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better or worse?
Posted By: Andrew Faires, 08-17-2007, 12:39 PM

I downloaded a free trial of an HDR application and decided to run one of my photos from earlier in the year through it. It's not a true HDR as it's only 1 image; not a series of different exposures that have been sandwiched together. I'm wondering if my effort is a little too unrealistic or if it's reasonable?

This is the original:


This is the update:


Thanks!
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08-17-2007, 01:25 PM   #2
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Definitely an improvement in the sky. I like the original color of the rock better. All in all it is an improvement.
08-17-2007, 01:52 PM   #3
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Thanks for the feedback Paul. I appreciate it!
08-17-2007, 03:02 PM   #4
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Love the mood on the first one, the rocks on the 2nd somehow grab too much attention because of the unnatural color for my taste and lacking depht to project a 3D effect due to I think sharp edges, . The sky and the water though shows an improvement especially in detail.

Cheers,

Rene R

08-17-2007, 03:56 PM   #5
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The second one is more vivid, but somehow I prefer the first one, very soothing mood...

Regards,
D
08-17-2007, 05:29 PM   #6
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QuoteOriginally posted by Andrew Faires Quote
I'm wondering if my effort is a little too unrealistic or if it's reasonable?
With respect, this is a question that no one can answer except yourself.

Personally, I see no merit in the second picture - I like the first one a lot, and see no point in the changes. But that's just my subjective view, it doesn't have to be yours or anyone else's.

You can play with contrast and saturation in any one of a number of editing applications and produce results that are unrealistic to one extent or another, and different people will like different effects.

Arguing about whether any of these are better or worse seems pointless to me, since people's tastes vary so much.

However, the problem that HDR attempts to solve, not that I'm any kind of expert, seems to me to be that the eye can resolve detail over a much greater dynamic range than the camera. Part of this is probably the fact that as your eye moves over a scene, your spot metering results in a different exposure as your eye moves, so you expose for the bit that you're looking at.

So HDR, AFAIC, should be aiming at making it look natural over a higher dynamic range than is possible with only one exposure, thus allowing you to see detail in the dark bits as well as the bright bits. Anything more than this, as we often see, that just cranks up contrast and saturation, and gives a very punchy final effect that is nevertheless totally unnatural, is not to my taste at all.

But I'm just one voice.
08-17-2007, 09:12 PM   #7
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Thanks for the input, Rene, Duh_Vinci & Chris. It helps out a lot.
QuoteOriginally posted by ChrisA Quote
With respect, this is a question that no one can answer except yourself.

Personally, I see no merit in the second picture - I like the first one a lot, and see no point in the changes. But that's just my subjective view, it doesn't have to be yours or anyone else's.

You can play with contrast and saturation in any one of a number of editing applications and produce results that are unrealistic to one extent or another, and different people will like different effects.

Arguing about whether any of these are better or worse seems pointless to me, since people's tastes vary so much.

However, the problem that HDR attempts to solve, not that I'm any kind of expert, seems to me to be that the eye can resolve detail over a much greater dynamic range than the camera. Part of this is probably the fact that as your eye moves over a scene, your spot metering results in a different exposure as your eye moves, so you expose for the bit that you're looking at.

So HDR, AFAIC, should be aiming at making it look natural over a higher dynamic range than is possible with only one exposure, thus allowing you to see detail in the dark bits as well as the bright bits. Anything more than this, as we often see, that just cranks up contrast and saturation, and gives a very punchy final effect that is nevertheless totally unnatural, is not to my taste at all.

But I'm just one voice.
I agree with what you're saying for the most part about subjectivity, Chris. In this case though, having tried something new, and putting some time & energy into it, I figured objective outside opinions would help me in terms of learning how to use the application better - or even if it's worth persuing. It's easy to get lost in the details and loose sight on the bigger picture.

Thanks again to everyone for the feedback.

08-18-2007, 09:05 PM   #8
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This is a tough one for me. I see definite improvement in the sky and the snow details but would agree that the rock colours look a little unnatural. But if I didn't have the original to compare I wonder if I'd pick that up so easily right away. HDR is somewhat like sharpening IMO. Some just crank it up and think they helped the shot where careful and limited adjustments generally work better. All that being said I've never tried HDR.
Andrew would you provide the link to the trial software you used? I've been considering this and would like to try it out.
08-18-2007, 09:54 PM   #9
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I like the 2nd shot as it is without frames and sky being more dramatic
08-18-2007, 09:59 PM   #10
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Andrew, if you don't mind Please tell us what program you used, so we can try it out on our own.

And I prefer the contrast in the sky on the second picture.
08-19-2007, 06:45 AM   #11
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Theres not a reason in the world to get the program.

It looks like all it did was pump up saturation and contrast.


I liked the first one better, overall. Although the sky is better in the second.
08-19-2007, 09:26 AM   #12
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Thanks Peter, James, Stu and Kingsofronin.

I'm just racing out the door to get to work, but I'll post a link to the software tomorrow morning/later tonight.

Cheers!
08-20-2007, 08:48 AM   #13
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Okay Stu & Kingsofronin, the free trial I was playing with is 'Dynamic Photo HDR'. When I went to tone-map the image, it defaults to "eye catching" and I played with it from there.

Once I finished with that, I opened up the file in Elements and desaturated the greens and yellows a bit.

Thanks again!

Andrew
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