Another Roxborough Pano

Here's a sunrise HDR panorama from Roxborough at the end of October. It took three exposures 1 stop apart for each of the five panorama sections.
Update: To Christopher's point below, this photo was not edited to be a "documentary" photo, but more towards "artistic". With that in mind, I honestly do encourage feedback.

Composition is nice but its too fake looking for my own tastes,

My response is identical to Jody's. The heavy HDR processing is obviously an acquired taste. As long as YOU like it, go for it.

It's all artistic license and personal preference and don't shy away from your own voice. I have tried a pano from near here and failed miserably. I applaud your combination of shots and how well the blended together. Nice color and great sunrise for your shots. Maybe for me I would try to balance the light from left to right side a bit more. Still, I know this ain't no easy thing!

For Bill and Jody,
I agree that it does look less than real, but I can assure you that my HDR processing is not "heavy". I tried very hard to produce something usable from just the raw files of one exposure and it was just not possible due to the very high dynamic range.
As Morris wrote, the photo leans more towards "artistic" than "documentary".
However, I do appreciate the feedback.

You're an artist - be an artist. I think this is a case where the viewer can discern the difference between realism and artistic license. Go for it!

I don't normally chime in on posts that don't ask for a critique, because I enjoy critiquing and most likely I'm not going to comment on something that is really 'for show and tell'.

I would like to point out, Jim, that first off, you didn't ask for a critique - unless its implicit - I don't know, and that you were sort of quick to defend yourself claiming the HDR is not 'heavy'. I think when anyone posts, they ought to summarize their intentions so that we can understand what look, feel, emotion you're going for. Jody, Bill & Morris have an opinion, and you obviously are aware of that, but I think you should embrace the critique instead of trying to defend yourself in a way that makes you sound as if you're confident with the shot that you obviously are - backed up by your ability to sell this image over and over again. With that said, I think you should have added these facts in the original post. We've all been there before I'm sure, where you know you have a photo that you think is amazing, only to post it and get a few jabs here and there - sometimes not an easy pill to swallow, but hey thats what this forum is all about...

By no means do I wish to start a discourse here with bad intentions. I'm just pointing out something that bothered me a little bit and I'm voicing my opinion about it. I'm sorry if I offended you, but you ought to be able to understand where I'm coming from. Thanks.

I really like the composition, and to me the HDR effect actually gives the photo a sort of '3D' feel, which is pretty cool.

Also, these guys went easy on you. Try posting this on former ESS (currently landscape) forum and you'll get an earful. It's actually fun to read those comments for pure entertainment. Most photographers on NPN are not in the HDR-look fan club unlike some other, to remain un-named, photo forums. Just FYI.

Also, congrats on the sales you speak of... Oh wait, where did that go???

The issue I have with this image is that it looks like HDR. Looks like a beautiful painting. It's beautiful in its own way but it screams HDR. I certainly feel like there's a place for HDR in photography however in my book HDR should be used to convey a scene as it was.

I will say, I've heard that this stuff sells. Especially to those who don't understand photography and just want something beautiful to hang on their walls. I recently did some HDR and my wife just went crazy when I showed it to her. She thought I just hit the jackpot...I laughed. I just think there's a lot of people out there with money for art that could give a rats ass if it's a real photo or not.

Thanks Jim for your understanding. My intentions are to get people to understand the value of a critique, and start using the forum for that. I think what would be great is if you could post that shot above, which is compositionally striking, without the blending.

I'm not in the HDR camp, reason being is I've never done it, and never wanted to. Some HDR, if done right, offers an awesome balance of dynamic range. But there are plenty of HDRs gone wrong. An arena where I've seen and heard 'HDR Gone Wild' is with some of the lifetime photographers out there who, for many years, shot films and slides, and never had any part of the processing/postprocessing/printing. Now, they shoot digital cameras and now want to be in control of the processing. Some of them have no software experience, and they get their hands on an HDR pacakge and all hell breaks loose. I think we've all seen this to some extent. Unfortunately its another facet of technology that facilitates good and bad results.

Allegedly some new cameras have HDR built in. I'm curious as to how much HDR control you have with such a setup.

For me, Mo hit on it with the comment about light balance left to right. It doesn't come across to me a HDRish, but the uneven light is what first caught my eye. If you could darken the right - the lower right more specifically - and maybe keep some highlights in the tree foliage in order to emphasize them - I think you'd be well on your way to eliminating a significant distraction without undermining there rest of what you've carefully created.

OK. Here's the non-HDR version of this same shot after I worked quite a bit with the raw files from the best exposure. The color in the sky is blown out beyond recovery and the shadowed areas just look dead to me.
I also tried using exposure blending and didn't like those results either.
Thanks for the suggestions about the bottom right. I'll give that a shot.

Nice Image. I won't tangle in the above argument. I like what you've done with the sky. I can't tell if that is a stream or a road in the low land, but the building kind of bothers me. I'm wondering if you could have used some of that foreground bush to mask the "hand of man".

Well Jim, you've had a rough week so I'll try to be gentile. I used HDR a while back and had some good and some bad results so I've gotten away from it. I now occasionally use exposure fusion which seems to give much more natural results while still pulling in the dynamic range. You could try exposure fusion in Photomatix or try ENFUSE which you can download for a very small donation...$5-$10. I much prefer this method to HDR. That being said. the image itself is a nice composition and definitely has potential.

I think they are both interesting and pleasing images in their own right. I think I prefer the repost a tad bit more but would like to see if you could bring out the colors a bit more (with the exception of green). Perhaps using the "photo filter" in PS and warm the sky a bit. And maybe a rather strong "S" curve on the flatirons with a bump in saturation? Dunno. Play around and see what happens! But like Morris said, stay true to your vision!

Michael,
Actually, I did fix a lot of those things in the HDR version. The bright green area is Arrowhead golf course and part of what you might be referring to is the concrete path for the golf carts. I also cleaned up a lot of the mess in the lower right area in the HDR version.

Jack,
Actually, I tried the exposure fusion in Photomatix and didn't like the results. For the most part, I've also gone away from HDR when I can avoid it for many reasons. Because of the sky and the shadows, I didn't see an effective way around it in this case.

Thanks for the feedback.

Jim, I like the HDR version as an artistic rendition of a well-known and beautiful location. If that is what you were going for (as it sounds like you were), then I think you were very successful. Well done!

It's a fine comp, Jim. The left to right luminosity and darkened rock edges kinda bug me, but I like what the HDR does to the lower half of the image. Since you've got multiple exposures, why not just use layers and masks to blend the sky back in, so it looks a bit more natural? Just my two cents.

A nice comp. IMO, the only real issue with the original post is the bright areas towards the bottom of the rocks--thats the part that makes it look HDR-garish. In the repost, theres no difference in luminosity between the top and bottom of the formations--so there shouldnt be in the HDR version either. Period. End-o-story.

Stan, thanks for clearing up that lighting issue for me. Even though there were comments about being bright at the bottom, I kept thinking they were referring to the bottom right of the photo and not the rocks. Now I understand and can fix the problem. I'm not going to bother sharing the fixed version.
Thanks.

Really like the dramatic effect!

Please explain: What is the logic that allows photographers to swoon over a black and white conversion but the same people can't stand the HDR treatment. If we are looking for
realism, wouldn't black and white be on the don't do list? I don't know about your vision, but I am still seeing lots of colors in addition to black and white.