Thanks Sebboh! Yeah, the HDR is a question of taste. Many of them are also heavier than I would normally do, but I am learning and am feeling my way. With several of the last ones I feel I am beginning to find my place.
Samuli Vahonen wrote:
Hrannar, wonderful color and background (blur) on the portraits.
Worldinlens, 3rd (tree, the only one, which was not shot wide open) and 2nd last one (sunset and branches) were very nice.
Almass, thanks for pointing this out, I never view my own images (after all I have seen them when I copy paste the URLs to posts). Lens is fine, I focus 99.9999999% of time with live view using actual pixels so focus is 99.99999996% of times right.
The root cause for weird images seems to be that Fred Miranda forum breaks images having odd dimensions (fine if both x and y dimension are even). Fred's forum software cannot calculate dimensions with odd pixel width images, and adds wrong height and width attributes to HTML code for those, which forces browser to do scaling.
For example I use 975px on longest side of the image. This makes standard 2:3 image to have 650px on the shorter side. In HTML Fred Miranda forum software however announces size 974px by 650px in HTML-code. This makes the browser to scale the image. Due to this some images look awful. I'm not sure why Fred has changed this to broken version - this used to work fine.
HTML code Fred Miranda forum used for my picture (real size 975x650):
<img width=974 height=650 border=0 alt="This image is copyrighted by the owner" src="http://www.vahonen.com/2012/Q2/05-01_Seitseminen_and_Riuttaskorpi,Ylojarvi/20120501_191929_L180mm_f28_1per400s_975px.jpg">
Can't change the old photos, but new ones I'll post 974px on longest side (assuming shorter side will also end up to even number of pixels) so the badly written forum software won't break my images. For old images the only way to view them properly is to right click and "open image in new tab". Apologies for less pleasurable viewing experience due to Fred's broken software.
PS. Be careful when you crop and end up to some size with odd number of pixels on shorter side of picture, then Fred's forum software will break your images even the other side of image is even number. I checked and this is not only my problem, but same happens to anyone who happens to post odd pixel dimension images.
Here is what I do, although I am not sure it will help anyone, since it is just the obvious stuff.
- To make the shot, use a heavy tripod and a cable release, with mirror up and a delay to dampen vibrations. Otherwise you lose sharpness.
- Identify the middle exposure, and figure out how many shots around that you need.
- Make the shots. I use 1-stop gaps. My teacher swears that it gives better results than 2-stop gaps.
On the computer:
- Import into main software. Do any major corrections which can't wait until afterwards, like WB. Do the same to all shots.
- Export 16-bit TIFFs in ProPhoto RGB (or Adobe RGB, if necessary).
- Load into Photomatix Pro, calculate HDR image.
- Start tonemapper.
- Try all presets, and choose the best one.
- Go down all the sliders and twiddle each one until you like the result best.
- Do them all a second time.
- If you did a fair amount of work, save a preset.
- Process and export to TIFF.
- Import into main program again.
Post HDR operations:
- Crop, rotate, tweak contrast, saturation, etc.
- Export to Photoshop
Scale and Sharpen (typically):
- Apply Sharpen>Sharpen.
- Scale down to 72% using default resizing algorithm (bicubic?).
- Apple Smart Sharpen (100%, 0.3 pixels, although you can go down to 75%, 0.25 pixels if too strong)
- Repeat the last two steps until almost at target resolution.
- Do a single resize operation to final size-20 pixels in each dimension.
- Add 20 pixel border.
- Save and import back to main program.
Main program final export:
- Export without resizing.
I like punchy shots, but without the crazy dayglo stuff that so many people use. It takes a lot of trial and error to get the settings right, and sometimes I spend 1/2 hour twiddling the sliders in Photomatix Pro. If I am not sure of the shot, I will leave it, and go do something else. Then I will look at a few of my favorite HDRs, and come back with a fresh eye, maybe 1/2 hour or 1 hour later, and continue. I always aim for impact, but the colours should be believable. Someone who doesn't know the location should not be able to tell whether or not it really looked like that. A couple of the shots I have posted here cross that boundary, but I am getting better the more I do.
I swear, 95% of having good technique (no matter what you are trying, HDR, BIF, whatever) is simply making yourself do those things you know you should be doing, but systematically avoid. So many people do everything handheld, for example, and it kills the ultimate sharpness of your photos in many situations. Use a tripod. Once you do all that, then the last 5% is domain-specific secret tips, like letting your hand rest on a tele lens to dampen it, and those kinds of non-obvious things.
Similarly, in software. So many people downsize their photos in one step, without any special plugin, and again, it kills the sharpness.
To really get the most out of your skills, find out what all the best practices are, and do them, every time.
And use a frame on your photos. Find one you like, and which doesn't distract from the photo. It really adds to the presentation.
first off, the HDR's are very nice and subtle. I think that's what is the greatest thing to me, the subtleness. I really like the factory shot.
secondly, thanks for the clarification post! You avoided a lot of questions from both me and others. I've played around with HDR in the past but only for fun. I never got a good handle on it. I used it for some interior shots. It worked really well but I have since forgotten the program used. You can tell I really enjoyed that experience!
shaunmlavery wrote:
first off, the HDR's are very nice and subtle. I think that's what is the greatest thing to me, the subtleness. I really like the factory shot.
