HDR Help

I am trying to put together an image using photos I took with my D5000 this weekend. I set up the shot to use -1, 0, +1 exposure. I have the three images and imported them into photoshop. The resulting file does not seem right. Can you please tell me where I am going wrong.

Thanks

Original files:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7874603/DSC_0501.NEF
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7874603/DSC_0502.NEF
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7874603/DSC_0503.NEF

Resulting file:





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http://www.flickr.com/photos/markthefotographer

My try with Photomatix and a touch of NX2. But to me it's a very difficult picture. Hard light, foliage, very high contrast.

http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/3587153/img/3587153.jpg

It would be good to have additional exposures width the corrections +2EV and +3EV, it would reduce the noise. Use another program. In Photoshop it is difficult to achieve the desired effect.

Thanks for the help. I just seen to get really grainy results in photoshop and this is my first try at HDR photos.

I will try NX2, but I cannot seem to get it the version that came with my computer to install on my Mac.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/markthefotographer

This is my attempt. I used Photoshop CS5 and did a fair amount of post HDR merge adjustments.

Note that to bring out the detail in the shadows in the lower left we lost details in the sky. Also the sky color is a bit off.

PS CS5 Merge to HDR is so much better than early versions. Low noise and ability to remove ghosts.

Shoot more bracketed shots. I routinely shot 9 shots 1 EV apart, especially with shots like yours. Then in CS5 I merge 5 shots 2 EV apart initially and adjust accordingly. Sometimes I take all 9 sometimes just 3 shots.

With Photomatix Pro (which I started with, and still use) I notice more artifacts and lots more noise. The 2nd shot below I was not able to process in Photomatix Pro without significant problems. I re-shot the scene 4 times and really worked it and could not get it right. In CS5 I was much more successful.





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Eric P

At least in CS5 the following holds true

If the bracket set has well contained histograms at the extremes, (1 picture with shadows not clipped and 1 with highlights not clipped) then you won't see as much noise as my example. The noise in this one results from trying to recover imformation in the shadows that is barely there.

Good luck. I love HDR.
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Eric P

I took your raw files and processed them in Capture One, making only changes to exposure and some noise reduction; and converted to jpeg.

I took your E0 and made 2 additional exposures to E+1.5 and E-1.5, then took your E+1 and made another at E2.5, and your E-1 and made another at E-2.5.

I took all these into Dynamic Photo HDR, processed in their "eye catching" mode with some minor adjustments to the defaults and got



I also processed one where the people below stood out better, blended it with this first one to get



BTW, these are smaller images as pbase doesn't seem to want to display the original size images I normally post.

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Jim

Try this for a larger image of the blended photos
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ECIlrX4FqzCzBH3hc4sY_Q?feat=directlink

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Jim