HDR Images: Learn and share your work...

highvolts said:

Love the car! Its a little dark, like DF said, and one other thing was that the background was too busy (Power Lines, Street Lights, etc...) With all that said, I still like it! How many pictures did you take?

Click to expand...

Not enough pictures (thats the best set). I do need to find some better scenery, which will be easier in the coming months now that our rainy season should be ending soon

Interesting thread this for me as a Photogapher. Some good advice already posted here so no need to repeat anything, just remember a few things:

HDR, or ANY effect applied post-production will not make up for a poor photo... either technically, or compositionally. It's meant to enhance only.

Second: Tonemapping. Don't go over the top. The point of HDR is not to create wacky special effects, and when you do, it just looks like you've run it through a Photoshop filter, and looks cheesy. The point of HDR is to keep detail in shadows as well as highlights... simple as that. While a slight overcook in tone mapping can look good, remember.... less is more.

Don't get too caught up in the whole HDR thing.. HDR is something that you can do to photo that's already great, but it won't rescue a poor one. Take the time to look around the viewfinder first... watch for the pitfalls such as power lines, trees out of people's heads, or in this case, car roofs etc. Think about where you place the car in the frame: Don't just stand there and take it from your eye point, as usually, it's a crap place to be to take a photo. Think of getting low, or high, or maybe place the car in an unusual place within the frame. Don't just put things in boxes from your normal standing eye level.

A tutorial on photography is way beyond this thread... but Google is your friend


Some HDR stuff of my Mustang.













Another thing to rememebr, is that HFR workds best when using more than one exposure, rather than trying to create a HDR set from one. Use a tripod... take a range of shots starting around 2 stops under exposed, then 1 stop under, one dead on, one 1 stop over, then finally 2 stops over. Use those 5 to create a HDR image, then tone map it so it doesn't scream "HDR" at the top of it's voice

I use Photomatix. Not found anything to beat it so far.

Nice work. I don't care for Photomatix because the results generally come out grainy, and the whole point to digital photography, to me, is having crisp large res images.

I completely agree with overcooking. There's a time and place for it, though. Pictures of rusting junk looks great when you turn up the juice. But at that point it's more art, and less representation of real life. I also agree that HDR can't save an image, only enhance it. I never fake HDR. I've tried tone-mapping a RAW. It just doesn't "do it" for me.

Mine are even less cooked than yours heh.

You using Dynamic Photo HDR? I find the interface too simplistic, and it doesn't give me enough control. Never tried artizan, or whatever it's called, so I may give it a whirl.

Photomatix can produce noise free images if you have good quality RAWS. You really need to feed it 5 seperate exposures tho, not adjusted images from one exposure.

Yeah, for the most part I used DPHDR. Sometimes I go back to Artizen. Every once in a while, I try Photomatix, but usually am not happy with the results. What I really like about the latest version of DPHDR is the curves and light masking features. They make a huge difference in producing realistic results. When I'm doing HDRs of cars, all I'm really trying to do is keep the details, like tire tread and grill features. So the light masking helps in keeping it from getting over cooked.

Great shots Pook. I love that you placed the car infront of the storm cloud. That was good thinking for later HDR processing.

Here is my recent photo. I am looking forward to waxing and polishing the car and going out for a real photo shoot. This was just taken in a brief moment while driving to a wedding.

I normally don't like the overcooked ones, but that looks pretty good.

Went back and overcooked one with Photomatix for the heck of it.