HDR Photo's

[bigken]

Has anybody ever had a play about at doing HDR ( high dynamic range) photos, heres a couple i've found on the net,

[Grandad]

Short answer Ken is no.....But is it a function available with photo editors, I don't remember seeing it in the menus but am now off to have a look.

[Grandad]

I seem to have answered my question myself. I Googled HDR and found this site that briefly explained the process using some special software.

http://dannorcott.co.uk/hdr-tutorial/?g ... 4wodOHdqbg

I think his Autumn example shows what a striking effect can be achieved.

I like your examples Ken and as you raised the topic, have you ever tried it???

[Grandad]

Just checked PSP and it has an HDR photo merge function so something to try. Also an opportunity to try out bracketing in RAW.

Hope others will join in and show some results

[bigken]

Yes I've had a little mess about, had a go at bracketing and I've also tried the easy way by altering the exposure of a picture in lightroom then using a software called photomatix pro to merge the photos

[Horus]

Mmm, peaked my curiosity on this Ken
I have already set my continuos bracketing function to 1 stop each way so if I get time I may give it a try.
Thanks for bringing this up Ken, the effects look very interesting

[Horus]

Yes I've had a little mess about, had a go at bracketing and I've also tried the easy way by altering the exposure of a picture in lightroom then using a software called photomatix pro to merge the photos

Have you got anything to post?

[LovelyLadyLux]

This looks totally fascinating to me but I think I'm way too "elementary" in the photo department still to really come to grips with this. The effects are totally awesome and I'd love to see photos from alyuh using this!! (Then when you get it down absolutely pat you can tell me how to do it too! ;);))

We broke heat records here this weekend so there was NO outdoor photography for me or indoor for that matter. Just sitting and sweating by the fan cause no A/C either. Usually we're too cool to downright cold to ever use A/C......

[Horus]

Well I had a go at this HDR thing but must confess to being a bit mystified by the whole thing.
First off as Grandad pointed out, there is a feature within PSP called HDR Photo Merge and it is very easy to use. Basically you choose any pictures you want to merge, minimum of two and a maximum of nine. Obviously they all need to be the same picture but with different EV settings, the idea being that they will all merge to create the one picture.

So far so good, however my own camera would not allow me to set the ‘Auto Bracketing’ to other than plus or minus 1 EV, or plus or minus 1/3 EV & plus or minus 2/3 EV so I had to work with that and to be honest I could not see anything special about the finished merged picture.

Next I set my camera up for RAW but in that mode I cannot use ‘Auto Bracketing’ but I could move the stops up and down a lot more if I chose to, but again I could not really see what it was supposed to be doing when merged into HDR.

I assumed that I was not taking the right sort of picture to get the effect (whatever that may be?) so I reverted to having a play in other directions. I took a picture of a rainbow that is quite dark from my library, but it does reflect the reality of the shot as it was taken, I named this S1

I then modified it in Picasa by doing an ‘Auto Contrast’ and then by increasing the ‘Fill Light’ until I had three separate pictures labelled S2, S3 & S4 with S2 being the darkest image and S4 being the brightest.

I used the HDR photo merge in PSP and the result was picture S5 although I tweaked the ‘Fill Light’ afterwards.

As I was not sure that it was no different than simply adjusting the ‘Fill Light’ level of the original picture (S1) in Picassa and thus avoiding all of the HDR merge process to simply arrive at the same result, did just that and the picture S6 shows the result which can be seen to be different.

Overall it must be doing something, although I am not yet sure exactly what it is, or even if I want to use it much anyway. Perhaps as I said earlier I need to take some different photo’s to achieve better results.

S1 (My original picture)


S5 (3 separate pictures by adjusting the fill light in Picasa & HDR merged)


S6 (The original picture but with the fill light increased, but no HDR merging)

[Bearded Brian]

Confused of Luton here - Ken were there 'originals' to the 2 pictures you posted - this might give a better idea of hdr.

Horus - really like S1

As with others my camera will do bracketing or RAW but not both and PS Elements 6 doesn't have anything for hdr as far as I can see. From what I can gather one point is to create a picture showing as much detail as possible where the original may have had over and under exposure. This is my attempt {not the best as working on the laptop with a mouse pad but I think you'll get the idea}

The first picture was as taken [in raw] and was actually what I wanted. Picture two has had the exposure increased to show the details of the walls and picture 3 are the two combined.

[bigken]

Hi the pictures are not mine I just borrowed them of the Internet as an example

[Horus]

Brian, you seem to have got a grip of the idea, nice picture
I think I am OK with the principle, but just don't seem to be able to make it work very well, as I said before I don't think I am using the right pictures to get the effect.
Just a point worth asking, does anyone know if this is only supposed to work with RAW images?
I ask because the 'HDR Photo Merge' option in PSP does not say you need RAW images. The experiment that I did was using ordinary JPEGS and the process seemed to work without any glitches, maybe this is the problem?

[Bearded Brian]

this is the original picture of the golden gate bridge

[DJKeefy]

Well personally i dont like them we see the photo as we would normally see something, these HDR photos look fake and not real. why would anyone want to see it like the HDR shows, its just another form of ART.

[Grandad]

Unlike Keefy I do like them and with more experimentation I think some stunning effects could be obtained.

I believe it is preferable to shoot in RAW and just bracketing manually. It seems that some tweaking done in RAW can be more effective than on jpegs but I also think it takes a while to find out what works best and each image will respond differently.

Have not yet had an opportunity to try myself but well done BB and H for some sterling efforts

[Horus]

Well personally i dont like them we see the photo as we would normally see something, these HDR photos look fake and not real. why would anyone want to see it like the HDR shows, its just another form of ART.

Ah, but that is the point Keefy turning an ordinary picture into a form of art

Or is it that you don't want us cluttering up your forum with more pictures?

[Bearded Brian]

There are two main types of HDR, one is to produce a picture as close as possible to how the eye would see it eg if in my picture you were standing in the tomb looking at the walls you would see the details then you look outside your eyes quickly adjust to show the detail outside - to some this is the 'pure' HDR. The second type is to produce a more surreal picture by pushing elements of the picture to the extreme and is an art form and like all art forms can be liked or disliked. I'll sit on the fence and say I like some but dislike others.

[Bearded Brian]

Horus - most software I've looked at on the net seem to work with either RAW or JPEG. With RAW you generally work with just the one picture whereas with jpeg you work with 2-9 pictures [although 1 tutorial stated that after 5 pictures it was a lot of work for little, if any , difference]. I haven't tried any of the HDR software so don't know if it is easier to work in RAW or not. One problem with jpegs is that there might be slight movement when taking the picture and this may make it harder to merge depending on the software used.

I might try the free download from HDR Darkroom over the weekend.

[DJKeefy]

No No No Horus post as many as you like, I was just saying that i dont really like the HDR, when i look at the beetle car it just looks like it as been over sharpened and too much colour added.

[Horus]

No No No Horus post as many as you like

Just one 'no' would have been enough Keefy
You sound like Jim in 'The Vicar of Dibley'