Boardwalk HDR

[rylan]

Here is a photo I took in Prince Edward Island Canada. It was on the local boardwalk along the water. I decided to play around and try some HDR. I tried not to over work it, but I think it came out well.

Please let me know what I could do to make this photo better guys and gals!
Thanks

[SmartWombat]

The light haloes around the roof line really stand out as needing fixed, to me.

[Greg McCary]

I agree with Paul fix that and you have something. Did you crop it? I think it needs to be a little wider and include all of the first bench. How did you get the birds in it if it an HDR?

[rylan]

Okay, I don't see the halos you speak of.

Greg, I cloned out the birds in two of the photos. I liked the placement of them in this, and wanted to keep them in the picture.

I did crop it, but from the left.

[daq7]

Yep. very nice, but i agree that a little layering and cloning to get rid of the haloes would help. They are very subtle, but I agree it would improve if they were fixed.

[rylan]

What do you mean by "halo's"

Im not a big HDR person, have no idea what halo's would be.

[Greg McCary]

The birds were a nice touch. I like it that you put them in. Look just above the roof lines at the white line. Those are the halos.

[rylan]

I can barely see them on my monitor lol Ill look into getting those outta there. Thanks for the clarification Greg.

[Frog]

The halos show mostly on the down angle of the first roof of the blue building.
For my taste this is overdone and looks like a watercolor painting, especially the boardwalk.
Whether that is bad or good is a matter of taste.

[gahspidy]

I like your composition, Rylan but i'm not sure about having the pole in there. I'm thinking that moving in past the pole and shooting it the same might be better. I agrree about the hdr being a bit much and also the halos are not good to have in there. The halos are the light glowing around the edges of objects especially ones that are of great contrast to their background.
Its attractive nonetheless and if you work a bit at smoothing those glowing edges (halos) you have something very pleasing here.

[daq7]

A halo is when there is a white line between a dark area and another dark area. It usually happens between dark objects and sky. You get a white outline around the dark object. It almost ALWAYS happens in aggressive tone mapping, and I think it is the first thing to get rid of to step back from the abyss of extreme tone mapping. The halo in your picture is NOT very severe and can easily be ignored, but it is a good idea to be aware of it, because it does get bad if you aren't careful.

[rylan]

Thanks guys I see what you mean now, I appreciate it. Im not a big HDR fan myself, just thought I would give it a whirl. I think ill stick to regular photography

[gahspidy]

Thanks guys I see what you mean now, I appreciate it. Im not a big HDR fan myself, just thought I would give it a whirl. I think ill stick to regular photography

Well, i hope this hasn't discouraged you and HDR is not bad by any means. The ones that are done very well are the ones you probably never knew or recognized was HDR. There is a place for aggresive HDR works and I have seen a few very good ones here on the forums. It is something that you can add to your tools of editing and certainly should not shy away from simply because it might not have worked your first time out.
Hope you experiment more with it.

[armando_m]

HDR does have a learning curve ... I used the expect the final image out of photomatix, but it never is. You should have seen my first HDR images, totally psychedelic

I believe your image is very good, saturation is good not overdone, no ghosting, and fixing the halos is not difficult. I would suggest adding some sharpness and reducing the noise.

Your idea to leave the birds only on one exposure is great !

Tone it down a bit, the image with no halos may look kind of bland as it comes out of the tonemapping.

Save the image ( I use TIFF) and bring it to your favorite editor, increase the contrast, maybe adjust the light to suit your taste, maybe add some sharpness.
Then do some noise reduction. (noiseware is great for this)

This is what I do and it seems to be working somewhat consistent.

I did not come up with all this, it is all mentioned, and more, in this tutorial ( http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/ )
posted here in PR by another member in another HDR thread.

Regards !

[rylan]

Thanks Gary, Im sure ill still play with HDR a bit. Im not easily discouraged

Thats alot Armando, Ill follow your steps and see what happens. Greatly appreciated.

[daq7]

You should continue to use HDR in high dynamic range situations. The photo you did with it is quite good, and hdr did help it out.

[rylan]

Thanks Daq, I guess its just finding myself in the situation where HDR would work perfectly.

[daq7]

Uhm, at this point in time HDR doesn't work perfectly ever. You almost always have to make choices, and more and more I am resorting to blending more than one tone mapped image. But I am still kind of weak, so...