Wonder why this got moved here... we already have an HDR thread...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/401234/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/401234/
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"HDR is disgusting and it needs to die, it's worse than lens flares."
- Thread starter Blackberryroid
- Start date
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Because the existence of an HDR thread here does not negate the fact that this one was in the wrong forum.
Feel free to ask the mods to merge the 2.
Well since s/he was specifically talking about the HDR function on the iPhone. I'd agree with the OP that the iPhone forum would be the best for that. Also the threads are about two different things, and do not need merging.
Actually it combines it into ONE... (>_<)
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HDR... Just another tool in the photographic toolbox. Of course, some tools are more useful than others...
Image
I think that's an example of a tool that's difficult to use, not less useful.
Funny that cus I've sold a lot of prints of the top ones.
I think its very easy for photographers to criticise as they actually know how HDR images are made. A lot of people who likes those HDR images aren't into photography as a hobby/profession.
Funny that cus I've sold a lot of prints of the top ones.
I think its very easy for photographers to criticise as they actually know how HDR images are made. A lot of people who likes those HDR images aren't into photography as a hobby/profession.
In just over a month? You must have a really good place to market your shots.
I don't think it's because we know how they're made. It's when the results are so extreme and out of whack that I really get annoyed.
Eh? I shot the iceland one nearly 2 years ago, and the other about a month ago.
Its the iceland one thats done me proud. I only really sell locally and to freinds and family, so 'respectively' they're the ones that have sold best. I only really sell prints for a bit of pocket money.
The "top shot" is the one I clicked on and followed to your Flickr and it showed a date of 9/7. I thought that's the one you sold several prints of.
I had several friends and family tell me that want to buy mine, so I put up my website. None of them bought.....so perhaps the website wasn't the best choice because I know the pics don't suck.
(or perhaps they thought my prices were too high.)The "top shot" is the one I clicked on and followed to your Flickr and it showed a date of 9/7. I thought that's the one you sold several prints of.
I had several friends and family tell me that want to buy mine, so I put up my website. None of them bought.....so perhaps the website wasn't the best choice because I know the pics don't suck.
Oh really? I uploaded it a while ago, dont know why its showing a recent date on there.
Yeah it was slow at first, but im getting asked more and more now. Its normally my mums retired friends etc.
Personally, i love HDR.. when it doesn't look like HDR. As far as that cartoony garbage, i agree that HDR sucks. Lens flare really depends on how it's used, for me.
This one is supposed to discuss why HDR is horrible and why it needs to die. That thread is supposed to discuss what HDR can do (when used properly)
Unfortunately, to my eyes that looks computer-generated rather than something that I could see with my own eyes stood where the photog was. It just doesn't look real to me.
In comparison, the church photo mentioned earlier by Fujiko7 is very good:
And yes, I do loathe the cartoon-y ones, or the photos that make a vehicle look like a toy.
But everybody has opinions, and it's a damned good thing that we all like different things or life would be very boring.
I agree, it's an excellent example of what HDR is meant to do - reproduce the dynamic range that can be seen with an eye as opposed to the limited range that single photo from a camera can produce. However (and I'm probably just biased as I do a lot of outdoor HDR landscape photography), I personally think that indoor shots, although not necessarily bad, generally fail to showcase the power of HDR to really make colors pop and really be slightly surrealistic. But again, those are the types of photos I take, so I'm a bit partial to using HDR for landscapes
Really? He does have a tendency to swing between both heavy and subtle application of effects, but there's no disputing that he is easily one of the foremost pioneers and lead authorities on the subject. Would you care to share any particular photos of his that you dislike or think that he's "overdone" and why you think so? I'd love to see what others think of his work....
Exactly! Too bad I already voted
But I'm glad to see there's people who accept that the majority of "HDR" photos are overdone, surrealistic attempts at a better/more colorful/brighter photo that really just ends up making it look like a rainbow threw up all over them; terribly gag-inducing to look at.... This is a comparison I made (admittedly when I was first getting started into HDR processing) that pretty much shows what most people seem to think HDR is, and what it really should be:Thoughts?
These are both awful. The second one just looks more strikingly awful. The other image you quoted has a terrible tone mapped quality to it--look outside the windows! It's terrible. Every image in this thread looks bad to me and I am a fervent defender of HDR's viability (and this is all just my opinion); there are a few okay ones that could pass if the skies weren't so heavily dodged and burned and shadows lifted unnecessarily--but in every case it just "looks like HDR" in the same way so much UWA photography "looks like UWA;" if the technique isn't in the service of the subject it just gets wanky and there are a lot of wanky shots in this thread and so far no good ones. If the technique is used experimentally in some sort of novel way, form for the sake of form, that's fine, too, but I don't see it here. But, for instance, I don't like the sound of heavily compressed music (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) but when the sake of the sound is compression (Sleigh Bells) it might not be great but it's novel. (That comparison is strained because Kanye's is a great album mastered poorly and Sleigh Bells wrote a competent album with a well-implemented gimmick and, as always, content wins out even over bad mastering....)
