Paris HDR - blah

Howdy amigos e amigas :D

What do you think? A bit too much? I don't personally know, just throwing it out there. I finally got me a copy of photomatrix and will finally get to combine all the HDR photos I shot the last few years. The saturation on this one is blinding, i know! :cool:

http://gallery.photographyreview.com...00/eiffel1.jpg

I think people either like HDR or they don't. I am very firmly in the 'don't' category, I'm afraid. Having said that, the thing that strikes me about this isn't so much the level of saturation, as the colours themselves. The mix of yellows and greens don't seem to me to be terrible attractive - maybe it needs something of a push towards the blues and reds?

Cheers
Mike

It is 'processed' and has a very bright, metallic look that is probably not to everyone's taste, but I think it has an appeal. I don't like the cloud/sky junction in the upper right, but that could be 'fixed'. - TF

I'm a fan of hdr in the right circumstances and this could be one of them.
Not sure what happened here but I'd play with those sliders some more.
Definitely like the composition.

Glad to see you posting again!

Perhaps somewhat ironically, I like what's going on underneath the Tower and at bottom left. I think those details make the image.

I also think Mike may be onto something with the call for a color shift. Could be worth a try.

I'm also not in the camp of the HDR look, but somehow this does not go in the overdone category for me. This seems to retain a somwhat natural yet unatural look abut it.
I agree there are interesting things going on in the lower areas especially in the lower left .
Many wonderful aspects of the image to ponder over, but I'm not sure it all comes together to be better than the sum of its parts, so to speak.
Your night shots always have a certain quality about them though that i find intriguing and this one is no exception.

Thanks guys :)

I know the colours are terrible. The original shots looked like this. I attempted at fixing the colour tempreture in the raw when i first open them. but this (tungsten setting) was the best if you can believe it , hehe. it look more natural than any other colour temp. i tried.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I knew this shot was a bit of a blaah boring, and i didn't expect many comments. but to my surprise! there were a few :)

Thanks again.

dray, man.. I know this is gonna sound crazy but i've been working 16-18 hours a day for the last 4 months! and will continue to work at this pace for quite some time to come. that's why i'm not around as much. On the weekends, I try to stay away from everything computer! since i'm on that thing for those many hours daily . hehe.

I tried a quick hue shift on this one and do believe Mike was right, blues produce a nice range of color, but some desturation is required.

Second shot is the blue layered over the original in "hue" blend mode

I am not a HDR fan, but would be interested in seeing the original image without the HDR processing. The composition is outstanding.

I think most of it's very good, but I am not sure about the water cannons and how they affect the overall feeling of the image. It's like one aspect - the tower and reflection - has a magical feeling, and then the cannons add a technical, engineering effect that conflicts with the rest. Ah.. mais que peut-on faire?

Um...I don't know what HDR really means...but I am a fan...

The colors in the original are a little "in your face," but I think the structure is, too -- so it works for me. I really like jetrim's blue version as well.

It is very cool how you composed so all elements lead to the tower. Good eye!!

Paula, hdr, stands for high dynamic range.
Our eyes have much more dynamic range than the best camera...we can see details in darker and brighter areas at the same time or our eyes and brain can adjust very quickly to do both.
With programs like photomatix, we take three or more shots of the same place/subject with different exposures and then use photomatix to combine them so that all or more of the scene is correctly exposed, without areas that are too dark to pick out detail or too bright so as to be washed out.
I've done a bit of it and some people like to make them weird(the only word I can think of) while others, (myself included) try to make them look to be realistic..

Jetrim, I like your takes on this, especially the blue one.

slayman, I'll upload it to my gallery or post it here this weekend (the original) if this thread isn't too far down by then. It looks like the image i posted here only without the detail in the foreground.

GB, thanks, i actually positioned the canons there, sorta another element that leads the eye to the tower.

Paula, thanks you! Yes as Frog mentioned, HDR is just combining multiple exposures to achieve a single image where the majority of the photo is properly exposed. Think of a sun back lit subject. If you expose for the sky the person comes out totally black, and if you expose for the person, the sky turns out totally white. What if you can expose for both and combine the sky out of the first and the person out of the 2nd? that's it! then you get one shot of both the person and the sky well exposed for. That's HDR :)

I like your original but there seems to be too much grain, especially in the sky, upper right. You might want to try and do a noise reduction in a layer on the sky. You might also try and do a lens correction and warp the tower more vertical without just straightening and ruining the cannons. Under distort in cs4

like this...

Oh, wow, I love the noise reduction there. Yeah the grain was a result of the photomatrix treatment. but i do like the smoothness of your version! thanks! I'll look in to working on it.

Thanks, Frog and Leels, for the HDR 101 -- I love this stuff -- but my brain is exploding.

Rod: Your edit is awesome. I don't know what you said or did, but it sure works.

Overall I like it (particularly after the tower straightening and sky NR edit and the explanation of HDR) my only real issue is the reflection of the tower which drags my attention away from everything else

I have to say my opinion on HDR is just blah, I'm not a fan of it.
At least not if you can tell it's HDR :)

You're welcome paula.

thanks kisu

Paul. lol me too. hence the title ;) my opinion of HDR is also blah, but.... I'm just trying to hone my skills at it, and maybe one day, I'll be able to produce HRD's that aren't HDR'ish.

w.slayman, Here's the original. cheers

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/6505/originalhdrpr.jpg

I like HDR, and I try it on many of my photos, in this particular case Iike the original photo betterr than the hdr version

I use Capture nx2, for the the original photo I would suggest
Dlight for the lower left corner
and a bit of sharpening

Another vote for the original. I play around with HDR a lot, but in this case your original is better. More details in the reflection, clouds still look very good. Have to say though, I do like the foreground colors better in the HDR.