This set of pictures, together, is very instructive about the values and conundrums of issuing light to an already lit image in post processing.
The existing light is distributed according to the rules of nature and falls off rapidly. While the brain doesn't do calculations of the inverse square law, it has learned expectations of how things should look and recognition of the sources of light on a scene.
So when we solve problems of poor, (or strong), lighting as we photograph a special scene, taking a series of under and over exposed images allows us to be creative in post processing.
So Cem cam across this indoor abandoned ruin of a place, a Word War II bunker! There are irregular broken walls asnd unlit inner rooms, all so interesting but hardly visible.
As we can see this hardly provides the powerful experience that being their in person, (being able to stare in the darkness and accommodate the eyes), where as human beings, our brains can add up thousands of images without any effort!
Cem_Usakligil said:
And this is the end result of HDR tone mapping, using SNS-HDR Pro followed by a touch of contrast correction in Nik ColorEfex4 and lens distortion correction in LR (the jpg is already corrected by the camera but not the raw).
Well, now it's alive. We can see more, we know more and feel that it's alive and much more compelling! We've little experience of Word War II bunkers, but the light distribution would make us turn around to see what's there too! This transformation is so effective as it takes a very complex flat and uninteresting "dull" image and makes it compelling.
However, Cem did not make it beautiful and it's still grim as it should be. The issue of "over cooked" hardly applies, since we need to see what we could not, and some brinksmanship is unavoidable.
Bravo Cem
an interesting and essential thread.
I have been using for long the exposure fusion technique, always trying to avoid grungy pictures…
As a professional and commercial photographer, it allows me to save a huge amount of time while shooting, because one do not need to add light.
Of course the time saved will be used in PP !
Also on the "artistically" side it allows me to render the real atmosphere. No tricks !
As a Mac User, I cannot use SNS (old debate !) but use the free and very simple ImageFuser then some more work in CS or even LR.
I started to use this technique for a shoot of a very contemporary interior of yacht (the CNB 100 Chrisco):
Here, we have an amazing result! There are no photographers I know who can best this, even with studio lights. The space is generously lit, with a welcome invitation for us to view everything! Ou mood is elevated! When we feel that good, we'll linger and so the picture works for us, the photographer and of course the builders of this magnificent yacht! There's no sense of the technique itself announcing itself or even hinting it was ever there! It's as if the scene was born like this, perfect with no artificial edges, seams or uneven light to steal away our attention on the magnificent yacht interior.
Notice that the light through the open cabin door is much brighter. Others, less experienced, might have re-saturated those colors and brought down the over bright light. Not so! It must be as shown to signal where the light is coming from to flood the entire interior with perfect light. If the outside was Kodachrome rich and controlled at the highlights, we'd have lost faith with the pictures integrity. That one fault would have been catastrophic! It's here, and not grunginess, that good photographers make the most mistakes. do what every you like to your picture, but never contradict mother nature!
Of course, this is what I term a "Rent a Chateau" movie. If one films Versailles, of course it will be stunningly beautiful. But in truth, it's not that simple. It does have to be
shown well, and that's what Nicolas has achieved to the nth!
Now with people, it's much harder:
It's almost as perfect as the previous image but the light on the face is, perhaps, very slightly more open than absolutely needed. However, that's a stretch at finding a fault, as next time, I might not see it!
In the image painstakingly photographed by Norman Rockwell, however, using many sheet films, all the faces are too open. But for him, he takes a picture with nothing in the room and adds faces, one at a time. Since their expressions are key, he can disobey all rules of great HDR, and evenly light every one of them with no qualms or conscience!
In each case, these three highly skilled and sensitive artists decisions on relighting were made according to the experience they want to deliver, not according to some presets and that's the key to using HDR well.
For the rest of us, it's very risky to use HDR at all, as we can easily damage a reasonable picture and make the process dominate the content!
Asher