Another one: ~Tom~

Hello Tom,

Another fine piece of work. Thanks for sharing what you're up to with PhotoDirector.

Quite a bit of "real" HDR photography has that "edgy" look. It's used in different ways - from enhanced to surreal. In my limited use of the effect, I have only applied the edge effect lightly. Just a preference.

The HDR effect in PhotoDirector gives users the chance to generate enhanced photos with an HDR "look". It simplifies the process of producing genuine High Dynamic Range photos, which involves taking the same shot with multiple exposures then stacking those images. Some DSLRs facilitate this.

Posting these here so small loses a lot in translation, but they're a few examples I've done. The presets for these have been posted on DirectorZone. You can download & modify them if you like... DZ links below



Presets:
http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/detail/125169897
http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/detail/125169898
http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/detail/125169899
http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/detail/125169900

I'm posting these HDR example links - NOT because they're made with PhD - but just in case you're interested.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/10/35-fantastic-hdr-pictures/
http://www.thephotoargus.com/inspiration/50-incredible-examples-of-hdr-photography-done-right/
http://photo.tutsplus.com/tutorials/hdr/80-examples-of-stunning-hdr-photography/
http://digital-photography-school.com/19-beautiful-examples-of-hdr-done-right
http://designm.ag/inspiration/40-examples-of-hdr-photography-at-night/

PIX PIX YouTube channel

They look great Tom. And good use of HDR in PD.

I love the way you captured the "God" rays in the first two photos. Would you care to share the camera you used in the metadata from the shots? I'm just recently getting into quality digital photography (Bought a Nikon D3100 and a 55-300mm zoom) and am slowly learning my way out of "auto" mode.

Sure thing! It was an Olympus E-300 with the Olympus Zuiko 14-45 kit lens. Great camera and lenses. I sold it last year and bought an even fancier Canon T3i.

Here is the data for the first pic:

MakeOLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.ModelE-300Aperture10Exposure Time1/320 (0.003125 sec)Lens IDOlympus Zuiko Digital 14-45mm F3.5-5.6Focal Length32.0 mmFlashOff, Did not fireFile Size1433 kBFile TypeJPEGMIME Typeimage/jpegImage Width3264Image Height2448Encoding ProcessBaseline DCT, Huffman codingBits Per Sample8Color Components3X Resolution314Y Resolution314SoftwareVersion 1.3 YCbCr Sub SamplingYCbCr4:2:2 (2 1)YCbCr PositioningCo-sitedExposure ProgramCreative (Slow speed)Date and Time (Original)2006:09:14 13:41:36Max Aperture Value3.5Metering ModeESPLight SourceFine WeatherColor SpacesRGBCustom RenderedNormalExposure ModeAutoWhite BalanceManualDigital Zoom Ratio1Scene Capture TypeLandscapeGain ControlNoneContrastHighSaturationNormalSharpnessHardQualityHQ (Normal)F Number10Exposure CompensationN/AFocus ModeSingle AFFlash ModeOffISO100Digital Zoom1CompressionJPEG (old-style)OrientationHorizontal (normal)

~Tom~

Thanks for sharing Tom. Lately I find myself looking at pictures and trying to establish what focal length, apature, and shutter speed was used trying to "train" myslef to take petter pics.

This are some great shots. Be great to crank out some panoramas with those kind of beautiful landscapes.

While many software products can do single-image HDR-like enhancements, I now shoot photos that matter with my auto exposure bracketing turned on, so you get 3 shots at -1, 0, +1 ev so that it greatly improves the chances of getting the lighting right and allows you the option to do true multi-shot HDR combining. Plus, it has saved my bacon more than once on high contrast exposures that wash out the skies and clouds and can only be salvaged through HDR manipulation.

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I followed up with your idea, OnTheWeb. I was pleasantly surprised at how well PhD (on my modest PC) handled the processing of quite high resolution panoramic images.

They're not my photos - but downloaded from http://www.wpanorama.com/panoramas.php

As a test for PhD, at least, I'd count this as a fairly successful exercise. Each panorama, after processing in PhD, was made into video in PD - produced to AVC 1920x1080 60p. Scaling it down to 720p for YouTube turned out to be not the wisest thing.



PIX PIX YouTube channel

Outstanding PIX! ~Tom~

Thank you Tom,

PhD did quite well. I fully expected that some of the images would cause slow running, rendering & exporting, but that wasn't the case.

"Youthful enthusiasm" led to a couple of oversights, which showed up in the final production 1: When applying effects to such large images (some close to 20000px wide), I neglected to zoom in close to see what effect the adjustments were having 2. The still shots at the beginning of each section were snapshots taken in PD's timeline, which (of course) lacked the clarity of the original.



Still, it's all good learning! I appreciate your feedback, Tom.

PIX PIX YouTube channel

Great thread guys, thanks. CYa Ron (W10/i5gen8/Nvidia)
Someone famous once said: "We only have the 4th dimension of 'time' so that everything does not all happen at once"