Office

[_GUI_]

I chose a not too wide angle view for this scene to make it more commercial and make the observer participate in the scene. It is intended for a coporate book of a Lawyers office (the message displayed is just fiction).

It was made of 3 shots 2EV apart to capture all the dynamic range and eliminate noise.

All comments are welcome.

BR

[Colin Southern]

Looks pretty good to me

Did you do any hand dodging / burning of the HDR composite?

[_GUI_]

Did you do any hand dodging / burning of the HDR composite?

Oops!, could you explain more?

As usually I started from an underexposed noise-free image (resulting of blending the 3 RAW files) and applied two curves: one to increase brightness (protecting the highlights with a defocused layer mask), and a second one to increase global contrast.
In this case I needed to apply an additional correction in the window on the left to eliminate the magenta cast produced by sunlight when compared to the artificial light that was used for general WB.

BR

[Alis]

Oops!, could you explain more?

As usually I started from an underexposed noise-free image (resulting of blending the 3 RAW files) and applied two curves: one to increase brightness (protecting the highlights with a defocused layer mask), and a second one to increase global contrast.
In this case I needed to apply an additional correction in the window on the left to eliminate the magenta cast produced by sunlight when compared to the artificial light that was used for general WB.

BR

Hi _GUI_

Do you know anywhere I can read about what you described above. This is the sort of stuff I would like to see in a photoshop book but all I have seen only talk about the stuff you can get from the software's Help.

By the way, very nice picture. Well done!

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Guillermo,

You're an oder of magnitude above me in photographic quality and PP skills so, other than to congratulate you on producing yet another exceedingly natural looking HDR image, I'll not comment on the technical side. Perfect as usual, to my eyes.

Instead, I'll put down some more general musings.
Any viewer has to consider what this type of image is intended for; it could be the cover, or section header in a corporate publication, and as such, it won't be studied in any great detail, it'll just get a casual, almost subliminal, recognition and needs to convey that "inclusive" feeling in an instant.
I think the camera height in relation to the 'props' achieves this quite well. Factor in that you needed that blank space top left for text and it is difficult to suggest any compositional improvement that would still be fit for purpose.

However, if one starts over-analysing this kind of image and suggesting ways to improve it as a stand-alone photograph, all sorts of ideas coming to mind, but most might destroy the fitness for purpose. However, I'll suggest a few anyway because they may be helpful to incorporate into other images and you need a bit of variety, even in a corporate "glam" book.

I wonder whether a camera viewpoint from between two chairs, or even from between the arms of a chair might increase the inclusive feel, although the latter would probably only work with models in the other chairs.

When I start really looking at the picture, I see things like the desk diary 'touching' the chair back and the the end of a table leg being visible that some might say distract, but these could be the very things that make it work in its desired context.

I have no photographic, art or design degree, and no recent photographic training (beyond CiC). I am a complete amatuer, so take these ramblings as little more than that!

Not sure that helps, perhaps you should have stopped reading at the end of my first paragraph

Thanks for sharing,

[_GUI_]

Do you know anywhere I can read about what you described above. This is the sort of stuff I would like to see in a photoshop book but all I have seen only talk about the stuff you can get from the software's Help.

Hi sedali, all you are asking for is already available on my site. The bad news is that it has not been translated into English yet (that's a huge and titanic task for such a lazy person as me). However there is a link for google translation, let's see if it suffices you or it's just a pain:
- How to blend the images (I use my own software): Zero Noise tutorial.
- How to tone map the resulting blending with a natural look in mind: HDR tone mapping.

Not sure that helps, perhaps you should have stopped reading at the end of my first paragraph

Believe me this kind of comments is of great value to me. I am also just an amateur photographer and don't intend to live on this, but I like to reach as much perfection as possible. I consider the tech part is OK by now, with a 350D I am creating images with the quality of much higher level gear. Now it comes the time to improve creativity, and things like chosing the right framing or make proper decisions with the crops needed for not using an ultra wide angle lens are very chasing.
I also regret the geometrical coincidence between the diary and the chair, it's distracting. Unfortunately I saw it once at home. I could correct in-place other coincidences such as the main chair's back aligned with the furniture. I could also correct the Mac monitor appeaaring over one of the chairs which was not well explained, I simply cloned it in PP.


Regards!

[ajith.rajeswari]

Hi Guillermo,
Great work. The only comment I have is regarding the color of the oval shaped item on top of the wooden shelf behind the "chairman", the object's color is too light shade with the entire scene. I would have changed the color of the item OR removed the item from the scene ..
my 2 cents

Regards
Ajith