Jan 18 2008HDR Images Of Japan Are Beautiful, Stunning

High Dynamic Range photos of your penis? If you have too many dark and light spots, you should see a doctor.

http://theunsoberlife.com

Woah they look like CS maps. Sweeet. The truck one IS pretty freakin cool.

Photoshop has the option "convert to HDR," and then it imports everything to Bridge, where you select the images, mess with curves if you want to, and there you go...while I've done a little bit of this, my images haven't turned out like these, these are awesome. I have to agree, they do look like something from video games, but the images are great.

WOW, those are f***ing amazing. I'll have to look into how to change the exposure on my digital camera.

if you have a camera that supports bracketing (a digi SLR will) it's much easier as it will snap 3-5 pictures in a row using different exposure/ev values. if you don't, you can still do this with your digicam, but it's much harder because you'll be changing settings and you want the camera to shoot the exact same frame each time. any movement will mess up the merging (though HDR photo apps often have an option to try to centralize each pic if it's off by a tiny bit)

awesome photos! i've only taken a few HDR shots and they came out 'ok' but not like this.

this is the most impressive HDR gallery i've come across:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/cambridge-gallery.htm

How retarded can you be? THSE ARE NOT PHOTOGRAPHS. They may have STARTED as photos, but they've been so heavily edited with so many filters that it's hard to tell. This is NOT an example of HDR photography, this is an example of heavy photoshop filtering.

Ugh I hate HDR. So so so so overdone. And a lot of it is overdone and cartoon-y.

don't see what all the fuss is about.

seriously... its like being awed by Half Life 2 screenshots...

I wonder how many other people like me waited their whole life for the day that the difference between computer graphics and photos would be indistinguishable.

Jargon Hound and Nat are either the same f***ing fag, or they are married. Do you not call it a photo if its on paper just because its undergone under/overdeveloping, over/underfixing or exposure or using different filters on them or re exposure before complete fixing. THESE ARE PHOTOS, PIXAR DIDNT MAKE THEM FROM SCRATCH ON A DAMN COMPUTER! Get a f***ing clue about photography before you start spouting off about how different techniques and styles basically calling something CGI.

I feel you are rather quick to blame badcock.
Perhaps you can tell me where the line between pictures (for want of a better word) and photographs is defined. Personally I feel it can be seen as both.

Would you consider either of these as photographs?
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/4366/comedypicbitemecf5.jpg
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/8178/comedypicgirlfriendremocw0.jpg

Wow. These pictures look like shit. They look like someone turned anti-aliasing off in Half LIfe 2.

I have seen some amazing SLR pics before, but these are terrible. They don't even look like pictures of reality anymore. Just video game caps from a game with decent graphics.

#6 is right.

The Cambridge photos are way better than these.

They all look so awesome!
They all look like they're from games.. i wonder what makes is like that..
I guess un-doing this in games might be what could make them even more life-like

2nd snap is of the drain that runs through Shibuya in Tokyo.
It's an interesting drain, just next to the 109 buildings. If you go in, you;ll find a treasure trove of coins, phones, credit cards and more.. but don't go past the flaps.. it turns into a not so nice sewer.

HDR is overplayed. Click my site to see what can be done with out it ;)

Those aren't typical HDR pictures. They aren't just different exposures layered. They're different exposures plus heavy Photoshop editing, plus more heavy Pholoshop editing, plus arcane magic.

That truck picture? Yeah, seven exposures, seven hours in Photoshop, four Wives Knuckles, and eight Hair of Whore enchantments.

Still, it has it's uses... It's a good way to make Manga backgrounds! Interestingly, I think it also shows up what's being done wrong in a lot of games/CGI - ie; the dynamic range is too high. I think TWISTED might be on to something...

#7, and everyone else arguing. Ok I said the images are great, I meant the original shots. The way I personally differentiate the two, are a photograph is something with little to no editing, a lot done in pre-production. Now on the other side of that, if there is mild to heavy (to extreme) photoshop editing (or using other software), then I call it digital art. Just because the photograph is no longer a photograph, doesn't mean it's not art.

I do photography (real photography, with multiple DSLR's, lenses, lighting, etc.), but I admit that at times, I find that I like playing with filters on photoshop, or making HDR (real HDR) images, etc. The images are impressive, because they were originally photographs. I'm not sure what you meant by pixar being pictures, but there's nothing about their productions that involve pictures (mostly drawings, paintings in the beginning, then straight cgi later).

