[Johnny Brown]

Don't get it, I presume you mean the blur? I wouldn't be at all sure thats been added. In fact, if it has, its been done very well, particularly on the legs.

On the other hand his hair looks hyper-real, though I suspect that's due to a more meticulous care regime than I'm familiar with, not photoshop.

[dave]

it does look a bit HDR to me, but could have been done with judicous use of a softbox i suppose.

[cofe]

regardless, it looks rubbish. like someone's done a shit on my eyes.

[SA Chris]

I'll take your word for it on that one

[GCW]

That hair is definitely 'shopped.

[cofe]

I'll take your word for it on that one

i'm not proud of it, but it was worth every penny.

[Jaspersharpe]

Someone's certainly 'shopped the trumpet out of it anyway.

[Bonjoy]

regardless, it looks rubbish. like someone's done a shit on my eyes.

Sorry, I couldn't find the light switch

[SA Chris]

Someone's certainly 'shopped the trumpet out of it anyway.

Strumpet still visible though.

(yes I know what a strumpet is, I just like the word, and feel it is underused)

[Fiend]

That is true. Quality word.

[dave]

This on ain't bouldering but i thought it was bad enough to warrant a look:

HDR NIGHTMARE! my eyes are burning. make it stop.

[slackline]

This on ain't bouldering but i thought it was bad enough to warrant a look:

HDR NIGHTMARE! my eyes are burning. make it stop.

Pass it over to Adam, he'll tone it down 

[Fiend]

I still don't quite get this HDR business. I've read the descriptions / dismissals in the QNCP thread but still not sure what's going on with it, why it looks like it does, and what indeed it does look like...

[Stubbs]

My understanding is:
If you look at the lovely pic above you'll notice that everything is well exposed over a high dynamic range: I assume it was taken as three photos: one of the path/foreground where the sky would have been blown out, one of the sky with the foreground underexposed and the clouds blown out and one of the clouds with everything else well underexposed.  Then you put them all together and get the result above.

Any of the three photos would have had areas that were underexposed or blown out due to the light conditions, but if you put them all together you get a rubbish photo with everything exposed.

Here's a more obvious example
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thepretender/521368215/

[philo]

I still don't quite get this HDR business. I've read the descriptions / dismissals in the QNCP thread but still not sure what's going on with it, why it looks like it does, and what indeed it does look like...

you take 3 photos, well 3 images of the same thing preferably in RAW
make one UNDER exposed
one massively OVER exposed,
leave he 3rd normal
and use some software (example http://www.hdrsoft.com/)   and it comes out like so,
some good examples of HDR here
http://stuckincustoms.com/2006/06/06/548/

couple of examples


i think it looks alright when its more subtle.

[slackline]

you take 3 photos, well 3 images of the same thing preferably in RAW
make one UNDER exposed
one massively OVER exposed,
leave he 3rd normal

Its called "bracketing"

If you shoot in RAW you don't need to take three pictures, you can tweak the RAW image to produce the three shots you require and then overlay them using layers/blending.

My D50 has the option to 'bracket' that is you take one picture and it will produce three, one as shot, one under exposed, and one over exposed.  You can get the same effect by using a tripod and shooting the same scene with different appertures (but the same shutter speed).

[jfw]

hey that's my french mate sandrine

taken by my brother in law (he can't help himself)

its even shy yorkshireman spotting

[dave]

most of those look terrible to my eye. HDR done well is fine, but if you're looking at a photo and its clearly HDR then its been overdone. Bringing down difficult dynamic range has been done for years using grads or flash, which can also be grossly overdone, however HDR seems to be much worse for this since most people don't carry around 20 stops of grads with them, and grads don't make everything grey or add halos round everything. Plus with grads you're generally trying to bring the contrast to the range that mimics what your eye sees of a scene, rather than to go way beyond that. Most HDR images suffer from a complete lack of blacks or whites in the images, which tends to make them look unnatural to the eye too. The human eye is pretty good at knowing when something reeks of wrongess.

bracketing is shooting several images to get one with the exposure right (often done with film), this is not neessarily HDRing unless you're combining several together in software.

HDRing from one single RAW image ain't a great idea, since your shadow areas will get noisier, and your highlights might start to get weird colour artefacts etc.

[cofe]

the interesting thing about the one dave posted is that the clouds are still blown out...

it just goes to show that while you can lead a mouse to a candle, you can't illuminate a candle with a mouse.

[slackline]

most of those look terrible to my eye. HDR done well is fine, but if you're looking at a photo and its clearly HDR then its been overdone. Bringing down difficult dynamic range has been done for years using grads or flash, which can also be grossly overdone, however HDR seems to be much worse for this since most people don't carry around 20 stops of grads with them, and grads don't make everything grey or add halos round everything. Plus with grads you're generally trying to bring the contrast to the range that mimics what your eye sees of a scene, rather than to go way beyond that. Most HDR images suffer from a complete lack of blacks or whites in the images, which tends to make them look unnatural to the eye too. The human eye is pretty good at knowing when something reeks of wrongess.

bracketing is shooting several images to get one with the exposure right (often done with film), this is not neessarily HDRing unless you're combining several together in software.

HDRing from one single RAW image ain't a great idea, since your shadow areas will get noisier, and your highlights might start to get weird colour artefacts etc.

 

[Bubba]

If you shoot in RAW you don't need to take three pictures, you can tweak the RAW image to produce the three shots you require and then overlay them using layers/blending.

That doesn't work nearly as well as using 3 shots.

HDR is an interesting technique that is easy to overdo. That can be fun in itself but the subtly done ones are much better if you're attempting to convey realism.

[magpie]

I think stuff like this is fab;

HDR is an interesting technique that is easy to overdo. That can be fun in itself but the subtly done ones are much better if you're attempting to convey realism.

I wouldn't have thought realism is what they were going for using that kind of technique, or are they and it's just badly done 

[Fiend]

Hmmm, I kinda get it now.

In some of the extreme cases it doesn't seem to be a vast improvement over abusing Photoshop's Shadow/Highlight function.

[Eddies]

That cityscape looks like one on those ghastly light changing pictures you find in Indian restaurants. Well gay

[dave]

I'm sure theres something wrong about this but I can't quite put my finger on it.......