The picture was shot on a day when the clouds were grey. It was completely overcast that day. I wish there were actual clouds that day, it would have made the shot 50x better. That is why I made it a brownish color.
Hdr Pics????????
- Thread starter 98cobradan
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Is this Photomatrix a free program? Is it an add-on to photoshop, or standalone program?
That is a sick ****ing picture and a great description on how you do it. PROPS to you my friend! Awesome post! :rockon:
If it was overcast that proves my point even further, your shot is just tone mapped and on overcast days with only natural light high dynamic range does nothing since the overall range of lighting in the scene is small.
It is free online. Google photomatix. You can download the free trial. It does put little water marks on you image that say photomatix. You can photoshop them out. Most people/photographers I talk to use photomatix over photoshop to make HDR pics. it is really just personal preference for me. It is very user friendly.
Thanks for the link - is the trial version a time-limited full version, or is it a feature limited version without expiration date?
I don't think it expires. You can purchase it for $99 on their website.
1 image, 3 exposures -2.25,0,+2.25 RAW format. I mainly did the whole HDR deal to show the details on the building. I was going to chop a different sky that I HDR'ed that looked great but I was satisfied with this picture the way it is. The only thing I would change is that I made it grainy to make it look old (bottom left corner shows it the worst). I am to lazy to fix it and I have a couple hundred other pictures I have to post process that people are waiting on. The beauty of HDR is that there are no specifics to it. You can make it look natural or make it look like a nasty acid trip. It doesn't matter. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
Don't take it the wrong way, I am not knocking your picture nor am I getting on your ass. All I am saying is that a jpeg picture has somewhere around 5-6 fstops of light that you can record, a RAW has maybe 7-8. If you take a single picture in RAW it is higher dynamic range then a jpeg but it really isn't an HDR. Just because you adjust it 3 different times and running through photomatix does not make your result an HDR. The picture you posted could have been made using one picture and simply having it tone mapped. I might be coming off as somewhat douchy but I am just trying to stop missinformation in regard to this subject because of how often it comes up. People ask the same question over and over and every time some posts a tone mapped shot and says "look at me, I made an HDR from a single shot" when in reality it is not an HDR but a tone mapped shot which are not the same but are used most often together.
+40000
Using the image from VanillaDays as an example.....
Look at the middle exposure. Let's say that you have that one image. Notice in the upper-right hand corner that there is no detail in the clouds, they are blown out. If you just started with that middle picture, no amount of darkening or lightening is going to bring back the detail in those clouds as they were never captured by the camera.
No offense taken. I agree with you. It is a way of "cheating" an HDR. Unfortunately all the pictures I took that day have a grey sky with no distictive clouds. It was an overcast marine layer. A true HDR is suppossed to be done as described above. The easiest way is to set the camera to auto exposure bracketing and let it do it's thing.
spitin venom, the point is that what you are referring to is called tone mapping not HDR. Why not just call it what it is?
You can call it tone mapping. I will call it ghetto HDR. Just messing with you. Most people I know and have spoken with online consider this form of minipulating a picture HDR. Technically speaking...No... It is not true HDR. True HDR would have to be done with mulitple exposures from the camera not 1 exposure changed into three with a RAW program. So yes, to stop beating a dead horse, you are correct.
Dude, it doesn't matter who is right, it's just that other people will see your post and your picture saying "whoa the pic is nice, this guy knows what's up" and because you refer to them as HDR so will they when it's not.
bubbrubb
New Member
You're the man for posting that so clearly. I can't wait to try it out!
Do you need some kind of Tripod to take pictures to make into HDR? I'm assuming yes....
I pulled this off a photography hosting site.
About HDR from a single RAW
To get the best from HDR (High Dynamic Range) images one should really plan ahead and use bracketed exposures right from the camera.
Sometimes however this is not possible, such as in action shots, or perhaps you merely wish to rescue a shot that has under or overexposed areas that can't be corrected by other means. If you shoot in RAW, as I do, you can create bracketed exposures from a single RAW file and use these to produce HDR images. Perhaps not as good as HDRs planned and executed from start to finish but certainly good enough to rescue a shot you like that suffers from exposure problems.
The talented lightpainter has shown, with this image, that it is even possible to produce a good HDR image when all you have to work from is a single JPEG.
About HDR from a single RAW
To get the best from HDR (High Dynamic Range) images one should really plan ahead and use bracketed exposures right from the camera.
Sometimes however this is not possible, such as in action shots, or perhaps you merely wish to rescue a shot that has under or overexposed areas that can't be corrected by other means. If you shoot in RAW, as I do, you can create bracketed exposures from a single RAW file and use these to produce HDR images. Perhaps not as good as HDRs planned and executed from start to finish but certainly good enough to rescue a shot you like that suffers from exposure problems.
The talented lightpainter has shown, with this image, that it is even possible to produce a good HDR image when all you have to work from is a single JPEG.
I usually do. You can't really have any movement. That is why I sometimes do mine with (like the picture of the building a couple posts back) one picture in RAW format (this is more of a way to save a picture). You can't always use a tripod. In the picture above I was at Disney California Adventure. I couldn't set up a tripod because there were swarms of people and kids running around. To do a true HDR picture you should use a tripod. You can find them for very cheap everywhere like Best Buy. You should also buy a tripod for night shots.
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