Oh and #17, no, HDR is not overplayed. It's like saying Ansel's work has already been done and everyone else should stop. That's bull. Photography is also about discovery, reproduction, and the self-satisfaction that you are able to do something amazing and even more so, something that is considered amazing that had been done already. If I get to take pictures of Yosemite like Ansel did, I'd feel good about myself. So forms of photography aren't played out...you and everyone else who feels this way, I disagree with, and can't help but feel that you are not real photographers.

Badcock,

We aren't the same person.

IMO, HDR looks nice when done subtly. These are not. At all.

#20, not to get pissy on my second post here, but seriously, you're an ass.
Everyone likes to experiment, no doubt, and adam's work in the dark rooms were amazing - but stretching development techniques to HDR, which is complete image manipulation begins to take it out of the reals of photography into art.

At the end of the day, everyone has opinions - and while you're so eager to discount other people's photography on the notion that they are critical and uphold their own beliefs, you forget that you've just created a tortology.

And, as a post script, do check out my link before you start scoffing.

I'm finding this quite interesting - not only rather strange to find a geekologie entry on HDR photos (no comedy, no gore, no blood, no "eek" moments, no "wow"... very unlike geekologie) but also mad that everyone has gone so mad on the commenting... nice to know we're not all only interested in vagina shaped couches.

just to pop my tuppence in, HDR rules. I got into taking HDR pictures 6 months or so ago and have got quite a few crackers. I'd have to agree with all the people deriding these pictures - I don't like them. They smack of someone just discovering HDR for the first time and putting all the slider values up to the maximum, thinking that more = better, which it certainly doesn't. Yes they are still photographs, even if they are heavily edited. They just aren't very good. If you ask me the whole point of HDR (as Mr. Geekologie said, you can have a picture which shows the darkest of darks and the lightest of lights) is to capture more of one scene than you would usually get in a normal camera shot. If anything, they should be MORE real... not less real like these.

A point about the Cambridge gallery pictures - unless I'm missing something obvious, these aren't HDR pictures at all so the comparison is inappropriate. Although I've only looked through the first couple of gallery page, they are long exposure shots, not HDRs. HDR (as far as I know, I'm claiming to be an informed amateur rather than an expert) is a fairly fruitless technique to be using at night. These pictures are just single shots, exposed for a few minutes (to pick up the lights and colours) and at a high-numbered f/stop value such as f/15 or so (in order to let light in more slowly to keep the image sharp and an extensive depth of field focus). They aren't HDRs.

Long exposure:
----------------------
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/graphics/ClareSphere.jpg
You can tell from the sky, the patterns are the clouds moving over a period of a few minutes, and the actual lights (in the house, the lamp to the right of the river) are bright enough to create starbursts whereas much dimmer lights (ie. the sky, reflection on water) are smoother.
You can see similar pointers in this long exposure of mine:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenoz/2159393645/
(just picked out at random, not necessarily my best)

HDR:
--------
These are a couple of HDRs I'd pick out as being F***ing Excellent. I've got some wicked ones of my own but I've not uploaded them to my Flickr account yet, so... so there. If you care then add me as a friend and look forward to the treat!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djsosumi/2065773309/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/uncommon/2143153209/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/webinteger/105343557/

BAD HDRs:
----------------
These ones are like the Japan ones, too strong HDR strength, oversaturated, garish, and actually lose a sense of depth instead of gain it... just wrong (IMHO):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/altus/309451832/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/166259768/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bcnbits/389500025/

So, there we go. Sorry to go on.
If you've stuck with me this long, here's my tip for HDR.

Ignore the in-built HDR-generating capacities in Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro etc... download yourself Photomatix Pro - this is the proper software for HDR, trust.

Look at http://www.hdr-photogallery.com, this guy uses HDR in the good way...

It's an interesting technique. I wouldn't want to use it for everything, but there are some arty contexts where it could be really effective.

And dude, you took several pics of your privates and then played around with them in photoshop? That's a tad odd. If you photoshopped an extra inch in...please don't ever tell us about it. :)

OK, seeing as a few people are turning into bloody vaginas here, I guess I should get serious as well.

To compare HDR photography to standard photography is asinine. You're comparing apples to oranges. It's just not. HDR photography allows much greater creative control to the photographer, and thus strays from the realm of photography, and comes dangerously close to painting.

It's my personal opinion that if you tweak a picture beyond removing red-eye, you've already gone past standard photography, because you've altered the picture. If you don't get everything out of a shot that you wanted in the raw picture, then you blew the shot--it's that simple. Anything else is cheating. Just my opinion.

But that doesn't mean HDR Photography isn't an art. I believe it is. Consider the films "Waking Life" or "A Scanner Darkly". Are those live-action, or are they cartoons? They are neither, yet both at the same time. So I believe HDR isn't photography, and it isn't art. Rather, it's somewhere in the middle.

