Mad at you people.

[Laura Beth]

In between editing photos last night, I decided to check out the forums on this site. Someone mentioned overuse of HDR. Curious, I searched for HDR in photoshop, and experimented.

Whoever mentioned HDR, I hate you. It burned my retinas, apparently. After browsing through the HDR options, I went back to editing my photo, but I could barely even see it anymore. I had to take a 20 minute break from editing before I could even see the image correctly.

So, yes. HDR is evil.

[stef]

Lol. It’s possible to do natural looking HDR, it’s just rare that someone does. I use HDR all the time, and the only noticeable difference is that there’s no noise in the shadows.

 

[Laura Beth]

Heh. I’m sure it’s possible. But the default options hurt.

[HennyM]

These are HDRs my husband took… it doesn’t need to be blinding you to be a good HDR photo.

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/pictures/120801-best-pictures-we-love-floods-china-pakistan/#/best-news-pictures-july-2012-abandoned-hotel_57565_600x450.jpg

http://mafia–hitman.deviantart.com/art/Flat-Iron-building-171192818?q=gallery%3Amafia–hitman%2F20512440&qo=60

http://mafia–hitman.deviantart.com/art/Flat-Iron-Building-2-217701342?q=gallery%3Amafia–hitman%2F20512440&qo=46

 

But yeah, as with everything you’ll have to know what you’re doing. i’m not a photographer, don’t claim to be and i probably wouldn’t even know how to do one myself, but before you condemn HDR, i thought, i might show you some other examples.

 

[pantsdetail]

I think HDR pictures are wonderful. I like the ones posted above. I’m not so good at them right now, but I like working with it.

[fstopper89]

HDR, when done properly and to the right type of image, can look awesome. I’ve seen a lot of fake HDR done by just oversaturating and burning… halos everywhere. Real HDR is by taking 3 or more exposures of the same scene and carefully meshing them together. There are specific programs to do it in. I had a college professor who did a lot of HDR with his Lake Tahoe images and it was breathtaking.

[dont.care]

The difference between 16bit HDR and 32bit HDR is night and day.. single exposure HDR is absolute garbage.

the more exposures at different ev’s gives you better quality end product.. When you create an HDR make it 32bit save as TIFF and open as Camera RAW.. sooooo much nicer than the grunge effect that 16bit gives you.. my 2cents

[Gerbles]

HDR stands for high dynamic range. As such, it’s meant for scenes that have too much dynamic range for the camera to capture. When used appropriately, it can take a photo to a whole other level. Some of the best landscapes I’ve seen are HDR. It’s when people use HDR indiscriminately and with zero skill, do you see the halos, crazy saturation and black clouds. It’s not all bad.

[cameraclicker]

I seldom do HDR and of those I have done, if you can go through my galleries and accurately pick out the HDR images, then they are failures.  I disagree with Ajay, single exposure HDR can help a number of problems while avoiding blur caused by movement during multiple exposures.  Done well, you never realize it is HDR.

Trey Ratcliff’s site, http://www.stuckincustoms.com/, is dedicated to HDR and contains lots of amazing, beautiful, photos.

[Egglington]

HDR needs to be done with restraint, however if done properly it can increase the dynamic range in a photograph making it feel more natural. Given the high dynamic range in RAW files these days, creating a HDR using bracketed images is not as necessary. Some well applied dodging and burning is far more effective and is less likely to result in the blown out fake effect you see in a lot of HDR images.

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