Comments Please

HI

I am very open to comments on my photos as I want to try and be the very best I can and understand landscape photographs inside out.

This is an HDR of a small local lake.

Taken with the kit lens 18-55 on my K-5
ISO80 (five images)
F11




Thanks!

QC

Well I really like it. You have spread the light levels around the scene nicely - this looks like the use of Photomatix Pro's 'Lighting Effects' buttons ?

And the colour tones look good I think (although maybe I'm not the best expert here :wink As far as realism goes, to me it seems as if there is a bit too much light inside the boat and in the grassy areas behind to the right - it doesn't seem to come from the natural sunlight which is obviously very diffused from the heavy cloud cover. The areas to the left and back over the lake look OK though.

With the sky I find the shadow levels dominate - personally I would pull up the shadows more towards mid tones and even out the contrast - the mids and highs could come up a bit too, I think this would look more 'natural'.

But its a great effort and the scene suits the style of processing IMO.

Not my cup of tea Alistair. Was HDR necessary? If it was could it not have been processed to give a more natural effect?

Each to their own of course

On the plus side - it is a classic composition and well executed. The sky is OK or at least inoffensive. However - I find the HDR treatment has completely spoiled the shot - it is too aggressive - it appears to have removed all natural tonal ranges and is unnaturally light in areas that just would not be light.

All of that said - nothing wrong with playing around with HDR - I do it myself often enough - sometimes it works - sometimes not. This one is a 'not' for me

Carl

The composition / scene is great, but I agree with Alan and Carl above, the processing has completely ruined it.

The greens are too 'yellow' and the scene doesn't look natural. I think there's scope also for bringing out more detail in shadow areas and for giving the image a touch of sharpening - it looks very soft.

I would suggest either finding the best image of the 5 in exposure terms and processing that one normally, or choosing maybe 3 of the 5 and combining them as layers rather than HDR processing them and see what comes out.

This has potential to be a lovely landscape shot, but not in it's current form. As mentioned on previous threads, this is only my personal opinion, I'm sure a lot of others will like the shot as it is.

Regards
David

HDR is just like a piano that's out of tune or a good
dinner that's been burnt to a cinder in the oven

There's never going to be an agreement about HDR - you either love it or hate it (and I think most 'ordinary' people would think this to be a lovely, well composed image) but there's a point beyond which it becomes 'over-done'. I think this image is close to that point (one or two of mine on flickr are well past this point, I admit!!)

It would be interesting to see one of the original 'out of camera' images.

Still love it tho!

martyn

A nice landscape but the boat ruins it for me.

As has been said, the composition is fine but the HDR processing has made the picture unnatural. Thats not to say HDR is the problem, over processing is the problem for me with this one.

I think HDR is a useful tool, just as any processing is but it needs to be used with subtlety if you want to make a realistic picture. That goes for any processing.

Of course, if you want to create a fantasy then unrealistic is what you want. In the end it is your picture and for you to decide.

I think the problem is that it may be difficult to extract much of a striking image out of any single frame, as the lighting is so flat and there are fairly muted and dull tones throughout. It could be argued I think that it is the HDR that makes it (or could with a subtler approach)

How about this ? Make a plain, straight processing of the shot with a simple contrast range and realistic uniform lighting. Open both versions (they must be the same dimensions) in Photoshop (or other layer-capable program), copy your HDR one and paste in onto the straight version as a new layer.

Then you can use layer opacity and / or paint over it with a layer mask to carefully bring through aspects of the HDR effects at targeted spots - this way you can get a flavour of that interest and lighting detail provided by the HDR process, but without the effects being too OTT.

i hope you dont mind i had a go with the one you posted

A big improvement Shaun it would be good to see what can be done with the original unprocessed files as I think there's an excellent image waiting to be revealed!

Regards
David

I would love to have a go

Good work Shaun. The main improvement is getting rid of the yellow cast. I also agree with Nigel's suggestion of selectively mixing the HDR with a more straightforwardly processed version. I would personally like to see the sky a shade or two lighter so it resembles the real sky reflected in the water.

Its just as well I have a thick skin!

I guess its all subjective