Just for Beginners, post your questions, ask for help, get opinions...
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Hi folks,I have just posted my first attempt at HDR of a piece of driftwood its in MINS PICS.I'd really appreciate any feed back,tried to get it on to ''berore and after'' thread so you could see the differance but couldnt get it small enough.If anyones got time please take a look,many thanks
MIN. :D
Looks good, Min. Which plug-in did you use?? I wonder why your photos are not showing up on the rolling gallery??
Suzib,go to genarel elements discussion,Chases thread is photoshop roadmap,click on the web site and its on thier front page its called,TOPAZ ADJUSTMENT,have a look at the pics on the topaz site they are really good hun,it was so easy to do and the plug in down loaded without any trouble straight to my pe5.
As to you'r last question,I dont know hun......... :crying:
I have all their plug-ins and am an active member on their flickr site. Lots of presets and some good tutorials there. Min, I PMed Rusty to see if he can help with the gallery problem
http://www.flickr.com/groups/topaz/disc ... 975988910/
Min,

When my gallery pictures were never showing up I contacted PrestoPhoto support and they fixed it for me. It turns out my PCEC id and my PrestoPhoto id were not linked together like they were supposed to be.

Courtney
Not sure why your images don't appear in rolling gallery. DELETED - Q answered while I was typing :D

=======================

You asked for feedback on your HDR. I don't consider that 'HDR' (but what do I know). I have always understood HDR to be concerned with an extreme exposure range that, if photographed 'normally' is going to have either blown highlights or really dim shadows. The classic approach was to take at least two separate exposures of the same subject: once with your camera setting to properly expose the brightest parts of the image and then again to expose and show detail in the shadows. The two images are then combined in Photoshop or Elements -- usually with a mask.

A shortcut to HDR is to shoot in RAW and process it twice in ACR, once for highlights and again for shadows. I am not real familiar with that Topaz product. I downloaded the '30-day trial', used it twice, my 30 days passed, I didn't spend money to buy it. I'm assuming you used some action named HDR (right?).

Rusty

PS - I see that, while I was writing this, Courtney gave you the answer to the Gallery Q. She told you what I couldn't remember.
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness" - Dave Barry

If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. - Robert Capa

www.prestophoto.com/photos/gallery/19932
suzib wrote: Looks good, Min. Which plug-in did you use?? I wonder why your photos are not showing up on the rolling gallery??


Mine never show up there either. Often wondered why.
Bit of confusion here, perhaps. Topaz is not HDR software. It has some great effects - and I'm active on the Flickr Topaz Software Group testing various settings for different effects. But it's not HDR.

HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is, in its simplest form, a method of taking two or more identical shots except that they have different exposures, to take account of different amounts of light in different parts of the view. For example, a normal single photograph would find it very difficult to capture details inside a room and, simultaneously, the view through the window - the light levels are just too far apart for them both to be captured in one exposure.

Make two exposures (or three or more - some people use nine) all of the same basic view, (you'll need a tripod) but at different exposures (in fact, different shutter speeds, as changing the aperture would do some very odd things with the Depth of Field). Most modern DSLRs give you bracketing options, mostly giving three or five shots that are between 1/3rd of a stop to 2 stops apart.

HDR software, like Photomatix, Dynamic HDR and a few others (which all seem to have trial versions), combines the images, finds the best details from each exposure and puts them all together. Contrast is lost to a large degree but some interesting results can be obtained. However, at this stage, the combined picture has such a High Dynamic Range that it cannot be viewed on a normal computer, so the software has to do some calculations to put light levels into order so that it can be viewed - this part is called tone mapping.

Some people go nuts with the tone mapping, producing some of the ugliest shots you could imagine, with halos around contrasting edges and a generally 'cartoon-like' look. There are HDR groups on Flickr where "anything goes" and there are others that only allow realistic or true-tone images. Used with subtlety, HDR is excellent..... I know of some Real Estate Agents who take pictures with HDR so that they can include all the shady areas of a room and a view of the garden outside!

The software can also make "pseudo" HDR, using just one jpg and stretching it all over the place. However, if the jpg hasn't got details in all the areas in the first place, you can see that this is not a great idea. The trouble is, it will still tone-map the combined shot and to many people it will look, at first, like an HDR.

You can, to some extent, make your own HDR - multiple raw shots at different exposures can be combined with layers and layer masks in Photoshop and Elements - and you won't get odd artifacts - but it's a bit complicated. You could also make different versions via Adobe Camera Raw to get different exposure effects and make three or more versions of a single raw, then combine them as above. But a single exposure will not capture anything like the dynamic light range of lots of shots using different EVs.
PSE6 on WinXP, Pentax K10d...... and now a Canon G10.

Gallery
There is also faux HDR. This technique was in an article in a past Photoshop Elements Technique magazine.
Not true HDR but a close second.
Chas
Chas's Gallery
f/16 on a sunny day.....:)
ok ,ok it turns out its not what it said on the packet :crying:,[ I still like it.lol]
On a serious note thanks for the imput on the gallery,I know now ,it will be because my gallery isnt linked properly,I couldnt do it last time hence the gallery disaster thread,so I will contact prestophoto as suggested and see if they will sort it for me.Thanks everybody :thumbsup:
regards min.
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