My first attempt: I'm going to start off apologizing I forgot to keep the original shot. I have one thats not hdr that I will post but it isn't one that I used to do the hdr. Any tips...

mariposa84 Loc: Rochester NY

I'm going to start off apologizing I forgot to keep the original shot. I have one thats not hdr that I will post but it isn't one that I used to do the hdr. Any tips comment critique criticism is welcome. Thank you for looking.

non HDR shot
non HDR shot...

magicray Loc: Tampa Bay, Florida

Are you sure you don't have them switched? The first shot is much better than the second.

mariposa84 Loc: Rochester NY

magicray wrote:

Are you sure you don't have them switched? The first shot is much better than the second.

no i labeled them correctly it was my very very very first attempt at hdr maybe i did it wrong? I have the Nikon D5100 and it has bracketing setting i set it to 2 and took 3 pictures using aperture priority. I clicked store original when posting those pics i don't know why its not working. I apologize, after taking the 3 photos I decided to see how well i could do on my "own" which is when i took that first photo. When processing the photos i forgot to keep the original photo and deleted all three of them. I didn't want to just post an hdr photo because this says before and after so i posted the undoctored photo. I hope this makes sense... any tips you have for me would be greatly appreciated.

Viceroy

I agree, the original has better range and contrast. What software?

GaryS1964 Loc: Northern California

Yep! #1 is better.

mariposa84 Loc: Rochester NY

Viceroy wrote:

I agree, the original has better range and contrast. What software?

I downloaded the three photos to lightroom and then selected them and hit merge in hdr pro in photoshop adobe. That is all I have do I need other programs or something to make this work. Maybe my photos were just crap so the hdr merge is crap. Well this is disappointing back to the camera for me. I also want to apologize that it took me so long to respond life is crazy and i haven't had much time to look at much of anything. Thank you for your patience and for trying to help me.

GaryS1964 Loc: Northern California

Mariposa84. Did you start out with RAW images or JPEG? While you can get decent results with JPEGs it is much better to start out with RAW images.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

I'm puzzled with the lighting change. The lighting in the top photo has more interest with some sun streaks; the lighting in the bottom photo looks flatter. There's also less apparent dynamic range in the bottom photo.

mariposa84 Loc: Rochester NY

GaryS1964 wrote:

Mariposa84. Did you start out with RAW images or JPEG? While you can get decent results with JPEGs it is much better to start out with RAW images.

I started out with RAW images...

mariposa84 Loc: Rochester NY

LoneRangeFinder wrote:

I'm puzzled with the lighting change. The lighting in the top photo has more interest with some sun streaks; the lighting in the bottom photo looks flatter. There's also less apparent dynamic range in the bottom photo.

Should i have taken more photos to merge together instead of just 3? In order to get more of a dynamic range? Is there anything else I can tell you that would help you help me figure out where I went wrong? I really like this concept of photography and would like to learn how to do this properly.

mariposa84 Loc: Rochester NY

I have another photo that I did in hdr but I don't have the original. Would it bother anyone if I posted it despite that?

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

mariposa84 wrote:

Should i have taken more photos to merge together instead of just 3? In order to get more of a dynamic range? Is there anything else I can tell you that would help you help me figure out where I went wrong? I really like this concept of photography and would like to learn how to do this properly.

Hard to say.... What I was puzzled about was in the top photo there is a sort of sun-dappled spot, which isn't in the processed photo.

I may be an exception but I use my histogram to select which exposures I will use. What I am looking for is "coverage of the histogram" from left to right. I generally do a 5 shot AEB set and then select based on the relative dynamic ranges of the brackets. EG, I will take a -1, 0 and +2 on occasion.

mariposa84 Loc: Rochester NY

LoneRangeFinder wrote:

Hard to say.... What I was puzzled about was in the top photo there is a sort of sun-dappled spot, which isn't in the processed photo.

I may be an exception but I use my histogram to select which exposures I will use. What I am looking for is "coverage of the histogram" from left to right. I generally do a 5 shot AEB set and then select based on the relative dynamic ranges of the brackets. EG, I will take a -1, 0 and +2 on occasion.

That may be because the top shot is not one of the three that i merged to make the second shot I accidently deleted those because I wasn't thinking. The top shot is a shot i took to see how well i could do on my own without merging photos together. Does that make any sense?

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

mariposa84 wrote:

That may be because the top shot is not one of the three that i merged to make the second shot I accidently deleted those because I wasn't thinking. The top shot is a shot i took to see how well i could do on my own without merging photos together. Does that make any sense?

Yes. That explains it! It means on not crazy (well at least for that!)

mariposa84 Loc: Rochester NY

LoneRangeFinder wrote:

Yes. That explains it! It means on not crazy (well at least for that!)

lol okay so now that we have established that you aren't crazy and that my hdr is junk! Does anyone have any tips for me so that my hdr picture gets better?