HDR and Tone Mapping
- This topic has 14 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated Nov 23, 2007 at 1:21 am by
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Hey guys-
Have any of you played around with this sort of post processing (HDR/Tone Mapping)?
www.mattjonesphotography.com
I hate HDR images, but I must admit, yours is one of the better ones I have seen.
Still, to my eye and sensibility, it just doesn’t look right. I guess it all boils down to what you want and expect from your photography. My guiding principle has always been to re-create my actual visual experience to the best of my ability. If this means using ND grads or digital blends in PS to open up shadows or recover highlights until the image retains about 11 stops of usable detail, so be it.
But HDR usually creates more, and it’s bothersome. You went from little or no details in the dark shadows to no shadows at all. The shadows should be there, because I am fairly sure you saw them, right? I think most viewers would expect to see them as well. How about a digital blend with a layer mask in PS to open up the shadows and reveal some more detail? You have so much more control over the final image this way by opening up as much as you see fit. Fully automated software programs give you little or no control and the result is usually very artificial-looking.
I agree with Richard. i like some of the HDR materials but it seems that a lot of it is over processed and simply does not look real. I really like your image but I agree with Richards comments as well, on it. Adding a couple of “manual” blending layers would really make your image pop more.
I don’t do very much HDR but when I do, it is because I too want to try and recreate what I saw or felt. I have heard it put best in this fashion: “Create a work flow that promotes the unbelievable as believable, opposed to the believable as unbelievable”.
I shot and then processed this image in Photoshop, a couple of days ago, and merged it as an HDR. Don’t know that this is a good example but it is an HDR image nonetheless.
No, I am not a morbid deviant lol It was All Saints Day here in Vilnius so I went to honor the passed soles.. I think they all died from colds though as I heard a lot of coffin..lol. Yea, that was a sick joke but don’t cross me lol
I said; “don’t “cross” me” lol… It really is a cool cemetery, one of the oldest here in Vilnius. Went there with my girlfriend but only got to stay for about half an hour. She said that it was more due to the cold and misty weather but I know better LOL. Bored to death I guess LOL
The unreal look that HDR gives the photo is what I like about this process.
www.mattjonesphotography.com
Thanks Matt! I hope that my comments did not come across wrong. I agree that the HDR can create some truly incredible images and yes, some amazing photographic art. This method has really caught on and in a lot of cases the images would probably of turned out better closer to the original. I think that your shot was a good call for an HDR but I also feel that it is more worthy of a non automated platform. One of the fall backs of a fully automated work flow is that it was established and written for a sampling of images and it just doesn’t fit all. One thing that really helps, with the automated process, is to then lay a darker or lighter, as needed, original image on top of the HDR image and then adjust the opacity to better blend the shadows and highlights. Masking Layers really help a lot as you have the leverage of using many more tools but it can get very complicated, although I strongly support learning and using the advanced tools for better work flow and final results. A levels adjustment layer is a good ending for the HDR workflow, stacked on the top layer…
Have fun with it and never stop allowing yourself to be WOWed by your own creations. About all of the tear sheets and professional books are full of processed images and the truth of the matter is, they are what sells and more than just pay the bills 🙂 Amateur or professional, the passion is the same and it is all art; be they treasured moments captured or part of a professional book: All facets of photography is art. treasure…
Hi
I was going to post a long diatribe on the value of leveraging new technologies to create work that extends the boundaries of what we understand as “photographs”. But I won”t . I guess it has become the word of the day to dismiss technologies that “appear” to be automated or given to produce a certain predicable outcome, if one doesnt explore the technology and simply hits the “hdr” button.
Twas intersting to see the comment that despite the posters dislike of HDR images- that one was good:)
Perhaps
Will,
I agree with almost everything you said, except you missed my point.
I don’t like HDR because for me photography represents an artistic extension of my personal experiences in the wilderness. Nothing more, nothing less. But once again. Thats just me. If I can make an emotional connection to my subject and communicate that through the language of photography to a viewer so that he or she feels the same sensation as I when I was standing behind the camera, I feel as though I have succeeded.
I embrace technology as much, if not more than, the next photographer. But I use it to overcome the limitations of film and digital capture so that I can better express my experiences in the wild and help bridge the void between the human visual system and the digital encoding of photons onto a sensor.
But for me, it stops there. Once technology pushes the image beyond the limits of believability, it becomes photo art – and there is nothing wrong with that, per se. It’s just not my cup of tea. Computer-generated art and HDR with its 16-stops of dynamic range can create pretty, but emotionally sterile images. Thats not my objective. Others may disagree.
Years and years of observing and being conditioned to see things a certain way tells us that there should be shadows under a shade tree on a sunny day. When we don’t see them, the image fails to trigger certain visual cues and we interpret the image as mere fantasy. A digitally-placed unicorn under that tree is as believable as a tree without shadows on a blue-sky day. Art, yes. Photography? Not in my book, but your mileage may vary.
Cheers
I’ve used Photo Matrix to shoot interiors and it really helped me compress a very wide dynamic range and was useful in that way. Artistically I think its a failure though it has a quality that is profoundly banal. So many photographs are technical exercises and its good that we do them. With a little luck and some hard work the day might come when something wonderful will happen and maybe you will get a really great shot. Something that is well seen that transcends technique on digital or film.
I’ll be contributing nothing to this thread by this comment, but I have to say it anyway; what a great thread, and thanks to all who took the time to contribute to it.
Something I’ve found since spending time first on bulletin boards, and then newsgroups on the net as a techie, is that there’s such a wealth of information bound up in so many talented people out there, and I’ve always loved how willing those folks are to share that knowledge with others.
This forum is no exception – except perhaps that the level of skill and knowledge is so very exceptional.
So – cheers to you all – I’ve learned a lot today, and that makes it a good day for me.
I’m new to this particular forum, but as I’ve rekindled my interest in photography, chiming in here is as good a place to start as any.
I certainly understand the objection among many to many HDR images.
Interesting point you make in regard to the Zone System and Ansel Adams. I learned the Zone System from a couple of Ansel Adams assistants Bradley Burns and Alan Ross. Fred Picker had an excellent book which really made the Zone System much easier to understand. HDR is like giving the exposure necessary to hold the shadow and using shortened or special development or using a compensating developer to control the highlights in Black and White. This works but in a lot of cases it looks out of key, like HDR.
Ansel has a famous picture called Black Sun where the sun actually reversed and solarized. I quit giving minus developments but I used plus development to enhance contrast and texture. The effect of plus development is really transparent in my opinion.
I haven’t seen anything that has originated as a digital capture that rivals medium or large format film in Black and White artistically. If you grew up on digital try film if you can its pretty cool. Film compels you to concentrate and focus on the subject. No chimping.
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