This is probably the only Moab photo I'm going to post, as I'm sure everyone here has been there and done that. Have any of you attempted to use HDR at Mesa? This is a location that cries out for some extended range, imho, so I did some heavy bracketing just for fun.
The photo below is a merging of five photos in Photomatix. I'm not completely sold on the HDR technology, so I haven't purchased the key for this software. I cloned out the watermarks, so there are some soft, smudgy areas in the photo.
Nice use of HDR. I haven't played around with HDR too much, yet. Still, shots like this really make me want to investigate its potential a little more.
Thanks, Chad, I like your composition and the sky is wonderful, and this is one of the better HDR images I have seen. I too am not sold on the current HDR technology (or more likely how we are trying to use it). Somehow to me the picture doesn't look 'natural' (hate to use that word, but it's all I can think of so early in the morning ). Dunno, maybe just a bit too light under the arch (ie maybe a small 'S' curve would help?).
I have seen a few HDR images I like but most of these have been indoor shots and the mix was done very very well (and I believe they used Photomatix).
My guess is that we will see some great improvements in HDR in the next few years. After all it's only software .
I like this composition overall. In terms of HDR I think the top half looks more natural. The foreground could use some more work IMO - maybe a little more contrast. It looks a bit washed out. One of the trickiest parts of doing a digital blend is to make the shadow area look natural - darker but with visible detail.
I haven't tried photomatix yet, but does it allow you to fine tune the various layers (eg - forground contrast)? What I like about doing this in PS with layers is that I can bump up the contrast on one layer while not effecting the others. I like Jesse Speer's technique the most and it is free. You can check it out here: http://www.jessespeer.com/making_the_image/2004_0712_chasm/
I would be interested to see if using layers in PS could produce similar or even better results than photomatix.
Posted by Mel Ladewig on April 3, 2007 at 11:31 AM
Chad,
I think you did a good job of managing the blend to prevent halos. That was my biggest gripe or issue with Photomatix. Well that, and the fact that their default saturation was about 2000% too high for my tastes.
One other thing I would consider is desaturaing the blue channel in the shadows. For some reason, they tend to make the blue channel extra strong in the shadows.
I think the processing could use two things to look more natural. I think the sky could be brighter and the foreground a little darker to match the brightness of the mid ground. But photomatix didn't provide any direct contrast or curve tools in their tone mapping
I agree with Derek. I think you may be better off just combining two exposures (using masks) manually in Photoshop. I've tried HDR and manual blending and doing it manually always seems to come out better. Although it's possible to have success with HDR, the images generally come out looking a little flat.
Wow, I'm suprised by all the comments about this not looking natural. Seems to be dead on to me on my monitor. At this time of day there is very little contrast as the light on the back side of this arch is just reflected from the probably empty sky above (thus flat). This is not to say the image might not look better with an S-curve to "unnaturally" improve the constrast in this image.
Perhaps these comments are just down to how everyone has their monitors set up (obviously not the best point of comparison).
Thanks for all the comments! I learn something from every post, and I'll go back and work on this one some more. In my defense, I was really trying to keep the image rather subdued, as some of the HDR images I've seen (including some I've done myself) are just not realistic. And, like Craig said, the light behind the arch was indeed pretty flat at that time of day. If anyone else has a blend at this location, I'd really like to see it.
Hey Chad, sweet shot! I love the orange color of the sunset. As far as the "natural-ness" of the image, I must admit before I read your caption I wondered what camera you were using to get that great dynamic range! So I think it does look pretty natural.
Discussion
9 repliesThis is probably the only Moab photo I'm going to post, as I'm sure everyone here has been there and done that. Have any of you attempted to use HDR at Mesa? This is a location that cries out for some extended range, imho, so I did some heavy bracketing just for fun.
The photo below is a merging of five photos in Photomatix. I'm not completely sold on the HDR technology, so I haven't purchased the key for this software. I cloned out the watermarks, so there are some soft, smudgy areas in the photo.
Nice use of HDR. I haven't played around with HDR too much, yet. Still, shots like this really make me want to investigate its potential a little more.
Thanks for sharing!
I have seen a few HDR images I like but most of these have been indoor shots and the mix was done very very well (and I believe they used Photomatix).
My guess is that we will see some great improvements in HDR in the next few years. After all it's only software
I haven't tried photomatix yet, but does it allow you to fine tune the various layers (eg - forground contrast)? What I like about doing this in PS with layers is that I can bump up the contrast on one layer while not effecting the others. I like Jesse Speer's technique the most and it is free. You can check it out here:
http://www.jessespeer.com/making_the_image/2004_0712_chasm/
I would be interested to see if using layers in PS could produce similar or even better results than photomatix.
I think you did a good job of managing the blend to prevent halos. That was my biggest gripe or issue with Photomatix. Well that, and the fact that their default saturation was about 2000% too high for my tastes.
One other thing I would consider is desaturaing the blue channel in the shadows. For some reason, they tend to make the blue channel extra strong in the shadows.
I think the processing could use two things to look more natural. I think the sky could be brighter and the foreground a little darker to match the brightness of the mid ground. But photomatix didn't provide any direct contrast or curve tools in their tone mapping
Perhaps these comments are just down to how everyone has their monitors set up (obviously not the best point of comparison).
Great job on the blend, Craig
Thanks for all the comments! I learn something from every post, and I'll go back and work on this one some more. In my defense, I was really trying to keep the image rather subdued, as some of the HDR images I've seen (including some I've done myself) are just not realistic. And, like Craig said, the light behind the arch was indeed pretty flat at that time of day. If anyone else has a blend at this location, I'd really like to see it.