Venice HDR

[Ian]

Creating HDRs in Photoshop is not very easy, I find - but I'm reasonably pleased with the result I got today:

This is the middle exposed shot of five donor bracketed shots taken at one EV steps (+/- 2EV), hand held:



And here is my HDR result, merging the 5 exported TIFFs from Lightroom (didn't use RAW as I'm using PS CS4 which won't load Olympus Pen E-PL2 RAW files and couldn't be bothered to convert them to DNG!):



From PS some final colour and tone adjustments were made in LR again.

Not being an HDR specialist I'd be interested in what people think of the result

Ian

[Patrick]

Re: Venice HDR

Creating HDRs in Photoshop is not very easy, I find - but I'm reasonably pleased with the result I got today:

This is the middle exposed shot of five donor bracketed shots taken at one EV steps (+/- 2EV), hand held:



And here is my HDR result, merging the 5 exported TIFFs from Lightroom (didn't use RAW as I'm using PS CS4 which won't load Olympus Pen E-PL2 RAW files and couldn't be bothered to convert them to DNG!):



From PS some final colour and tone adjustments were made in LR again.

Not being an HDR specialist I'd be interested in what people think of the result

Ian

Hi Ian

Just my personal opinion of course but I prefer the none HDR, the shadows of the HDR are for me too light, perhaps something between the two would work better. The lighter shadows somehow loose the claustrophobic atmosphere of the narrow streets.

The blue of the sky is very good on the HDR.

Patrick

[Ian]

Re: Venice HDR

Hi Ian

Just my personal opinion of course but I prefer the none HDR, the shadows of the HDR are for me too light, perhaps something between the two would work better. The lighter shadows somehow loose the claustrophobic atmosphere of the narrow streets.

The blue of the sky is very good on the HDR.

Patrick

I think you have a good point there, Patrick. I think you are spot on that part of the feel of the alley has been lost because it has been over-'lit'

Ian

[Ian]

Re: Venice HDR

I think you have a good point there, Patrick. I think you are spot on that part of the feel of the alley has been lost because it has been over-'lit'

Ian

I have darkened the shot and reduced its saturation as well - is this more like it?:



Ian

[Ian]

Re: Venice HDR

Here is another scene and a much more subtle post processing. First, the middle of five 1EV bracketed shots, auto adjusted in Lightroom from the RAW file:



And the HDR result (this time from DNG RAW), processed in PS CS4, and finished off back in LR:



All hand held taken with an Olympus Pen E-PL2 and the standard kit lens.

Ian

[Patrick]

Re: Venice HDR

Here is another scene and a much more subtle post processing. First, the middle of five 1EV bracketed shots, auto adjusted in Lightroom from the RAW file:



And the HDR result (this time from DNG RAW), processed in PS CS4, and finished off back in LR:



All hand held taken with an Olympus Pen E-PL2 and the standard kit lens.

Ian

Looking at this one Ian, I can't help feeling a very similar result could have been achieved without HDR.


Patrick

[Ian]

Re: Venice HDR

Looking at this one Ian, I can't help feeling a very similar result could have been achieved without HDR.


Patrick

It's true I probably only needed two or three bracketed frames instead of 5, but I don't think I could have achieved the tonal subtlety with the single frame (which is already processed to an extent).

Ian

[Ian]

Re: Venice HDR

Dynamic range-wise, this is probably the most challenging so far:



Again, this is 5 1EV bracketed shots merged in PS CS4 from RAW and than tweaked in LR.

Ian

[Barr1e]

Re: Venice HDR

The scenes I like very much. As for hdr - it hasn't appealed to me as yet. Interesting results.

Regards. Barr1e

[ash]

Re: Venice HDR

Ok here's Wiggy's tuppence
Ian I love the pop of the first hdr image, the shadow's are still evident and the hdr treatment has given the scene a real vibrance not normally seen in a piccy!

The boat scene I think seems an awful lot of work for not much diference, Im sure you could have got something near the final result just by tweeking the middle frame in lr3 or photoshop, I think this is what Patrick meant.

Im not keen on your darkened rendition of the first hdr, youve killed it in my opinion. I think it either needs to pop like the first or use the shadows to their advantage for dark allyway earyness.

i would also have like to have seen some people in these scenes, especially the first.

cheers
Ash.

[Ian]

Re: Venice HDR

Ok here's Wiggy's tuppence
Ian I love the pop of the first hdr image, the shadow's are still evident and the hdr treatment has given the scene a real vibrance not normally seen in a piccy!

The boat scene I think seems an awful lot of work for not much diference, Im sure you could have got something near the final result just by tweeking the middle frame in lr3 or photoshop, I think this is what Patrick meant.

Im not keen on your darkened rendition of the first hdr, youve killed it in my opinion. I think it either needs to pop like the first or use the shadows to their advantage for dark allyway earyness.

i would also have like to have seen some people in these scenes, especially the first.

cheers
Ash.

HDR is a matter of personal preference - the dramatic tone type of HDR has its place but is not for everyone and I agree that the first version is of the 'dramatic' type and I'm pleased that you and others like it. The darkened version brings back some of the character of the place that was lost in the dramatic version, and this version has also been preferred, so I hope I have pleased both camps

The one which has a more subtle treatment - the 'before' example view is already tweaked in Lightroom, so I don't think a great deal of improvement would be possible without losing something elsewhere in the picture.

Ian

[patmoore]

Re: Venice HDR

Nicely done. It definitely brought out the sky!