#22, from what I read, you seem to be agreeing with me. I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I'm not an ass, and I don't discredit photography. Before I posted, I did check out your link and I liked what I saw. I was down-playing people who are too closed minded and think that certain forms of photography are played out. Nothing more.

#26 I don't really agree with you I must say. Although HDR photography is definately a world apart from normal photography, in that it's possible to get more detail and more tonal range than was ever possible before, it is still photography.

To say that anything beyond red eye retouching is no longer photography is a little ridiculous. If you think that all the master photographers got the exact shot they wanted and just printed a straight print, no filter, no dodging and burning, then you're mistaken. Photography is a process, not a moment. It includes editing within the camera, as well as loads of post production.

Of course its advisable to make the right descisions whilst shooting, as it's impossible to make a bad picture good just with clever post production, but it really is only the first step.

HDR is just another level of out of camera editing, and lets face it, you're still working with photographs. It's not 'dangerously close to painting' in the slightest. I don't mean to attack you, you're entitled to your opinion of course, but if you're going to simplify photography to getting the shot in the moment and not doing further work at all, you might as well ignore some of the greatest photgraphers that ever lived - or at least classify them as 'painters' - because they all spent hours in the darkroom taking that one shot a hell of a lot further than it was in the camera. I don't you could call them 'cheaters'.

P.S Back to the actual post at hand...yes, I agree, these are crap examples of HDR.

Good HDR should look realistic, yet more special than the average shot. There should be detail in every shadow and highlight, which normally isn't the case.

These look like really stylised drawings, which is not the point HDR. However, they're still cool.

Well Spoken L-Moose

Good find! I still can't believe you're married...

yes!

As a 3D professional, reading some of these posts is eye-opening in that I was never exposed to the concept that people might have strong feelings about a technique having one specific "point". For 3D production, HDR is often (not always,often) best utilized in ways like the images from this article and link because most interactive lighting in a 3d scene comes from the renderer. With that in mind, flat lit imagery for use in texturing is a goldmine; if you have all your lighting already painted in, it can look very cartoony and fake when light moves along a surface (dynamic light moving over painted light).

Seeing imagery like this is incredibly informative (I personally find it very pretty in it's own weird way - not in the same way some photographs are pretty, but still..) because it shows that lighting is more often the issue in achieving realism than the modeling or texturing,. Having worked on quality levels from as-flat-and-fake-as-you-can-get-12-yr-old PC game engines all the way to some recent I-know-its-fake-it-still-looks-real work with ILM, that's one of those things that you know intellectually, but when you see it shown in a form like this, it really refreshes the idea; gives you new focus, new inspiration. It's all how you light the scene.

Anyways, the point I'm making is, I've learned a bunch looking through these pictures and reading these posts, but as a long-time-reader-first-time-poster I felt that for someone to decide that something has one, and only one "point", and any other use or style execution inside that point is "wrong" seems.... not geeky. It's only your own goals that mean if you succeeded or failed. Today, the common use of the term HDR is not as a visual artistic goal, it is just shorthand for two things: a technique, and a file spec. So, to say this stuff is "not HDR Photography" is to say it didn't involve a camera, or multiple exposures or a greater-than-8-bit floating-point storage method. That's a weird thing to say. Magurdleflump is also a weird thing to say.

good lord, they look like they're screenshots from a new Source game

i enjoyed reading some of these posts, and some have points of validity, but my basic arguement was that these are photographs,(none of which I feel were particularly well done, but photographs none the less). My arguement has to do with the fact that most of my work is composed inside the darkroom. i rarely print a picture in one exposure or with one filter, and not because i cant get great range without modification. i love to mask and mess around with different exposure times and some of my most expensive pieces look like they were photoshopped. My arguement is, love it or hate it, the pictures were taken with a camera, and weather it has the most subtle or radical alterations made to it, its photography. Portfolio available upon request, all original prints are for sale.

Just found some Crazy FREE stock photos at www.photorejects.com. Great wacky stuff.

Badcock post number 12 shows that you' can't even read the posts you're responding to. I'm not sure why I should even bother with someone so fundamentally retarded, but here goes:

I did not say those didn't start out as photographs, YOU said "cgi", not me. I said those are NOT examples of HDR photos, they are examples of MANY kinds of heavy handed editing. Straight HDR will not produce anything remotely like those.

This is like saying the Golden Gate bridge was painted by hand with a felt tip pen because someone wrote their name on it with a Sharpe.

Now go outside and play. You've had too much sugar.

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