Show Us Your HDRs

[DanK]

Dan:

I don't think I will be updating to LR6. I'm annoyed by Adobe and their CC system. And the latest additions to LR are of little to no use to me. LR6 is underwhelming.

On LuLa, there was a thread last year requesting some very useful additions to LR for Version 6; none of them were incorporated, and then they come up with "features" for which there are enough plug-ins and standalone programs already on the market.

There is already a new thread on LuLa with suggestions for LR7. This tells me that there are some disgruntled users, but more importantly, it seems to indicate that Adobe is no longer in front of the curve, but behind it.

Glenn

Glenn ,

I dislike the subscription model, but I decided that for me, the least bad of the options was to cave in and subscribe. LR and PS are the core of my processing, apart from Zerene, and it would be a huge amount of work to switch. I hate to think how many hours it took me to become quite fluent in LR and halfway fluent in PS. I decided some time ago to subscribe to keep PS current. Since I was paying the $10/month for that, I simply installed the CC version of LR 6 when it replaced 5, for which I have a permanent license.

For others, of course, the calculation is different, and there certainly are plenty of other options.

Dan

[Polar01]

Here is another image that required that it be shot as a HDR. It is likely the hardest church that I have shot in, St. Andrews in the town of Cobourg Ontario. If you can get a good image in this church you can shoot anything, it is a combination of all the worse cases items, windows, carpet, 6 different woods and stains, a cement like plaster on the walls that can not be painted as that will affect the sound from the organ. Oh and that organ what a sound it makes, listening to it play Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring by J.S. Back almost makes you want to weep. Well enough of that here is the image I got, it took me returning 3 times and about 20 sets of shots each time to get one that I thought did it justice, and now I give you "Inside St. Andrews Church".

Cheers: Allan

[Bobobird]

Adobe is no longer in front of the curve, but behind it.

Glenn

What can we expect when they partner up with that PS/LR showcase place known as 500px ??

[Tringa]

One from a couple of months ago of five shots combined via Photomatix.

Dave

[jcuknz]

You do not have to use HDR to do HDR ...I like Izzie have never used an HDR programme but have been doing the result without the distortions with the use of a good editor. When people started to talk/rave about it I wondered what they were talking about and finally I realized I had on various occasions been doing it for yonks ... nothing to show here because I really cannot remember which are which in my folders. I did do a bracket once early on since it was a feature in the camera but couldn't really see the point of it and so all my edits are using layers from a single exposure and the wonderful flexibility this gives, even without RAW, in the editing process. And people say you cannot edit jpgs LOL

[chauncey]

FWIW...HDR toning is one of my favorite tools in PS CC. It is rare that I don't use it at some point.

[Shadowman]

You do not have to use HDR to do HDR ...I like Izzie have never used an HDR programme but have been doing the result without the distortions with the use of a good editor. When people started to talk/rave about it I wondered what they were talking about and finally I realized I had on various occasions been doing it for yonks ... nothing to show here because I really cannot remember which are which in my folders. I did do a bracket once early on since it was a feature in the camera but couldn't really see the point of it and so all my edits are using layers from a single exposure and the wonderful flexibility this gives, even without RAW, in the editing process. And people say you cannot edit jpgs LOL

John,

Some cameras are rated more highly than others at capturing the dynamic range of a scene, so you are correct that it doesn't have to be done the same way by everyone.

http://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Ratin...case_landscape

Some never tone map their images and others do so with a flourish, others edit several images separately to attain a pseudo dynamic range and this is where HDR enthusiasts argue "what is or isn't a true HDR" capture. I particularly did not want to limit anyone's contribution, which is why I included a "pseudo HDR" technique link.

Hdr

[tbob]

I don't do a lot of HDR, but use it for this sort of thing where the sky and foreground are just too wide apart.

[arith]

I mostly do HDR to make up for the miserable dynamic range, of course that is not very artistic, and I sometimes do blown on HDR, never mind,



I think I used a Hard Grad ND 8 on this, but a tad ambitious I think.



Sequence: {_MG_1608.CR2: TV=0.001266, AV=9.9, Bias=0.0} {_MG_1609.CR2: TV=0.005066, AV=9.9, Bias=0.0} {_MG_1610.CR2: TV=0.020263, AV=9.9, Bias=0.0}

[xpatUSA]

You do not have to use HDR to do HDR ...I like Izzie have never used an HDR programme but have been doing the result without the distortions with the use of a good editor. When people started to talk/rave about it I wondered what they were talking about and finally I realized I had on various occasions been doing it for yonks ... nothing to show here because I really cannot remember which are which in my folders. I did do a bracket once early on since it was a feature in the camera but couldn't really see the point of it and so all my edits are using layers from a single exposure and the wonderful flexibility this gives, even without RAW, in the editing process. And people say you cannot edit jpgs LOL

Quite so. And a good tone curve in a good editor without layers (e.g. RawTherapee) replaces all the controls for highlight recover, shadows, fill light, levels (black level, white level, gamma), contrast, because all of them simply create a composite tone curve.

