Posted by Scott Bean on September 30, 2009 at 11:04 PM
This is a 4 shot HDR from tonight's sunset over the Kansas River just south of St. George. Wind was blowing really bad tonight, so I had to mask back in some of the foliage from just one shot to cover the motion blurs. Does it look ok?
Posted by David Hatfield on September 30, 2009 at 11:27 PM
Scott, this looks great to me! So many of the HDR shots I see look artificial because of someones desire to over compensate for the shadows. Many times the end result looks abnormal because the light ends up looking unnatural. You've got a great balance here that makes it hard to tell this is a blended shot. Very natural, very realistic looking while bringing out additional detail in the shadows.
Good work!
Dave Hatfield
Posted by John Moore on September 30, 2009 at 11:50 PM
OK? This looks great! Very natural looking... I would not have known it was an HDR image. Did you blend this manually, or use a program that blends them automatically? Good job Scott.
Posted by Charles Mills on October 1, 2009 at 12:16 AM
I'm envious both of the image and you post-processing skills.
Posted by Larry Fischer on October 1, 2009 at 8:14 AM
I've noted you do well making HDR shots believable.
This one does have a slight pink tint (at least on my monitor). Was that ambient or created?
Care to share what program and techniques you are practicing?
the fisch
Posted by Karla Hall on October 1, 2009 at 8:18 AM
Nice one Scott..It looks good to me! A lot of people would have walked right past this scene and never took another look. Way to see the shot!
Posted by Ed Cooley on October 1, 2009 at 11:42 AM
Very natural looking HDR. The light is very pleasant. On my monitor it looks like small area of the sky that is reflecting in the pond is blown.
Looks great and perfectly natural to me. Love the clouds, color and reflection. Great comp as well. Nice work!
Posted by Wayne Rhodus on October 1, 2009 at 1:47 PM
Wow, did you leave any good ones for this weekend? Beautiful shot Scott. I'm going to have to bend your ear on how you are approaching this whole HDR process.
Looks like it was a good thing I went for a fly the other day ... this spot has some potential!
Posted by Tom Kennon on October 1, 2009 at 5:50 PM
Impressive blending work with this, Scott. Great image!
Posted by Scott Bean on October 1, 2009 at 11:38 PM
Thanks for the feedback everyone, it is greatly appreciated!
Excellent location Wayne and thanks again for the software tip...that program is amazing!
Larry...there was a bit of reddish-pinkish tone in the sky after the sun was down...but after looking at this shot again I tweaked the white balance a tad more to the cool side and I think the foreground looks better.
I'm processing most of my HDR's with Photomatix Pro 3. If anyone tried an earlier version and didn't like it, version 3 is greatly improved. It has several presets, one of which is "natural" which I start most of my HDR's with. It tends to leave the images flat though and washed out IMO, so I start tweaking from there. I normally try to keep the foreground at least a pinch darker than the sky, to me that always look more natural. I usually fine tune the shots a bit in Lightroom after processing the HDR as well. Probably nothing that I couldn't do in Photomatix, but I'm more familiar with Lightroom.
Hard to avoid the "frog in the pot" syndrome though and overdo the processing, so I'm grateful for the feedback.
This is the first time I've tried to mask back in elements from just one shot to cover up motion blurs...I'll have to keep working that, seems to have some potential for dealing with the wind.
Discussion
11 repliesGood work!
Dave Hatfield
This one does have a slight pink tint (at least on my monitor). Was that ambient or created?
Care to share what program and techniques you are practicing?
the fisch
Looks like it was a good thing I went for a fly the other day ... this spot has some potential!
Excellent location Wayne and thanks again for the software tip...that program is amazing!
Larry...there was a bit of reddish-pinkish tone in the sky after the sun was down...but after looking at this shot again I tweaked the white balance a tad more to the cool side and I think the foreground looks better.
I'm processing most of my HDR's with Photomatix Pro 3. If anyone tried an earlier version and didn't like it, version 3 is greatly improved. It has several presets, one of which is "natural" which I start most of my HDR's with. It tends to leave the images flat though and washed out IMO, so I start tweaking from there. I normally try to keep the foreground at least a pinch darker than the sky, to me that always look more natural. I usually fine tune the shots a bit in Lightroom after processing the HDR as well. Probably nothing that I couldn't do in Photomatix, but I'm more familiar with Lightroom.
Hard to avoid the "frog in the pot" syndrome though and overdo the processing, so I'm grateful for the feedback.
This is the first time I've tried to mask back in elements from just one shot to cover up motion blurs...I'll have to keep working that, seems to have some potential for dealing with the wind.