I dont hate HDR!!! I just dont like when its done improperly. There's a big difference

 

Is the reason some professional photographers don't like HDR is because too many people take advantage of how simple it is to do it and then some people come out saying "OMG I R PROFESSIONAL NAO!"


Or am I just way off base? lol

 

Those first two mustang shots are badazz.

 

Thanks!



I was actually gonna say the same thing about the supra shots that are up as well as the one bridge image.

 

Pic from India that I messed with.

 

heres a quick one i just took out side my house..dont be to hard.im still trying to learn cs3

 

So, I think I'm probably one of your haters...

First: imo there's a difference between HDR and tonemapped images, and there's a lot of people that confuse the two...

High Dynamic Range by it's very namesake is a process that allows for a larger dynamic range than is possible in a single exposure. The process is to take several images of a scene with varying exposures and combine them to create one image with a single optimal exposure. This means there are no blown highlights and no areas completely lost to shadows.

Since the contrast of an image is perceived by it's variation in luminance, and HDR images reduce some luminance values and increase others to even them out, the contrast of an HDR image is lower than that of a typical single exposure.

Tone mapping is basically the process of restoring the contrast lost when creating an HDR image. Obviously there can be different goals in tone mapping an image. One goal would be to restore contrast to an image to obtain a realistic scene, the other would be to maximize the contrast in an image... this is what I think is typically over done in the images touted on the web as being HDR.

Here is a 5 shot HDR image...



I took and processed that shot last year.
In reviewing it before posting here, it is obvious that there could be a little more shadow detail... something that tends to happen in my hdr images in an attempt to retain realism.

Another shot that is even older, but does a better job showing increased dynamic range.
It also shows the downfall of HDR images in it's lack of contrast...


Flame away.

 

The easiest way for me to project it (and don't take this to mean I'm a professional photographer or complete HDR hater) is this: HDR is to photography as rice is to modified car.

You can put a body kit on a car and make it look great, but 90% of the time when you see a body kit on a car it's unpainted on a primer 240 or Civic. HDR goes the same way in that you can have an HDR pic that looks great or you can have an HDR pic that looks like 90% of the HDR pics you'll see. Make sense?

In order to fully understand when HDR should be used, you have to understand the concept of dynamic range. If a scene's dynamic range is larger than what a camera's sensor can capture then by all means you should use HDR. If you're just doing it for effect, then it is effectivley just camera rice IMO - it can look good but chances are you're just trying to turn an average picture into something that it's not.

Call me a purist, call me an HDR hater, call me whatever you want... but that's my view on it.

 

^ Amen.

 

Dude, makes complete sense, so basically my pictures are considered the rice version of HDR But I do understand, I only did it because it was my first time and I wanted to see how it comes out, in which I do like the way it looks but I understand what you mean, I mean all there is in the pic is my car, and then an ugly driveway in front of a dirty garage lol. My next pics I want to get in a really good location and make them come out much better, but thanks for clearing that up!