Helpful HDR article

acowan

Although I'm not a proponent of HDR (because a high majority are over the top) I found this article interesting and helpful, especially to those who consistently shoot with HDR in mind and I just thought I'd share.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/hdr-plea.shtml

Kyle D

Thanks for posting that, it was an interesting read. It's nice to get another perspective on HDR and processing it.

squirl033

good article. i am not a "fan" of HDR, but won't hesitate to use it if need be to improve a shot. done correctly, as this article points out, a viewer will never know the image is HDR unless you tell him.

ront

Thanks for the link acowan. I do really like HDR if done right. I do not care for the over the top stuff. There is also a nice article in the Feb. 2010 issue of Outdoor Photographer on HDR.

Ron

schmoo

Just moving this over to the Big Picture

acowan

Thanks Schmoo!...I wasn't aware of the "Wide Angle" forum, but now I am!

Richard

Good article. I haven't done much with HDR, but I agree with his general approach. One thing I do differ on: He says

you should never try to obtain the final look of an image in the tone mapping phase, and instead just focus on bringing all the details back from shadows and highlights. You should aim for a low contrast (especially local contrast), low saturation image at this stage, and only afterward, in Photoshop and with local curves adjustments, bring back the full glory of the scene.

Using only CS3, I find that I get the best results if I use local contrast method, but use the tone mapping curve in conversion to get the overall look and contrast of the image the way I want it. The corner points are really a nice feature and they are not available (AFAIK) in normal CS3 curves. I do make local adjustments later in PS. YMMV, and I admit that I have never produced an image as striking as the ones he posted.