'll try again with Photomatix and see what happens.

Good luck. The trial of Photomatix does a great job on its own, but if you really like it, buy the full version - it gives you a lot more lattitude in the tone mapping stage. But yeah, run those first two sets through the trial and compare the results. I think you'll be surprised.

OMG SO MUCH BETTER!!

PS CS3:



Photomatix:





Thanks guys!

Much better.

And how. Huge difference - and much purdier!

yes, yes....MUCH nicer

It's funny...I get a pic off the camera, "oh...great color!"
Process an image "Oh wow...much nicer color!"
Now, after one successful HDR attempt, and I'm staring at the original file going "there's color in that??"

Anyhoo - here's the other one. As I suspected, I need to work on bracketing, but the details in the grass are quite nice:



and before for comparison:

Now you've given me the itch to try some more.

HEY THIS IS FUN!





Go for it Lalani!! Let's see 'em!!

okay, last one:

Just curious, why do they all look extremely yellow coming out of Photomatix?

dshnarw, you may want to play around with the curves on the 16 bit files, to try and restore some detail to the highlights. The skies and the water are a bit blown out.

But yeah, when you see the full dynamic range, the colors really do take on a whole new life.

yeah...I just wanted to try out the technique first. Messing with curves takes me forever, so I usually leave it alone and live with blown highlights in normal shots. I still suck at Photoshop.


In other news...I shouldn't mess with animations when I'm bored:

Try the Shadows & Highlights adjustment in PS - you may be able to restore the blowouts without messing with the curves, much more user-friendly.

Thats much easier. Thanks! I'll see what I can get with that.


In the meantime - view from the student union around 1am last night. Looks so much like a drawing

Very cool, I might try some HDRs and star trails tonight if the sky is clear.
You gave me the photo bug and I checked to see if I had any Dektol left in my darkroom equipment. I was going to try and do some wide-angle pinhole shots of my reef tank.... But alas, no Dektol.

Well, I'm excited to see what comes out

It's so nice to be able to take night-shots and have them turn out

oh...and one more

The student union:

I think I'm getting the hang of this


A couple more of campus:







I also re-re-redid the first few, and a few other new ones in the slideshow: http://s158.photobucket.com/albums/t109/ar...mview=slideshow

Purdy. You're a fast learner, lol.

I really like the one of the comcast center.

Thanks Learned a lot today...HDR, how to remove watermarks, how to recover blown out details, how to make cheesy gif animations...



me too...not bad for taking pics from the sunroof of my car

maybe tomorrow will be learning how to get rid of the halos from the lights.

So no one knows why the Photomatix ones are way more yellow?

I think this was jeremai's answer:



I can't give anything better than that really, since I don't know HDR that well yet. My attempt would be: HDR saturates all the colors, and you're just noticing the yellows because it's the biggest difference from before to after.

Aah, thanks! I didn't read that as being in response to my question.

So next question, you can take the saturation up on any picture (or make it as nasty yellow looking as you want) and that doesn't make it HDR. So what exactly DOES make a picture a HDR picture? I always assumed more tonal ranges in the shadows and highlights... but I don't see that in a lot of things labeled "HDR". So now I am confused.

Well, no camera, film or digital, can capture the entire dynamic range of a scene - all of its highlights and shadows, as well as the different tones in its colors. When you take three different exposures of the same scene, you are capturing three entirely different dynamic ranges. The point of combining them is to see the entire dynamic range of a scene at once; to see in print something that closely resembles what our eyes see in reality. If you saw the full-size comparisons, more than just increases in saturation would be apparent. The HDR's aren't 'more yellow', but they are instead revealing the true tones that the single exposures lacked.

Make sense?

Interesting! And yes, makes a bit more sense. Thanks!

One more pic, since we'll be getting rid of it in a few months

this looks awesome, just looked into it

too bad photomatix is $99

The auto tone mapping you get with the trial works great for getting your feet wet, though. You can always tweek the 16 bit file later in PS.

I think some of the most dramatic HDR photos are done during cloudy days. Normally photos taken on those days will end up with blown out highlights, mostly the sky, and pretty dull colors in the shadows. But after merging different exposures into a HDR image, it really becomes more like the way the human eye sees it.

Note: None of these photos were taken by me!

Those all look like drawings to me... *gets even more confused*

And I have never seen yellow pavement as in the picture of the car! If anything, these HDR photos look very fake compared to how I see things with my eye.

Wow! Those look exactly like the "modern" architectural renderings I've seen from guest architects at my class. Especially Antoine Predock's National Palace Museum of Taiwan (link):

Yeah, there's realistic HDR (look for my Red Rock thread here), then there's artistic HDR. It's all in the post-processing.

s.e, maybe Google would provide more answers?

Oh shush, I'm bored and learning about new things.

The yellow hue can be fixed during or after processing, but only you have to know what you are doing as it takes a bit of tweaking.
And like Jeremai said, the look of the end product all depends on how much post-processing is done.

OMG THAT IS NICE! I'll have to send that to a friend who races his Sube.



I kinda like both sides of things - artsy and realism. I've been trying to do two pics for each HDR to show both sides, and then pick out the one I like the best. Or, with my car, kinda mixing both worlds together - the car seems fairly realistic to me, and the rest seems more like a drawing. Anyhoo...works for some people, not for others I guess



Wow...I wouldn't go THAT far...but thanks for the self-esteem boost I LOVE Predock's architecture



I had someone actually ask for a print last night!! The first time I've ever "sold" a photo . "Sold" because it's more of a trade - he's watching my fish tank for a month during the wedding/honeymoon. But still...someone actually WANTED to put it on their wall!!

Congrats on your first print sale.

HDR done carefully...

#2 =

thanks found a couple more

wow those two are ridiculously awesome

Damn desert...

Those are lovely! And what I expected HDR to look like LOL.

This is as close as I could get out here, lol.

WOW!! Thats very pretty. Hmmmmm, maybe Daniel and I need to go there for a vacation. It looks like a good place for pictures.

Thanks. That's at Pine Creek Canyon at the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, about a half hour from the Strip. They say the ponderosas are remnants of the last ice ace; they usually don't grow this far down, about 2500'. It's an easy, flat 2mi hike into the canyon, and the little stream runs year-round. It's always a bit cooler in there, too - usually 85 or 90 in the middle of the day, as opposed to 100 or 110 in the rest of the valley. It was only 57 when I was there this morning though, lol.

And yeah, there is an embarassment of photo ops all over Red Rock. A veritable smorgie! Highly recommended, just bring chap-stik.