When I used to shoot watches which, being metal, tend to a monochrome scene, I used to apply Levels almost without thought. Up with the black level to the first shadow counts on the histogram, down with the white level to the last highlight counts - then fiddle with the gamma to taste. Life was simple back then, I knew no better and the watches always looked good to my eye.

These days I shoot more stuff in the Real World and have found curves to be more to my taste and use them in preference to all else for serious work.

As to HDR itself, that is a misnomer for sure, "pseudo" being better as has already been mentioned.

[geek alert] For example, the sensor on one of my cameras has a read noise of 40e- (electrons, i.e. captured photons), after dark frame subtraction. A capture of 45,000e- is recommended for best linearity although the sensor saturates higher the that. That gives a DR of 10 EV. But your screen only shows a brightness ratio from 1 to 255 which is 8 EV. [/alert]

Don't even get me started on the oddness of using units of ratio e.g. dB, EV, for a range of values

[arith]

What is dark frame subtraction? What is a dark frame? I don't know, I can't help doing HDR because it gives me choice, and most of my images are on the extremities of exposure,

[xpatUSA]

What is dark frame subtraction? What is a dark frame?

It's a technique used in-camera, not controllable by the user. The camera takes a shot with the shutter closed (which therefore is noise-only) then another normal shot with the shutter open. By arithmetically subtracting the former from the latter, noise is reduced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark-frame_subtraction
.

[rpcrowe]

NIK Software Package includes HDR Efex Pro 2 allowing the user to create an HDR-like image from a single image. This is the NIK plug-in which I like the least. However, I used HDR Efex Pro 2 to create this image of a portion of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul...

[Shadowman]

NIK Software Package includes HDR Efex Pro 2 allowing the user to create an HDR-like image from a single image. This is the NIK plug-in which I like the least. However, I used HDR Efex Pro 2 to create this image of a portion of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul...

I used it for my image submission, it's a quirky program, I could only get it to work correctly as a stand alone; it wouldn't allow me to use it as a plug-in.

[Glenn NK]

What is dark frame subtraction? What is a dark frame? I don't know, I can't help doing HDR because it gives me choice, and most of my images are on the extremities of exposure,

The technique was demonstrated about eight years ago on DPR by a chap named John Sheehy for testing how good a sensor was, or how much noise it produced.

You take images with the lens cap on at different ISO values, then with the appropriate software (I forget what it was), it will plot the noise level produced by the sensor.

I did the test on my then new 30D and it equaled or exceeded the values that John had published for this body.

[JohnRostron]

I looked out of our bedroom window the other night and saw a rather nice sunset. I took three pics with my Canon Powershot SX260 HS, reducing the exposure by one stop each time. Handheld shots like this are not normally recommended for HDR but I did get them aligned nicely (in photoshop). First I tried the HDR in Photoshop, and then in Nik HDR. Neither of them were really satisfactory. The software seems to try to hard to find detail in the dark parts, which is not what I wanted. I'm sure that I could have found a satisfactory image with judicious PP.

Yesterday I received my copy of Digital Camera magazine, with a 'gift' of HDR Projects 2 from Franzis software in Germany. After the rather complicated installation I gave it a try. The interface offers a range of options including White Balance. I tried 'Evening Sun' which worked fairly well, but the default 'True to shot/camera' gave the best result.



This final image looks much more like I could see from out of the window. Considering the software was free, It seems to be pretty good value!

John

[Shadowman]

I looked out of our bedroom window the other night and saw a rather nice sunset. I took three pics with my Canon Powershot SX260 HS, reducing the exposure by one stop each time. Handheld shots like this are not normally recommended for HDR but I did get them aligned nicely (in photoshop). First I tried the HDR in Photoshop, and then in Nik HDR. Neither of them were really satisfactory. The software seems to try to hard to find detail in the dark parts, which is not what I wanted. I'm sure that I could have found a satisfactory image with judicious PP.

Yesterday I received my copy of Digital Camera magazine, with a 'gift' of HDR Projects 2 from Franzis software in Germany. After the rather complicated installation I gave it a try. The interface offers a range of options including White Balance. I tried 'Evening Sun' which worked fairly well, but the default 'True to shot/camera' gave the best result.



This final image looks much more like I could see from out of the window. Considering the software was free, It seems to be pretty good value!

John

You can manipulate the NIK HDR software to use fewer stops on the under/over exposure. I had my camera set to +/- 2 stops and when I combined and tone mapped the brights were hideous looking; so I changed the overexposure to +1/2 and capture looked much better. Also, with NIK software it seems I get a warning message that one or both exposures are out of range.

[Polar01]

If you really want a good looking image try this, take your 3 images open in either LR or ACR, work on the middle image with the other two linked to it so what you do to it you do to the others, once done that into Photosphp HDR you want a 32 bit image make sure that it states 32bit, let the program run, once done do not worry about how it looks, save as a Tiff, and close.
Now open that Tiff in your raw converter, now move the exposure slider before you could go 5 stops either way now you can go 10 stops either way.
Have Fun.

Cheers: Allan

[Gazzer]

[mrinmoyvk]

Below image was taken on the way to Thekkady from Munnar (both places in southern part of India)


Below image was taken at back side of some resort in Mahabaleshwar, a hill station in Maharashtra (western part of India)