Calgary Sunset HDR

[Matt K.]

Since this is my first attempt @ HDR, I would welcome any comments to help me improve myself.

Was driving home from the south of town when I spotted the sunset over the city. Was on frigging Deadfoot Trail, the high speed commuter raceway. So I had to find my way back to a place where I would not be killed by traffic. Unfortunately, the damn mosquitos killed me, anyway.

[Mad Aussie]

Sometimes it's easier to give advice on HDR if we can see the original exposures and know what program(s) you used to create this.

At first glance it appears as though your exposures were not stopped far enough apart or you used 3 when maybe 4 or 5 were needed. The sky looks like it could have had more darker areas in it and the dark foreground could have been lighter. That's assuming you were after a strong HDR image for the purposes of keeping bright detail and opening up shadows to show detail in the dark as well.

In the end this one looks a bit too washed out across the whole photo to me.

[Matt K.]

Thanks MA ... here is the low down: I did three exposures, one +1.7 stops, andone -1.7 stops. Used Photoshop to create the HDR. I am also not very happy with this, and there are so many damn things one has to learn when creating the HDR, that I am wondering if it is worth it.

So i took one of the images and just did it like I would normally do, except I added color correction into it a bit. I like it better, but then again

The city scape is still washed out ... I tried a bit of the dodge tool, one time over it, thought it might help

[Mad Aussie]

Your first mistake ... you used Photoshop to create an HDR. Everything after that was a waste of time I'm afraid.

If you like ... send me the 3 exposures and I'll run it through Photomatix and we'll see what is possible.

[Matt K.]

Your first mistake ... you used Photoshop to create an HDR. Everything after that was a waste of time I'm afraid.

If you like ... send me the 3 exposures and I'll run it through Photomatix and we'll see what is possible.

How would I go about sending you the RAW files?

[Mad Aussie]

How would I go about sending you the RAW files?

Well if it were me ... I'd email them

steveatastrovisual.com.au