Processing opinions please

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Ian
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Ok I decided to stick this one in here as I have been having a play with combining 3 images and need honest critique on how it has turned out.......

Does it look natural over processed?

Please don't be afraid to say what you think because if I want to continue combining more than one image I need to know it looks ok.

DERWENT-VALLEY13.jpg
 
I am no expert, but it looks good to me! The colours look spot on and not over processed :)
 
Sometimes i look at a HDR image and think its made something different and interesting out of it using the process.

Other times they look somewhat flat, a bit dull and have a camera noise look in places.
I'd put this one in the second category. It is obvious it is a bright sunny day but it all looks too muted. All a matter of taste though. Someone else will love it.
 
Looks a good start to me. Have you played with the tone mapping in Photomatix, as that's the place where the likes of KenCo have got the final result down to a fine art
 
Minimeeze; thanks for taking the time to comment.......hope the interview went ok(y)

RobertP; I know what you mean, appreciate any further comments on how to lose the muted look if it's possible.

DJW; You don't know what you have started here;) ..........I have had a play with tone mapping etc but no where near as good as KenCo!

The one I have posted was done via >Combine>Highlights & Shadows adjust.
 
Cheers Matt...........I might even have a play in RSE with different exposures.
 
RobertP said:
Sometimes i look at a HDR image and think its made something different and interesting out of it using the process.

Other times they look somewhat flat, a bit dull and have a camera noise look in places.
I'd put this one in the second category. It is obvious it is a bright sunny day but it all looks too muted. All a matter of taste though. Someone else will love it.
Click to expand...


I'm of the opinion that HDR pics are only really needed, or indeed look good when you're shooting into the light, or have a HUGE range of contrast. The pic in the first post appears to have neither of these things, so doesn't look quite right. It appears flat. You have to remember that the whole point of a HDR pic is to compress the dynamic range so that all the information, from highlight to shadow are visible. If you have a source scene where all that is visible and within the range of the chip anyway, why compress it? It just makes it flat.

For what it's worth, I think that shouldn't have been processed as a HDR pic at all, as it clearly didn't need it.

It's a nice landscape, and I think it would be stronger without the HDR.
 
The spread of RAW for a single shot is about 5 stops, with high contrast scenery having a range of about 8 stops & the human eye having a 10 stop range.

I would say any shot taken with land & sky in it, will probably break the 5 stop limit of RAW ? We perform very basic HDR everytime we add a grad filter for the sky, or in PS adjust levels/burn/dodge skys back in etc.

In summary I believe the shot would never look good without some adjustment to bring the sky back into line with rest of shot. What do others think ?
 
DJW said:
The spread of RAW for a single shot is about 5 stops, with high contrast scenery having a range of about 8 stops & the human eye having a 10 stop range.

I would say any shot taken with land & sky in it, will probably break the 5 stop limit of RAW ? We perform very basic HDR everytime we add a grad filter for the sky, or in PS adjust levels/burn/dodge skys back in etc.

In summary I believe the shot would never look good without some adjustment to bring the sky back into line with rest of shot. What do others think ?
Click to expand...

That wouldn't be a shot I'd use a grad for. The sky seems a nice saturated blue... I may have used a polarising filter if the sun wasn't directly behind me, but I don't think it warrants any contrast adjustment. It looks flat to me.
 
Appreciate the comments............good to see different opinions.

Think I will leave HDR to the experts although I will continue to have a play as I love the fun of it.

One of the reasons I tried HDR on this image was that I took over 250 images at the weekend but after viewing them on the PC I was left feeling a little disappointed with my efforts.:(
 
Nothing wrong with that other than what Robert says looking a little flat.

Hope you don't mind...had a little play with your image.
I ran tonemapping on it after converting back to a tiff then curves and shadow/highlight....so please excuse my quick attempt on this jpeg quality image.

derwentvalley13photomatix7hz.jpg
 
nice job Ken, really gave that some pep!
 
Ken really has given it that Postcard punch! Would losing some of the water in the foreground to give a letterbox crop add impact?
 
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