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Some people like HDR images, some hate them. I like them if they are not overdone. Here's a few from South West Rocks taken late yesterday afternoon of some heavy (rusty) machinery at the beach. Observations welcome.

I am not sure if I like the Halo effect that you are getting, but otherwise they are great.

Yeah, the halo effect just seems to come out in the (Photomatix) wash. I suppose I could fix it in PS, but I'm too lazy to do that!

To me these ones are overdone. They have that signature HDR look to the point where it looks more digital art that photographic. As you say, very much a personal opinion with some in either camp, and this is just mine.

I quite like the composition of the second and would love to see what you could get at a time where the dynamic ange of the scene was such that it could be captured in a single frame.

I am not a fan of the halos. Have you tried Redynamix HDR tool? It may give a less haloey result perhaps..

speaking of overdone, maybe just a tad, mostly for the first image, i quite like the second as it is. nicely done

dawesy wrote:To me these ones are overdone. They have that signature HDR look to the point where it looks more digital art that photographic. As you say, very much a personal opinion with some in either camp, and this is just mine.

Good point Dawesy. I view all HDR as digital art, but I still like most of them, if they're well done. Shooting into the sun with this image, made a decent shot an impossibility. I am not a purist. After all, I enjoy using photoshop. Heck, I shoot with a digital camera. Where do we draw the line? Film only? Medium format film only? Large format? Who cares? I like colourful, rusty subjects.

Anyway, thanks for the comments.

ozimax wrote:Good point Dawesy. I view all HDR as digital art, but I still like most of them, if they're well done. Shooting into the sun with this image, made a decent shot an impossibility. I am not a purist. After all, I enjoy using photoshop. Heck, I shoot with a digital camera. Where do we draw the line? Film only? Medium format film only? Large format? Who cares? I like colourful, rusty subjects.

Anyway, thanks for the comments.

I don't think there really needs to be a line, it's a continuum. I mean even in the early days of film, dodging and burning and a whole host of other techniques were used to improve or alter images, and I don't think anyone can say any particular form of manipulation in and of itself is 'wrong'. In fact I don't even know what we'd put a the 'pure' end of the scale. I guess a slide is as close as you can get given most prints have some form or correction applied.

It just comes down to what sort of look each of us appreciates. I think there's plenty of room for a whole host of different looks, if we all made similar images it would make things pretty boring!!

That is true.

I re-did this one in Photomatix; it seems the halo effect is less, but it's a different image.



Here's the first one for comparison.

surenj wrote:I am not a fan of the halos. Have you tried Redynamix HDR tool? It may give a less haloey result perhaps..

I haven't heard of it, but I will look it up.

Ozi.

It must be my monitor but the halo effect really sticks like a sore thumb. Really distracts from a otherwise great composition and image. Have you tried just exposure blending instead of tonemapping?

I really like the second one. To me the first one looks like the bucket has been superimposed on the picture.

Ant.

surenj wrote:It must be my monitor but the halo effect really sticks like a sore thumb. Really distracts from a otherwise great composition and image. Have you tried just exposure blending instead of tonemapping?

Yep, the second image (of the 2nd image) was processed with exp blending and there doesn't seem to be the halo effect there. However, I don't think it stands out as much as the first. I did a 12x8 print of the "halo" image and it is definitely not as pronounced as on the screen. As to why is anyone's guess.

Ozi.

Thanks for posting these shots. On my recently acquired wide gamut monitor the red edge on the equipment and the blue edge of the shackle shone out like neon lights. Several calibration attempts later everything looks fine. I kept on coming back to your shots to test it out. I also learnt out color managed web browsers (firefox..with color manegement add ons), white point, LUT tables on dual head monitors, Window color applet add on, video card control panel options, black point testing, gamut color shifting and a few other odds and sods.

A valuable learning experience, at least partially inspired by trying to get your shots to look "right" on my monitor.

shakey wrote:On my recently acquired wide gamut monitor

Is this like a light sabre or something? Man, I'm so technologically illiterate. Nevermind, at least I can make a pretty good flat white. Thanks for the reply.