First experiments in HDR

I've been out shooting today, just using the 18-55 kit lens on my very basic 1100D. I thought I'd try some HDR; I'm pretty pleased with the result (although the subject isn't hugely interesting, but it echoes a photo I took a year ago when I was just starting out, and I wanted to see how my skills and confidence have improved with the same subject matter).

I'm interested in comments to help me when I'm next shooting for a HDR merge, and improvements you feel I can make to the existing photo in lightroom or photoshop (but please keep it simple, I'm very much a novice!).

http://i57.tinypic.com/295edfm.jpg

At first I was about to say that it was very good, because it looks good at a first glance. But, were do the blue edges come from? Saw them when I zoomed in.

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Originally Posted by CaolIla

At first I was about to say that it was very good, because it looks good at a first glance. But, were do the blue edges come from? Saw them when I zoomed in.

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It looks like it's chromatic aberration left over from the original images; removing it after the merge doesn't get rid of it completely. I've re-uploaded a clean merge with the CA removed. Good spot - such a rookie error!

edit: the original file is now clean, but when uploading the file (even editing the post) it comes back. Not sure why - is it possible that tinypic identifies multiple copies of the same image somehow?

Apart from the blue fringing there appears to be a little bit of subject movement on the leaf tips.

But that is a very difficult scene for HDR with so much potential movement around the scene. It doesn't look overly processed which is a good point.

I have tried various auto HDR software but never found any which worked to my entire satisfaction so now I just auto align the layers then do the combining manually with masks.

I cannot offer you any help in processing because I have not tried HDR yet but if Mats and Geoff noticed it, I wouldn't have seen the fringing at all because without expanding the image in lytebox, it looks good...unlike the overly done HDR that is prevalent in many submissions.

Wicked looking tree. Nice effort. Check to see if the CA is in all exposures.

Many thanks to all for the comments - much appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Geoff F

Apart from the blue fringing there appears to be a little bit of subject movement on the leaf tips.

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Is that leaf movement just because of the length of time between shots? My camera only bursts at 2fps, plus with the exposure bracket I would guess 2.5 secs to take the three images. so maybe scenes like this are particularly challenging for my camera, I'll keep saving for that 7d!

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Originally Posted by Geoff F

I have tried various auto HDR software but never found any which worked to my entire satisfaction so now I just auto align the layers then do the combining manually with masks.

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Being new to this I was happy to use hdr merge in photoshop, play around with some of the sliders, look at the pre sets and decide what I like. However, I'll have a Google of this idea as I've not used masks before.

It looks good Simon, I guess the blue edges are chromatic aberration.

As John said you need to correct this on all the images before you merge them.

Thanks John and Matt - I've redone the image, making sure all three exposures are clear of CA before merging and it has indeed cleared up the blue fringing. Thank goodness for copy/paste of processing settings in Lightroom - it only took a couple of minutes to do thanks to this feature and it looks much better.

Simon if I may offer a suggestion, I find that because we have to overexpose to get detail in the shadows what happens is we get more detail and brightness in areas that were already fine. I think we have this happening in this image in the foreground with the grass it is overly bright to my way of thinking. Maybe try this, take the jpeg back into LR or ACR add a graduated filter from the bottom up to that Y in the small tree to your right of the main tree then reduce the exposure by 1 stop. I find that a single reduction by 1-stop in overly bright areas makes them appear more natural. I do like the image and rather wished it was me that came upon the scene. Just a suggestion.

Cheers: Allan

Welcome Simon :) I was going to comment on CA too, but after reading all posts all I can say is 'it is a nice image'.

Many thanks to all for the kind comments and helpful suggestions. Allan - I agree, and I've amended the image accordingly.

See below for the finished (maybe!) image - with CA removed, and a more natural exposure in the foreground.

http://i60.tinypic.com/fdas8w.jpg

In developing your skillset, starting with a more controlled environment, no moving parts,
might be a good idea.

Hi Simon

I think you've done a good job for your first attempt. My only suggestion is to add some sharpening to the final image. It looks a tad soft to me. Sometimes you can lose a little sharpness when merging due to the alignment of the images not being absolutely spot on. Or maybe the original images needed a bit more sharpening ?

Dave