HDR Finishing : We’re Not Done Yet
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Today, we wrap up the HDR Image that we started last week. As a recap, in Beyond Ordinary HDR, we introduced the idea that HDR isn’t an end in itself, just another tool that ought to be considered part of your photographic workflow – not all of it. Last week, in HDR Techniques: Prepare Now, Avoid Headaches Later, we looked at the many ways of working on your images before taking them into the HDR Merging and Tone Mapping process. |
This week’s video wraps up our treatment of this helicopter image, showing that once the image is Tone Mapped, we still have a lot of work to do to take our image Beyond the Ordinary. Although we’ve used Photomatix in this case, “we’re not done yet!” More HDR goodness to come: next week; we’ll look at even more tricks and tips to help make your HDR images stand out in the crowd.
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Good series. In my subjective opinion though, the image you presented prepared by Photoshop’s HDR engine looked better than what you wound up with. By “better”, I mean, more natural-looking and without the obvious “HDR-Look” that you seem to be trying to avoid. When I first saw your finished result in the video thumbnail, I thought the helicopter was chrome-finished. (But it’s actually dark green.)
I appreciated that you worked on chromatic abberations. My first thought was that it is a different topic than HDR and shouldn’t have been covered. But on the other hand, I’ve had more than one HDR image “ruined” (as a finished product) by what would otherwise be acceptable chromatic abberations.
Good stuff.
-Jim
You’ve done really awesome job! thanks a lot for sharing this nice post & I’ll visit your site again 🙂