The Gateshead Flasher - HDR

[JonathanC]

A quick and dirty HDR done by layering in Photoshop, hope for comments on this.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Jonathon,

Well it looks natural enough (but then as you imply, it's not HDR)!

I am wondering about the framing/crop though; why so much deadspace on right?

I guess it does show the dark clouds and to some extent balances the remaining bright bit on left.
I think a little less bright would still work.

Any help?

[Grinder]

Well - Being from the States I have no idea what this is but it looks cool. As for the photo. it looks like a normal non-HDR shot to me

[Dave Humphries]

For Grinder, or anyone else non-UK; here's the Wikipedia entry for this impressive item.

[Wirefox]

Jonathan

I cannot really see any HDR effect. The image is powerful and it were me I would go for broke by burning the cloud and removing the Geordies (not in a malthusian way you understand). I did think it may look better in mono...but the colour of the sculpture is interesting so enhancing its vibrancy against a burnt sky would probably do the trick (for me anyway...but then the extra eye in the middle of my forehead plays havoc with any reasonable photographic judgement)

[Grinder]

That's an awesome piece of art - thanks. We would probably have the bird people telling us it was messing with migratory patterns. LOL

[Dave Humphries]

Next time I pass it, I'll keep an eye out to see if I can see any little dents in it

[JonathanC]

Been having a ponder regarding the comments about the not really HDR-ness of this.

Seems to me that for it to look "HDR" I need to do something like the glowing edges filter in Photoshop to make it look wierd, but I don't understand why that would be. The sky was underexposed by two stops relative to the sculpture and in either shot there is a huge expanse of either black or white. What I did here was simply to layer the two images and use the good bits from both images to get this.

I know its a simple way to acomplish the image when the dynamic range of the camera sensor cannot do it in a single exposure, but that's the point isn't it?

I'm wondering if HDR refers to the "look and feel" of the usual stuff rather than the technique I just described?

[Colin Southern]

Seems to me that for it to look "HDR" I need to do something like the glowing edges filter in Photoshop to make it look wierd, but I don't understand why that would be.

No you don't - not at all. If one were aiming for photorealism then the usual over-processed "HDR" shots that we see would fail miserably, and as others have proved, if you want that "HDR look" then you don't need an HDR image to achieve it. So in in summary, that "HDR look" and HDR are only loosely related.

The sky was underexposed by two stops relative to the sculpture and in either shot there is a huge expanse of either black or white. What I did here was simply to layer the two images and use the good bits from both images to get this.

I know its a simple way to acomplish the image when the dynamic range of the camera sensor cannot do it in a single exposure, but that's the point isn't it?

Yes - absolutely!

I'm wondering if HDR refers to the "look and feel" of the usual stuff rather than the technique I just described?

No it doesn't - HDR is a number of techniques, not a "look"

Don't change a thing in your thinking ... you understand it perfectly ... now we just have to wait for a lot of the world to catch us up!