# CXS Train. Need Help Again...............



## JRE313 (Apr 26, 2012)

I am trying to get a more natural look for this train
Here is the previous version I posted on this forum 






Here I layer masked one of the original exposures about 30%. This is  also from a different angle. So did I get a more a natural look? Let me  know what you think.


----------



## Majeed Badizadegan (Apr 26, 2012)

Much better. Except the sky. Clouds too smooth IMO.


----------



## vipgraphx (Apr 26, 2012)

+1

thats what I have been telling him for a  long long time now but......it may take another person to point that out.


----------



## JRE313 (Apr 26, 2012)

Rotainmod,
Can you look at the bottom image and tell if its a HDR image without me telling you?
The train looks almost real


----------



## vipgraphx (Apr 26, 2012)

I know that questions was not asked to me but  I could, in a regular photo you would have more contrast and deeper shadows. The train would not have smoothing like it does but, thats not a bad thing!!

Regardless I think you did a fantastic job on this one..You are defiantly getting better and better. Between this second train picture and your tracker pictures, to me it shows in your work that you are learning and 
have developed a nice style. There is always going to be something someone can nit pick at and thats true to even professional photographers as well.....

believe it or not my favorite part is he train tracks......then the train..


----------



## JRE313 (Apr 26, 2012)

VIP
As you Know, I am hard headed sometimes
But I also gotta say that this forum does not like Cartoony HDRs. I am starting to not like them less myself. so I am trying to make a natural style and workflow.
i am on the right track. I am going to redo my trackers. and I will post the new results this weekend.
Thanks.


----------



## vipgraphx (Apr 26, 2012)

When you do your tractors dont' change to much what you already did because the lower part was excellent...just mask in the better sky......another suggestion would be to do your thing the way you did it he first time..then reprocess your images in photomatix and then bump up the highlight smoothing and method...and maybe the strength a little bit and then use that sky to mask in....It might work great so you still get a cool looking HDR sky..


----------



## Bynx (Apr 26, 2012)

To the untrained eye your second image would get by as a regular well done photo. But if you have been around HDR images because of the clarity, and that certain look, its easy to tell its HDR, or at least tone mapped. Again that is one sweet image. And again I wish that tree wasnt there to clutter the lines of the front of the engine. The sky is a little too dark but looks like it was shot through a polarizing filter. As I mentioned earlier in another thread the yellows are too bright. That bright yellow spot in the lower right should be desaturated a bit so its not so bright. Then everything would be as good as it gets. In my opinion.


----------



## inaka (May 6, 2012)

Would it help if your PM the originals and let people process them to see if you like their process better?
That could be a nice experiment.

I like the second shoot, but to me it still has too much processing and definitely looks like HDR.


----------



## Dominantly (May 6, 2012)

That second image has a very strong composition, and the HDR treatment is spot on. Well done.


----------



## manaheim (May 6, 2012)

JRE313 said:


> VIP
> As you Know, I am hard headed sometimes
> But I also gotta say that this forum does not like Cartoony HDRs. I am starting to not like them less myself. so I am trying to make a natural style and workflow.
> i am on the right track. I am going to redo my trackers. and I will post the new results this weekend.
> Thanks.



Some of the HDR here fanbois do... but _I_ don't.   I get bashed for my comments on HDRs all the time, but this might be a case where I can don my cape and actually have someone not be ticked off. 

First off, I think your image is really very good from a "trying to make it realistic" standpoint.  To my eye it was clearly an HDR, but like someone else said- us photographers are used to seeing them so we know.  That said, I _have_ seen HDRs on here that I didn't realize were HDRs right away, so it's possible you can take this further.

What I noticed about it was that the contrast and saturation were still on the high side.  It particularly stood out for me in the texture of the paint/dirt/whatever right there on the nose.  I tweaked it a bit in photoshop and noticed that if I pulled those down that it stealthed its HDR nature just a little better.  You may want to mask out the sky and just do the train when you do this.

If you decide to do this, I think it needs to be VERY surgical.  The textures and such that you see are interesting, and contrasty images (IMO) are very pleasing.  You don't want to wind up with something that looks flat and dull, realistic or no.

Anyway, might be worth a try, but again... very nice treatment even as it is.


----------

