HDR Experiment

[brhitch]

Experimenting with HDR. This is from a single RAW file converted to pseudo-HDR and converted to black and white. High pass filter ran for sharpening.

[DrRoebuck]

Was there a great amount of dynamic range in this shot to begin with?

[jgredline]

To me it looks more like a snap shot. There does not seem to be much contrast. As for an HDR, I have been looking at hundreds of HDR images as I am trying to learn how to do them myself, but I have yet to see one in black and white.

[Don Schaeffer]

interesting look. It flattens the shadows giving the photo a kind of sheen

[brhitch]

DrRoebuck, there wasn't a great deal of range to begin with. I was planning on using 3 files but didn't bracket them far enough apart that and didn't use a tripod so there was too much movement.
Javier, this was more of a quick grab I decided to experiment with. Not an exciting photo really. I'm still looking at the HDR stuff myself. Seems like it might be interesting to try. Not sure that this was the photo for it though.
Don, Thanks for the comments. Shadows went flat while I was playing in photoshop. Should have given it some more contrast.

[GB1]

The HDR effect is almost undetectable to me. I do like how it came out though - seems like you got good middle layer grays there, though I think you might up the contrast a bit since there doesn't seem to be any true blacks. Interesting pic.

G

[Wild Wassa]

brhitch, your image has the milky look of a polariod 5x4 b/w ... it is quite nice.

This is the skinny as I see it from your 1 RAW exposure. If I say "set" it means set prior to tweaking.

I hope you are not using CS3. Very few use CS3 for serious HDRs. CS3 is not thought of highly by the officianados for producing HDRs it is too tame, giving results too close to reality. CS3 is brilliant for post tweaking the TONE MAPPED image.

The state of the art programme is Photomatix Pro. There is a free trial downlowd available from Photomatix. Unfortunately it processes 3 fine watermarks in the final process ... if you take the process to its conclusion.

If you are using Photomatix already to enhance the image, reload your existing settings firstly, Very rarely will I use the TONE COMPRESSOR over using the DETAIL ENHANCER. The Tone Compressor gives a resulting image too close to reality.

While in the 'Detail Enhancer' to get the look expected of an HDR , set the STRENGTH slider to 100 that will improve the richness of the overall image. It looks like it is set too low, possibly, below 70.

In LIGHT SMOOTHING, it looks like the setting is on VERY HIGH. Step the scale down one unit at a time until the gritty grimey look starts to appear. Stop stepping the LIGHT SMOOTHING down if ghosting starts or muddyness builds up.

When I'm doing an HDR, I remove all colour saturation in both the main COLOUR SATURATION and in the COLOUR tab. In the COLOUR tab set the TEMPERATURE to -10 and both HIGHLIGHT SATURATION and SHADOW SATURATION set to 0. The main COLOUR SATURATION is set to 0.

In the tab called MICRO, set the MICRO CONTRAST to 10 and the MICRO SMOOTHING to zero. In the photograph it looks like MICRO SMOOTHING is set too high.

I try to build the best b/w image possible, before I add colour. Then I add colour by setting the Colour Tab parameters firstly, then I increase the main COLOUR SATURATION .

The best hint I can give is, when you are starting to build your image, step every action to the lowest setting, this will give you a totally black canvas. Until the programme is second nature.

Then I start at the top slider and work my way to the bottom, then across the tabs at the bottom from left to right, leaving out the colour tabs. I move the sliders from full-on back to full-off to watch the extreme changes and then set the best setting and then tweak to a fine finish.

When you make changes make sweeping changes, otherwise you will not readily see changes happening if you are changing by degrees, then tweak the individual setting. Very rarely when I read the information when it is supplied with photos does it not say, HDR Photomatix post processing with PS or CS3.

Javier, would you like several references to some red-hot black/w HDR photographers? I'm a fan of HDRs, I've got my favourite artists, b/w is my favourite HDR medium.

Warren.