# HDR Fun (Picture heavy)



## Q4kntmare (Aug 11, 2017)

I took some HDR shots from my trip to Canada and decided to play around with them. I apologize for the water marking as I am trialing out both photomatix and photoshop. I am also very new to editing, so there are some spots of overblown color/whiteness which I don't know how to fix. 
1.



 
2.

 
3.

 
4.

 
5.

 
6.


7.


----------



## Braineack (Aug 11, 2017)

these *looked* like great shot.


----------



## Light Guru (Aug 11, 2017)

They all cook supper cartoony!  Honestly I don't think any of them needed HDR treatment.


----------



## Q4kntmare (Aug 11, 2017)

Braineack said:


> these *looked* like great shot.



Any suggestions for a better way to process these in HDR?


----------



## Q4kntmare (Aug 11, 2017)

Light Guru said:


> They all cook supper cartoony!  Honestly I don't think any of them needed HDR treatment.



I've seen on other posts that your not a fan of HDR pictures. How exactly would you process these? I'm happy to post an unedited picture.


----------



## BrentC (Aug 11, 2017)

I saw the originals in your other thread and thought all they needed was some little pp.   HDR is not necessary for these pics and probably ruin what looks great naturally.   But if this is what you were going for and like them that is all that matters.  Everyone has different tastes.


----------



## BrentC (Aug 11, 2017)

This is a simple edit from the image from your other thread.


----------



## yaopey (Aug 11, 2017)

A pretty good start if you're new to HDR.

It can be very tempting to make every part of an HDR image in equal brightness. But the issue is you lose contrast and the image becomes flat and, as they said, cartoony. Personally, I would refer back to the bracketed exposures and see where the shadows should be and try to retain that in post-processing. Having contrast means your image has more depth and look more realistic.

I thought the second image looks amazing. For me, I would tone down the brightness in the sky and reduce the clarity (or increase the haze, which ever you prefer) because mountains in distance are never clear or sharp in reality. Again, this is my personal choice - the water has too much details, I prefer to smooth it out with a longer exposure.

In Photomatix, you can select Contrat Optimizer or Tonal Compressor instead of Details Enhancer for a more natural look. Also, in Details Enhancer, avoid dragging the slider for Strength all the way to the right


----------



## SCraig (Aug 11, 2017)

Just because we CAN use HDR on every photograph doesn't mean that we SHOULD use HDR on every photograph.


----------



## Q4kntmare (Aug 11, 2017)

BrentC said:


> View attachment 144920
> 
> This is a simple edit from the image from your other thread.



I see the slight adjustment there, certainly a more natural picture for sure. 



BrentC said:


> I saw the originals in your other thread and thought all they needed was some little pp.   HDR is not necessary for these pics and probably ruin what looks great naturally.   But if this is what you were going for and like them that is all that matters.  Everyone has different tastes.



I obviously posted these here knowing there would be push back and the majority of people disliking the pictures. I've always looked at HDR pictures on this sight and been amazing at their ability to create the "perfect" picture.


----------



## Q4kntmare (Aug 11, 2017)

yaopey said:


> A pretty good start if you're new to HDR.
> 
> It can be very tempting to make every part of an HDR image in equal brightness. But the issue is you lose contrast and the image becomes flat and, as they said, cartoony. Personally, I would refer back to the bracketed exposures and see where the shadows should be and try to retain that in post-processing. Having contrast means your image has more depth and look more realistic.
> 
> ...



I will try your suggestions, thank you!


----------



## Light Guru (Aug 11, 2017)

Q4kntmare said:


> I've seen on other posts that your not a fan of HDR pictures.



The point of HDR is to overcome the dynamic range limitations of the camera.  If your scene has a dynamic range that is greater then what your camera can capture then taking multiple exposures and processing them via HDR software is a great way to overcome the limits of the digital sensor. 

A well done HDR wont make you immediately say thats an HDR image. 

