# Does this method of HDR look okay?



## Parker219

I had the challenge of photographing this living room area while also showing that the property has a water view.

I only took one image while I was at the house, with a flash and -1 compensation.

Then I made 3 images from the 1 image in lightroom and made one image -2, kept one the same, and made one image +1.5 I believe.

Then I used the now free Nik software to merge the photos together and adjusted from there.


I will post the originals and then the what I have so far for the final product.

Thank You for any feedback you can give.





 

 








Drum roll...


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## jcdeboever

Which one looks like what you seen? 

Is it your living room? The balance is way off in terms of furniture placement .... the whole thing is just a mess really.


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## Parker219

No, it is not my living room. 

Any comments on the processing?


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## Watchful

I think it looks fine. I think it would look fine with normal exposure too. I don't really see any harsh enough shadows to need hdr on this.
But I actually like harsh shadows too, being a fan of film noir.
Good practice shot. Try some real bracketed shots and knit them together.


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## Overread

You're getting a lot of blow-out in both sets of windows and in the primary window-light reflections. I would try to tone those down in the photo; bright areas draw our eyes attention and that isn't want you want. You might have to treat those areas (esp the window areas) as a different area to work on compared to the darker indoor areas of the photo.


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## 407370

I am interested in how the OP could have avoided the bright windows issue while actually taking the pic. 
This is a problem I have all the time with landscape shots with darker foreground and bright skies. I always reduce exposure to the extent that I can see whats in the sky but that always leaves a nearly black foreground. Even merging bracketed pics always makes the sky look brighter than desired so out comes the dodging and burning tools. 
Someone suggested lighting the foreground to make it closer to the sky brightness but he was an idiot.


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## Overread

Well for windows its easier; you can manually blend the photos in editing. Just process it in two batches - once for the window and once for the room and then just cut and paste the window into the room shot. For landscapes it can be a bit more tricky; but with the correct use of copy/paste and then the brush and layermask you can get the same effect.


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## Braineack

Parker219 said:


> Any comments on the processing?


Looks pretty good.  But the windows are still borderline blown out and arent using much from that first exposure that did the outside exposure very well.

I'd also go back and correct for distortion, plumb up those walls.


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## ronlane

In my opinion, this is a good image for real estate.


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## Trblmkr

I use spot metering vs matrix metering for things like this to make sure I get the right exposure for the outside. The very first picture has a decent shot outside so I would use that one and then blend in the others for the rest of the room.   My biggest issue is the walls, ya got to get those verticals vertical.  Adjust your camera higher or lower to get them as close as possible, and then use the correction in LR/PS to make them perfect.  If you post this on any other board for RE they would tear you apart as this is like the "golden rule" in RE photography. Every thing else can be crap, but if you're lines are off... watch out.


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## The_Traveler

I think, just like Overrread, that merging the 'outside' image and the inside with masks would have been easier, probably better and wouldn't have left any decisions in the hands of the hdr program


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## 407370

Overread said:


> Well for windows its easier; you can manually blend the photos in editing. Just process it in two batches - once for the window and once for the room and then just cut and paste the window into the room shot. For landscapes it can be a bit more tricky; but with the correct use of copy/paste and then the brush and layermask you can get the same effect.


What I was getting at is that it cannot be done in camera?


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## Parker219

Braineack said:


> Parker219 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Any comments on the processing?
> 
> 
> 
> Looks pretty good.  But the windows are still borderline blown out and arent using much from that first exposure that did the outside exposure very well.
> 
> I'd also go back and correct for distortion, plumb up those walls.
Click to expand...



For $150 for 25 photos,  I don't make the walls vertical. 


I give the client the option for me to do that and 100 percent of the time they say "I didn't notice that until you mentioned that the walls weren't vertical ".

They want wide shots that are light, bright, and open.

When I shoot more high end commercial shoots, of course I make everything vertical. 


Have you seen the photos most real estate agents use for their listings?


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## Parker219

The_Traveler said:


> I think, just like Overrread, that merging the 'outside' image and the inside with masks would have been easier, probably better and wouldn't have left any decisions in the hands of the hdr program



Makes sense, looking back even the negative exposure photo had the sky blown out, so if I want it perfect, it would have needed to be negative 4 exposure and at that point I cant just make a positive exposure from that one photo later on, that would look good at least. 

So I really do need bracketed photos in this case.


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## unpopular

I think it looks fine, but you're not gaining any additional information than you would by processing a 16-bit tiff from a raw file, converting to a 32-bit image and tone mapping it in Photoshop; or with careful hilight and shadow processing within LR.

In other words, yes, I think it does work and if the workflow is faster for you then go for it, but you're also not gaining anything by doing so.


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## unpopular

Parker219 said:


> For $150 for 25 photos,  I don't make the walls vertical.
> 
> I give the client the option for me to do that and 100 percent of the time they say "I didn't notice that until you mentioned that the walls weren't vertical ".



Or instead of deliberately delivering a sub-standard product, why not charge according to the quality you can provide....

Just a thought.


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## unpopular

407370 said:


> What I was getting at is that it cannot be done in camera?



