Why I love HDR...

Medley,
Interesting to see not just a saturation boost, but an actual color shift towards the blue end of the spectrum in your HDR examples. They do appear much sharper though!

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Originally Posted by Medley

Yep, by and large I would agree with you drg, though lately I've been experimenting with pushing the edge of the "HDR isn't for every photograph" envelope.

Clearly, there are instances where HDR doesn't work. But my current theory goes something like this: At the end of the day, an HDR image- isn't. You've got to tone map it back down to an 8 bit image to post/print. So it seems to me that the greatest benefit from HDR can be gained in the adding of detail.

It is generally accepted (I hope...) that one can give an image increased depth by giving it a mid-level contrast boost. In other words, sharpening the midtones. But in pp, sharpening is a misnomer. Sharpness is defined as the amount of detail at the high-contrast edges of an image. In most cases, adding detail isn't an option, one must simply increase the contrast to provide the illusion of sharpening. But HDR allows you to actually add detail. You can add sharpness to the digital image.

Here are two examples. In both instances, the top image is an HDR composite of 5 blended images, and the bottom image is the center image used to create the HDR. The only sharpening added to either image was a result of downsizing the image to post here. All images were shot with a Canon Drebel XT, ISO 100, f13

Now, I'm NOT saying that this is the only use for HDR, just that it's the one I'm currently exploring. TF, I hope that this explains what I was talking about.

- Joe U.

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I think I understand what you are saying, and see it as a 'multi-shot exposure to the right'. I can see detail enhancement, but I still think the biggest enhancement is the recovery of the blown out sky. This area is not within the original 0-255 range. It is not a result of finding more tonal values within the existing range. It is defining a new ‘white’. It is making the dynamic range wider – HDR. - TF

We sort of hijacked this thread it looks like with a lot of 'related' HDR topics.

I'll still contend for a couple of reasons that HDR is not for every photograph and some examples in this post are not exploiting more than a slight expansion of the Dynamic Range of an image.

One item that needs clarification, HDR is tone mapping. That's the 'magic' set of algorithms and theory that makes it, HDR, work.

Photomatic Pro lets you set various parameters to exploit this in uses other than the 10-13 stop or greater DR but then it should probably be referred to as Extended or eXtreme DR work. Extended is when the inputs and result is still with the range of the original cameras basic dynamic range and eXtreme is when not only are the composited images spread out over lighting conditions but also in time such as combining day and night shots to get even more effect.

Taking a single image and 'developing' the RAW different ways and combining the results is properly known as Exposure Blending. Has been since the days of black and white film. Via masks and burning many images have been improved on various grades of paper for a looong time. It can be done with tone mapping software but this is an area where the program can 'make up' data and you get blurs and color edges that never existed.

If the original images/photo does not exceed the dynamic range of the sensor, whatever you do won't 'expand' it. It is a shifting phenomena that adds data in a different place from where it originally occured, but the expansion is not cumulative as in a wide word (32 bit) process. If anything the data is being spread out or smeared over a wider range. It isn't all bad.

You can, as has been demonstrated quite nicely, take a series of images and combine them to get a better or more pleasing photograph. There are other ways of course to achieve this with various post-processing tools. The EDR use is perhaps more automated than masking/layers etc. in Adobe Photoshop, or the Capture 1 or Lightzone approaches, but it doesn't seem to produce an inherently greater, just different photo in the end.

One thing we all are somewhat hampered by in these discussions is that each software manufacturer has labeled certain controls or adjustments in ways that don't do the same thing! Photoshop even has different lightness controls as an example in the same program. The LAB vs the RAW controls as one example.

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Originally Posted by stu-52

By the way, does anyone think that my processed HDR image is "over the top" or would you say it was right on?

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I think that you are evaluating and exploring the photographic process well.

In a year from now, you will have gained so much experience, through experimentation you will almost not believe where you have been, with post processing.

HRDs are just another technique of processing. HDRs reveal tones photographers didn't think existed in their images. I'm often surprised with what I find, deep in an image.

Since photography started, astute photographers have been searching and striving to find and pull from their shots, every last degree of (contrast index and) tonality.

HDRs are cool. Explore heaps, be your own worst and most ruthless critic ... think about your work heaps, and show your new images even more.

Warren.