What you have done is made the processing the subject of the photo instead of the scene you photographed.


----------



## Derrel (Aug 11, 2017)

Some people would call these aggressively tone-mapped images, not necessarily HDR images. These immeduately appear to be, meaning trhey immediately look like, they have been aggressively tone-mapped, and the normal and expected tonal realtionships that well all know, have been aggressively RE-mapped, in a somewhat artificial manner.


----------



## Q4kntmare (Aug 12, 2017)

Derrel said:


> Some people would call these aggressively tone-mapped images, not necessarily HDR images. These immeduately appear to be, meaning trhey immediately look like, they have been aggressively tone-mapped, and the normal and expected tonal realtionships that well all know, have been aggressively RE-mapped, in a somewhat artificial manner.


I would agree. The purpose of that software is to do exactly that. I appreciate the feedback.


----------



## Derrel (Aug 12, 2017)

"I get" that people enjoy heavily tone-mapped images. It's a new trend, recent in its development. It was formerly not possible to process images in this way. In the early 2000's, I did some of this myself with images I shot, using Photoshop, and made a handful of highly successful images this way. Nowadays, it's much,much easier and faster to do this type of re-mapping than it used to be, before Photomatix and other similar apps had even been develpoed.

I consider this syle of processing to be suited to certain types of photos more so than other types of photos. It can look a lot like older, magazine illustration type "heavy airbrush" work, or like pastel drawing work, in the style of say famous glamour illustrator Vargas.

I think if you like it, you should keep doing it! I will never diss a processing style, because at times, anything can or will "work" on an image. I am also super-bored of reralistic color, and the _Macbeth Coor Checker_ type of white-balance and color-accuracy fanatacism that permeates so many internet photo communities.


----------



## Braineack (Aug 12, 2017)

Q4kntmare said:


> I see the slight adjustment there, certainly a more natural picture for sure.


 it _is_ a picture of natural scene after-all


----------



## Q4kntmare (Aug 12, 2017)

Braineack said:


> Q4kntmare said:
> 
> 
> > I see the slight adjustment there, certainly a more natural picture for sure.
> ...


Hindsight is 50/50


----------



## BrentC (Aug 12, 2017)

In the end its your photos and you should process them the way you like them.  Since  you are new to editing I would start with something like Lightroom instead of Photoshop and learn some basic editing skills.   Learn to edit your photos first without using HDR adjusting exposure, WB, sharpness, colour, etc.  When you get comfortable with that it will help when you start working with HDR and other types of processing.   

There are some really good shots you took,  shots that I would have been more than happy to take, and I would suggest try editing them first without HDR and I think you will be surprised at how well they will turn out.  Then you =can start playing with other heavy processing.


----------



## Q4kntmare (Aug 16, 2017)

BrentC said:


> In the end its your photos and you should process them the way you like them.  Since  you are new to editing I would start with something like Lightroom instead of Photoshop and learn some basic editing skills.   Learn to edit your photos first without using HDR adjusting exposure, WB, sharpness, colour, etc.  When you get comfortable with that it will help when you start working with HDR and other types of processing.
> 
> There are some really good shots you took,  shots that I would have been more than happy to take, and I would suggest try editing them first without HDR and I think you will be surprised at how well they will turn out.  Then you =can start playing with other heavy processing.



I will try out Lightroom. Any tutorials for lightroom you'd suggest?


----------



## BrentC (Aug 16, 2017)

Q4kntmare said:


> BrentC said:
> 
> 
> > In the end its your photos and you should process them the way you like them.  Since  you are new to editing I would start with something like Lightroom instead of Photoshop and learn some basic editing skills.   Learn to edit your photos first without using HDR adjusting exposure, WB, sharpness, colour, etc.  When you get comfortable with that it will help when you start working with HDR and other types of processing.
> ...



I don't have any specific ones but if you go on youtube you will find plenty.   Maybe someone else has links to specific ones they can share.


----------