Images like these are HDR done right. The first is naturalistic; the latter painterly; both are heavily processed. You can't immediately see where they defy tonal hierarchies, though, and there's no tonemapping halos since they don't use tonemapping. They have lots of contrast and beautiful light in the first place but beautiful light with a pretty high scene DR that needs to be compressed for the print; HDR techniques (zone system with dodging and burning and multiple exposures blended and dodged and burned in Photoshop, respectively) are used to subtly increase that contrast in an internally consistent way, but the sake of the photographs is the subject matter first, light second, and HDR way way down that list, as crucial as it might be to the "look."
I can't get realistic results with it at all. No idea why, i've seen others get nice shots with it.
You mean that it's blurry? That's just a bad attempt at a tilt shift effect, the intent was to get an HDR look on the building, the foreground was just blurred to draw attention away from it. If that's not what you meant though, could you please elaborate a bit?
Really? Neither looks very heavily processed to me
Maaaaybe the second one, but it certainly doesn't look "heavy" (although it's of course entirely possible that my perception of what "heavy processed" looks like is quite different from yours). I personally much prefer the look of the second photo to the first - it at least has a bit of an "HDR look" to it (exceptionally high contrast, high amounts of texture etc). The first photo may also be HDR, but I feel like a photo like that that does nothing more than allow the underexposed and overexposed ares to be properly seen in one photo almost defeats the artistic purpose of HDR and limits what it can really do. Yes, the true purpose of HDR photography is to increase the dynamic range of a photo, which that one certainly has done, but it just doesn't have the same dramatic feel to it that is generally why people use HDR photography (again, this is all my opinion - I may just be too accustomed to seeing tonemapped HDR's ). Do you just tend to prefer extra-subtle tonemapping or none at all to the tonemapped HDR's?Maybe it'd help to give an idea of what I feel to be a really good HDR photo:
Sorry, but this is exactly the kind of gaudy HDR I was thinking of when saying that most of the time, it's not done tastefully.Maybe it'd help to give an idea of what I feel to be a really good HDR photo:
![326788-5970x3918.jpg]()
You mean that it's blurry? That's just a bad attempt at a tilt shift effect, the intent was to get an HDR look on the building, the foreground was just blurred to draw attention away from it. If that's not what you meant though, could you please elaborate a bit?
Really? Neither looks very heavily processed to me
Maybe it'd help to give an idea of what I feel to be a really good HDR photo:
![326788-5970x3918.jpg]()
This was the photo where the windows bugged me:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/37571009/POTD900/Laurenskerk.jpg
It's not the worst photo I've ever seen, it's okay in a lot of respects, but dim windows make the whole thing feel flat and fake to me. It's very muddy and the lack of believably lighting makes the depth seem kind of ambiguous. The composition is okay and it could be a better photo processed appropriately or done without HDR. I don't know which blurred foreground photo you're referring to, sorry.
I can't blame you for liking the latter photo more than the first; Ansel Adams is generally held in pretty high regard! But I dig both of them; they both have very beautiful light and elegant compositions. I wanted to try and shoot in a style like Gregory Crewdson's until I discovered the budgets for his photos--approaching a million dollars, but I wanted to do large spaces with cinematic lighting and wait for the perfect sky, etc.--but obviously never was able to pull anything off. So I am naturally very fond of the light, the composition, the straight vertical lines, kind of a painterly David Lynch style of sorts, but a lot of his other work is overlit and tacky, to be fair. I just happen to like overlit and tacky from time to time...
That said, the photo you posted looks horrible to me, like a bad parody of the worst digital photography techniques. I'm sorry, it might be my ignorance or stubbornness, but I just don't see any merit to it at all. It's worse than instragram.
Alright, fair enough, to each his own
Maybe I'm just the only one that likes Trey Ratcliff With that said, would either of you mind posting a few more examples of what you consider to be "good" HDR photos, tonemapped or otherwise? I was introduced to HDR by Mr. Ratcliff, and so have naturally followed in creating photos like that one that you both seem to dislike so much. However, as that's been my main focus, I'm really interested to see what other people look for in a good HDR photo...