Dawn At Kintamani
I don’t usually do that many HDR pictures and have therefore not bothered to invest in HDR applications such as Photomatix. There is a HDR function in Photoshop but I have never managed to work it to achieve the effect that I want. Instead, I prefer to merge bracketed shots layer-by-layer manually by hand in Photoshop. The above shot was taken at Kintamani in Bali and is composed of 3 separate (and bracketed) pictures. The HDR-look is not everybody’s cup of tea… I am not sure if the above image agrees with you 😛
This is a great result of HDR. Subtle as it should be. Nice scenery by the way!
Thanks 🙂
I’ve been browsing backwards and figured I’d comment even though it’s a slightly older post.
I’m a Photomatix addict. It’s probably not a good idea to use any given tool with too much fervour, but I do it anyway. Before I got the plugin, I merged layers manually. Pretty much as you describe. I collected quite a few gigabyte PSD’s that way. But the result was probably better than when using the automated method.
I’m very impressed with what you’ve done here. To me, it doesn’t have that hallmark flatness or weirdly washed out appearance (poor gamma correction in the plugin settings?) that so often characterizes HDRI’s. It doesn’t really look like an HDR image to me at all, except that you’d have to have some spectacularly divine skill to get such good balance in that light with just one exposure. But if you hadn’t mentioned it was composed of 3 merged exposures, I wouldn’t have guessed.
Thanks, Quinn. I appreciate you kind and detailed feedback on my shot! I have liked the more subtle approach to HDR rather than the many of the overdone/overcooked examples that I have seen on the web. Glad that you liked the effect I achieved.