Secret Garden

Nyte

Not so subtle HDR, but I felt the subject suited a more surrealist look.

kdog

I think you did a great job on this. Nice clean look. Surreal, and yet you kept the halos to a minimum. Care to share some details about your processing? Which HDR program, and did you do some post work to it in Photoshop after HDR'ing?

Cheers,
-joel

redleash

Ditto--surreal but not overdone. Very interesting scene--where is it?

Mark1123

I really love this picture and the way it's naturally framed. I, too, would like to know some processing info.

Eia

A very lovely photo... it looks inviting, surreal, storybook like, but yet a real photo! I can look at this for awhile!

Nyte

Thanks, all, for your comments.

The photo was taken in the grounds of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, UK. It's the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and open to the public to help pay for its upkeep.

I prepare the different exposures in Lightroom first (reduce any noise etc.), then export them in dng format. Photomatix Pro 3.0.3 is used for the HDR and this particular image was also processed in Photoshop afterwards. Halos tend to be more apparent where there are areas of high contrast, but they can be avoided with a bit of care or removed in photoshop.

With the image linked to because I wanted a more surrealist look halos couldn't be avoided in Photomatix so I removed the worst of them in Photoshop. I did that by creating two HDR images in Photomatix; the main image (with halos) and the one I was going to use for repairs (without halos). I pasted one image on top of the other and used a layer mask to transfer the small sections needed to reduce the halos, painting out any left-over, unnecessary bits and pieces.

The layers were then merged, the image cropped very slightly, levels readjusted and sharpening applied.

thapamd

Beautifully done, Nyte! Everything about this shot is fantastic...from the processing, to the composition, to the colors...everything just pops and comes together in perfect harmony! Wow!

kdog

Thanks for sharing your techniques, Nyte! thumb

I figured and evidently was right in that a shot this good took some extra care to produce. Well done.

-joel

Nyte

thapamd wrote:

Beautifully done, Nyte! Everything about this shot is fantastic...from the processing, to the composition, to the colors...everything just pops and comes together in perfect harmony! Wow!

Thanks, thapamd.

kdog wrote:

Thanks for sharing your techniques, Nyte! thumb

I figured and evidently was right in that a shot this good took some extra care to produce. Well done.

-joel

No worries and thanks.

DavidTO

Sorry to be in the minority here, but I find the haloes to be egregious.

dlplumer

Personally, I love the photo. Nice work, and thanks for sharing your technique.

Nyte

DavidTO wrote:

Sorry to be in the minority here, but I find the haloes to be egregious.

HDR is notorious for introducing massive halos around high contrast areas of an image and I don't believe there are any of that variety present in mine, but if you disagree then I would appreciate it if you could point them out so I can attend to them.

dlplumer wrote:

Personally, I love the photo. Nice work, and thanks for sharing your technique.

Thanks, dlplumer.

schmoo

Nyte wrote:

HDR is notorious for introducing massive halos around high contrast areas of an image and I don't believe there are any of that variety present in mine, but if you disagree then I would appreciate it if you could point them out so I can attend to them.

I think David was referring to the areas around the rocks near the bottom, e.g. the rocks against the ground behind them. Also in images processed like this the eye knows that logically that the amount of light present in different areas of the scene can't be "true" in the given situation. For example, the immediate foreground has just as much light on it (in this case, more) as the trees that are far away and out in the open. But we see that the sun is way over to the right and behind the wall.

HDRs seem to be one of those love/hate relationships and a lot of people feel one way or the other about them!

Nyte

schmoo wrote:

I think David was referring to the areas around the rocks near the bottom, e.g. the rocks against the ground behind them.

If that's the case, then yes, there are lighter areas on the path around the rocks towards the bottom of the image, but naturally so and present in the original photographs (I checked to make sure) rather than having been introduced by the HDR process.

Also in images processed like this the eye knows that logically that the amount of light present in different areas of the scene can't be "true" in the given situation. For example, the immediate foreground has just as much light on it (in this case, more) as the trees that are far away and out in the open. But we see that the sun is way over to the right and behind the wall.

HDRs seem to be one of those love/hate relationships and a lot of people feel one way or the other about them!

Yes, HDR isn't to everybody's taste, but it would be a boring old world if everybody liked the same thing. As I suspect you're already aware, the true purpose of HDR is to bring the dynamic range closer to that of human visual perception, which digital cameras are unable to capture in a single frame.

I think people have a tendency to go way over the top with HDR producing images that no longer bear any resemblance to reality, but as I stated in my opening post, I felt that the subject suited a more surrealist treatment on this occasion.