Was It Done With a Lens, or a Brush?

[Rokcet Scientist]

Interesting wrap-up article in the New York Times today:

August 3, 2006

Was It Done With a Lens, or a Brush?


Like many amateur photographers, Joe Dejesus posts his photos online and compares them to the work of others on the photo-sharing site Flickr. At some point last year, a number of landscape photos caught his eye with their vibrant tones and colors.

Three shots were merged to create the image at top:

The secret was a software technology known as H.D.R., for high dynamic range photography. And Mr. Dejesus quickly became one of its practitioners.

“You can get different combinations of colors you cannot achieve with photos,” said Mr. Dejesus, who posts his work under the pseudonym Kris Kros at www.flickr.com/photos/kros. “You can easily come up with something that looks like a painting.” [...]

Whole article at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/te...=1&oref=slogin (reg. required).

[sean_buerger]

Hey,

thanks for drawing our attention to that one. I had already forgotten this. I actually wanted to give HDR a try a while ago!

There's a way to do this with CS2. So if you have that, no need to buy any additional software.

Cheerio. Sean.

[badpickev]

is that why so many people ask me if this is one shot when i post some of mine.

[scoundrel1728]

I do something like this fairly often. I might have been able to do that in two shots or perhaps even doctor up just the middle one. About the only feature the bottom shot is good for is the specular reflection on the church dome.

Don't remember if I have already posted this one before, but here is one of my own that I did something similar with. Note the different exposure between the sky image and the two bottom ones.

[jfrancho]

I think that HDRI that look fake are failures. Somehow, the quest for greater dynamic range gets forgotten when one sees the rediculous contrast and saturation that can be acheived using this technique. Here are some examples that use either Photomatix, or blending to extend the DR.

3 Image Merge to HDR in CS2:


Two exposures blended using a luminance mask (ala TLR):


7 Image HDRI and Tone Mapped in Photomatix:


Several Image HDRI and Tone mapped in Photomatix, and then blended with a darker exposure by hand: