I tried the HDR in CS4, and at least this time it is pretty heavily over the top. I had to put in four adjustment different layers to get this to look not so cartoonish. The HDR in CS2 didn't seem so hard to work with.

I think this still looks pretty bad, but I'm wondering what others might think. The pink bit at the top of the sky is real: that's actually what the clouds looked like, it's not an artifact of the processing.



Some of the brushwork is still visible, I haven't been too motivated to clean it up because the results aren't really there.

I'm pretty disappointed in the apparent sharpness, too. The original files are definitely sharper than this, although now I notice that they were taken at 15mm and f/16, so even they could be sharper. It shouldn't be an alignment problem, as this was shot on a tripod with auto bracketing and a remote.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Attachment #1, (jpg file)

I think it looks pretty decent. The layering and blending are fine, nothing obvious at this size.

It seems like you want to keep it as 'realistic' and not show any signs of HDR at all, but the scene doesn't seem to lend itself to that.

When I look at your shot, and imagine being there, I don't think my eyes would show the scene as you've produced here (maybe just a mental block on my part). The foreground completely cast in shadow would probably have a greater 'apparent' brightness.

--
Sampson

Visit my gallery.

Hi Brian,

I really like the tone compression. The only thing that looks a little "off" is the reds and yellows. I hope this helps.

Kraig

"The wisest follow their own directions" -Euripides
"I thought there would be more elephants" -C. Columbus

> The only thing that looks a little "off" is the reds and yellows.

LOL, they're the bits that I toned down the least!

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Hi Brian,

I think I was in too much of a hurry when I wrote my post. I meant the saturation of the reds and yellows look just slightly unnatural. I do realise that the actual colors out west can also look very unnatural Also, I forgot that I'm viewing the pic on IE7 which can screw up colors, especially reds. And you may have wanted to bring out those area to draw the viewers eyes into the picture. I'm glad I made you laugh though!

Kraig

"The wisest follow their own directions" -Euripides
"I thought there would be more elephants" -C. Columbus

I should have mentioned that this was taken at Red Rock Canyon, near Las Vegas. The reds are a tad more saturated than in real life, but are actually fairly close. I think that the main issue is how the HDR was handled - the sky was ridiculous as it came out of HDR. I'll have to go back and try again, perhaps with some other software.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Brian,

This looks good, but oversaturated, a common fault with the HDR engine in CS2/3/4.

Try Picturenaut. A million times easier to use, better color accuracy and nearly free.

""

I'll look at Picturenaut. I guess I should try Photomatix, too.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

Brian, if you play around with the other software it'd be great if you posted your trial results too.

I've never managed to get anything remotely attractive using program initiated HDR, but have only tried the built-in feature from Photoshop CS2/3.

--
Sampson

Visit my gallery.

Hi Brian,

Looking at your image, I thought maybe the contrast was a bit too flat, perhaps from the HDR process, so I copied your image into PS-CS3 and took a look at it.

First off your bright areas are clipping just a tad on the histogram. If you shot this in RAW format, in ACR, click on tone icon, then the "point" graphic and pull down the white levels (top right) which will recover this area in the image.

I gave your image a Levels adjust, then sharpened it a bit in Unsharp mask, using for this file size, a radius 0.3 pixels, and a sharpening amount of 100%. I am using a colour calibrated Apple Cinema screen.

This looks more natural to my eye, almost what you would see with Velvia 50. What do you think?

Cheers,
Frederic in Montréal

Nothing ventured... nothing gained!
http://www.RemarkableImages.ca

Attachment #1, (jpg file)
Attachment #2, (jpg file)

Hi Again Brian,

After I uploaded the reworked image above, I noticed what appears to be noise in the shadows of the peaked mountain. My levels adjust made it more obvious, so I then took a look at your original and its there too, but very faint.

What was your ISO setting when you took this image? Using a tripod, I would image you had your cam set at the lowest native rez. If yes, then it would appear the HDR process, or your corrective actions there after, might have slightly degraded the image.

I would be interested to learn more about your original settings.

Cheers,
Frederic in Montréal

Nothing ventured... nothing gained!
http://www.RemarkableImages.ca

Hmm... I don't see the attachments in your first post, but thank you for trying.

Noise: I shot these at ISO 100 (native for D2x), and I shot 5 frames from -2 to +2 EV, so I really shouldn't have any noise in the original NEFs. Of course, in an HDR image, I'm not really sure which pixel came from what file, and I certainly don't know much about the HDR process, so I could easily have created the noise and known it. To be honest, I'm not very happy with the overall result so I wasn't even looking for stuff like noise.

Perhaps this weekend I will try again with Photomatix.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

"Hmm... I don't see the attachments in your first post, but thank you for trying."

You're right. Me thinks the Forum admin guy deleted them because they were NOT HDR images, just an adjustment on your original.

So here's one more try at it... hopefully it will be overlooked and left alone!

In the reworked image, I also darkened the sky with the gradient tool, setting the mode to colour burn, and the opacity to 28%.






If it gets deleted again, all I can say is... c'est la vie! (That's life!)

Cheers,
Frederic in Montréal

Nothing ventured... nothing gained!
http://www.RemarkableImages.ca

Attachment #1, (jpg file)
Attachment #2, (jpg file)