Not easily. OP could have placed an ND over the windows and/or lit the interior separately. I would have taken two exposures...


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## Parker219

unpopular said:


> Parker219 said:
> 
> 
> 
> For $150 for 25 photos,  I don't make the walls vertical.
> 
> I give the client the option for me to do that and 100 percent of the time they say "I didn't notice that until you mentioned that the walls weren't vertical ".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Or instead of deliberately delivering a sub-standard product, why not charge according to the quality you can provide....
> 
> Just a thought.
Click to expand...



Because real estate agents don't want to pay $300 for listing photos. Most just take them with their cell phone. 


Like I said, I give them the choice, they don't want to pay for it.


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## unpopular

You know. You're right. I'm tired and cranky.

I suppose if you gave everyone the highest quality there would be little incentive to pay more.

Sorry, Parker. I was being a turd.


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## Parker219

^ I get where you are coming from.


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## Braineack

Parker219 said:


> Have you seen the photos most real estate agents use for their listings?


yeah, they are disgusting.

Have you played with LR's manual distortion correction tool?  25 photos would take about 5min extra to sure up.


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## Parker219

Braineack said:


> Parker219 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Have you seen the photos most real estate agents use for their listings?
> 
> 
> 
> yeah, they are disgusting.
> 
> Have you played with LR's manual distortion correction tool?  25 photos would take about 5min extra to sure up.
Click to expand...



Yes, I have used that, I can batch interior photos for 99 percent of the edits / sliders. However the distortion isn't that easy. Every photo is different .


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## Braineack

gotcha.


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## Trblmkr

Parker219 said:


> Braineack said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Parker219 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Any comments on the processing?
> 
> 
> 
> Looks pretty good.  But the windows are still borderline blown out and arent using much from that first exposure that did the outside exposure very well.
> 
> I'd also go back and correct for distortion, plumb up those walls.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> For $150 for 25 photos,  I don't make the walls vertical.
> 
> 
> I give the client the option for me to do that and 100 percent of the time they say "I didn't notice that until you mentioned that the walls weren't vertical ".
> 
> They want wide shots that are light, bright, and open.
> 
> When I shoot more high end commercial shoots, of course I make everything vertical.
> 
> 
> Have you seen the photos most real estate agents use for their listings?
Click to expand...


Guess it all depends on where you work, and how you want to be known in the business.  Around here the going price is about the same as yours and they want 30-35 pictures.  Sure they can do them with their cell phone, and the look like crap.  When I do them, bare rooms or staged rooms, I know my pictures are going to be clean, sharp and lines will be straight.


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## Overread

From what I've seen real estate varies from a staff member sent out with a point and shoot and then has a market gap and then jumps up to a pro with lighting gear and all the tricks of the trade - with less in the middle. Which is surprising considering how much estate agents charge to sell a house



unpopular said:


> 407370 said:
> 
> 
> 
> What I was getting at is that it cannot be done in camera?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not easily. OP could have placed an ND over the windows and/or lit the interior separately. I would have taken two exposures...
Click to expand...


To do this in camera chances are the only way would have been just the right time of day to soften the outside light and then back that up with several flash units with diffusers indoors. It can be done; but would be expensive, time consuming, more complicated and also likely very limited on the hours of the day when it would be viable to shoot. 

HDR makes fantastic sense in this situation; a handful of shots and then a little bit of time (comparatively speaking) in editing and you're done. You can do it almost whenever; in much more varied lighting for a fraction of the overall equipment investment and for a lot less time (esp a lot less time at site).


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## pixmedic

pics look good to me. 
hell, makes me want to buy that house.


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## 407370

I went looking for listings of multi million pound houses just to see the pics and none of them looked any better than the OP posted, actually several of them looked significantly worse.
Does the market for top class Real Estate photography actually exist?


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## Parker219

407370 said:


> I went looking for listings of multi million pound houses just to see the pics and none of them looked any better than the OP posted, actually several of them looked significantly worse.
> Does the market for top class Real Estate photography actually exist?




I have friends in the industry that charge  $400 for 25 Real Estate photos. In an area with a population around 500,000 people they get 2 assignments a week. 

For residential real estate, $400 is the maximum I have seen photographers charge and still get work. 

I guess 2 a week is at least enough to pay the bare minimum of most peoples monthly bills, plus they have plenty of time to do other things.


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## oxo

I use Photoshop a lot, all i did was make a pen tool selection of the windows and drop the green and blue channels slightly in the curves tool, for me this gives a better balance to the image and also lends itself to a better depth of light and shade.
I could have gone further and lowered the floor sheen some but as this is just to show my take on the image in a quick format i didn't


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## Watchful

The thing about real estate photos is: no one ever buys a house based on photos, it just doesn't happen. They read the number and type of rooms, look at a picture to see it isn't gutted and set an appointment to go look at it if it fits their needs.
Agents know this and will pay 1.35- 1.75 each for 3 or 4 dozen 3 fold glossy 2 sided pamphlets at most. I used to make and sell the pamphlets to them.


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