HDR Merge, 1st attempt

I shot this scene with 4 different exposures, knowing I would try out this Photoshop feature at home later. The range between the sky, mountains, tundra and foreground (and keeping detail in all these elements) would have made for a pretty tricky simple blend.

I often see PS's HDR tool seemingly ruin the quality of images I see on the web (esp. contrast) - or rather misuse. Any comments or critiques on what I've done here?

OK, the image wouldn't load with this message. Here is a link to the photo:

http://www.jessespeer.com/forums/sunset.jpg

This is on par with your normal work, IMO. Reflection is perfect. I wouldn't change a thing -- outstanding!

Nice Jesse, one of the better examples I have seen, everytime I hack around with this I get plastic looking scenes. One suggestion I would burn the foreground rock slightly, it seems a bit bright to me. VERY VERY NICE

Thanks for the feedback.

Brent, email to you is getting bounced (mailbox full error). My inline image was rejected. I just realized you can only post one image every 48 hours, when starting a thread. No problem.

Jesse, for a PS HDR image, I find it rather pleasing! It seems the contrast in the mountain is just a tad flat for my taste. But I hate relying on my LCD monitor to make that judgement.

Perfect! You've done a great job.... I would never have thought that was 4 exposures. This shows how it should be done... I too have cringed many a time seeing people's "ultra-exposed" hdr images. I like that you had some restraint on the brightness of the foreground - all the detail's there but subdued - you haven't made it unnaturally bright.

Jesse -

My personal preference would be for greater contrast in the mountain and a litttle bit darker and less colorful foreground rocks. If this is the look you were going for though, it then go with it - it looks fine.

One of the side effects of the HDR function is that you end uo blending in areas of the image like the mountain where no blending is necessary. I wonder is a technique like HDR then back to simple blending for certain areas of the image would work well?

Jesse - OK, that makes sense. Can't believe that about my email. I gave myself a 50MB quota, thinking that would never get full. Turns out I allowed a setting that moves all suspected spam into a hidden folder, so I never have to see it. I had 42MB of spam!!! Wonder how many emails I've missed recently... Think I'll just change that setting so that it deletes spam automatically.

I like the photo the way it is. The tones are very pleasant, and the contrast is fine. Can you give us some tips on HDR settings, so we can all produce better images? Thanks for posting.

I've tried this 2 or 3 times... All of them were simply awful. This one is not.

Nice work.

Great work, Jesse. I won't suggest any improvements on the final result.

For those who have struggled with HDR - it often does not provide the level of control it might promise, for one main reason: it's designed to do its processing in 32 bit color, which is not a bit depth that is supported by printers or the web. (32 bit color data is what provides for a potentially wider dynamic range.) If you don't run the HDR Merge routine using 32 bit than you're not taking advantage of the full potential.

But to work in 32 bit, you really need LOTS of good, rich image data in all the original captures. Trying to make good HDR composites from midrange digital cameras won't provide great results.

Also, when working temporarily in 32 bit color, at some point in the process it is always necessary to go back down to 16 bit, and ultimately, 8 bit, to make prints or web images. At this point, you lose the true HDR aspects of the image, because the color data is remapped to the smaller bit depth... though you may have a nice composite. (HDR Merge provides a curves tool for assisting the transition from 32 bit down to 16 bit; but you are still going to lose some of that dynamic range.)

So HDR Merge is really only fancy name for an automated tool to do compositing. For this reason I prefer to leave my differently-exposed original images in 16 bit and compose them using layers and masks, which allows finer control over the dynamic range of localized areas in the image.

I was initially very intrigued by the possibilities of HDR Merge but have since found it to be an attempt to automate compositing functions that I prefer to take more control over myself.

All this being said, it is possible that at some point in the not-so-distant future there will be printers and other forms of media that can take advantage of the full 32 bits. By this point, though, Photoshop will support 32 bits internally, so the compositing issues won't change.

Just my 2.5 cents...

PS - if you have Photoshop CS2, look up HDR Merge in the Help system for more info.

Momo, I honestly didn't keep track of what I did. A fine tuning of the exposure slider was the only setting I messed with (because the default setting blew out the sky, surprisingly). The final result was pretty flat - albeit with amazing dynamic range. A simple Curves adjustment to bring out some contrast was my final step. I think this is beginner's luck, based upon the comments about the HDR tool.

I was also pretty surprised to see how the process brings out A LOT of color in the midtones and shadows. I actually had to desaturate some of these areas - especially the rocks.

Tony, I opted for the HDR because the reflecting sky would have made a simple blend fairly time consuming. With the mountain exposed correctly (it was pretty even from summit through the reflection), the sky above and below (in the reflection) is blown out. The contrast here was pretty extreme. I didn't feel like blending the sky AND the reflection, and then again into the foreground. Either process would work fine, but the HDR method saved A LOT of time. Hope that makes sense. Regardless, the more I look at this the more I realize that this process nailed the softer mood I remembered. Working on the rocks some more would probably help.

Thanks again!

EDIT: Thanks for the insight Nat! I was getting ready to look into the 32-bit issue. And I agree with your comments on compositing in general. This was a fun experiment, but the manual process is probably best for a majority of the stuff we all shoot. Especially for us Velvia lovers!

Jesse, by far the best HDR blend I have seen on the web. The examples I have seen are unbelieveable to aweful. The only issue I have with yours is that it needs a bit more constrast in the shadow areas. The sky, background mounts, reflection all look good, but the shadow areas seem a bit too high up the scale and is making the overall image seem a tad flat.

Would love to see a step by step on this if you remember what you did. You seem to have pretty much nailed this and only minor tweaks are need from here. BTW, how much time did you spend doing this. If it's not much faster than the old way, well....

Craig

Craig,

Thanks. This image, from Raw conversion to HDR result took 5 minutes (with 4GB RAM, which I'm sure makes a difference). I used four 144MB files, for a destined output size of 22x30.

Considering the process of layering, masks, etc. that I normally use, I probably would have spent at least a half hour on this image.

Nice shot. I tried a couple of these and got okay results, but nothing as good as this. I did find that doing the composites manually gave me better results. But I have no complaints with this HDR.

this is insanely good. What is the location? I cannot say one bad thing about the shot...I really really love it.

Wow - nice shot! I wouldn’t change a thing!

Nicely done, Jesse - very natural looking (in addition to be a beautiful scene!)

Just found some more "natural" looking images that may be of interest:
http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00HfID

where the heck is this place?

Jon, sorry ... this is taken in the Harrison Flat, Collegiate Peaks Wilderness. You're looking at Huron Peak. Same place as my other 3 Apostles post recently.

Thanks for all the feedback.

np, the shot is spectacular! next time I'm back in Colorado, I will have to check that place out. Summer that is

Great shot Jesse. I love those anchoring boulders which help fill the tall frame.