# interesting comparison of bad pictures



## mathjak107 (Apr 1, 2006)

what i did is take a rather mundane shot of a scene on a day where it was just impossible to take a picture without either over exposing the skys or crushing the darker areas. the light was just as horrible as could be. everything was washed out.

picture 1 was shot with a nikon d80 at zero compensation and is the best overall shot i could get. typically this is the shot you would walk away with, pretty crappy.

i then took 2 more shots at +2 and -2 exposures, brought them into photomatix and fused all 3 together. got kind of a super exposure, no enhancements or light inversions done.

that is photo 2

photo 3 is 3 exposures put together and enhanced using light inversions and is a full hdr pushed a little in the inversions area...

overall picture 2 is probley the nicest of the 3 being very natural and very extended but not as showy, un-natural and flashy as the enhanced hdr in 3.

i picked these pictures because normally i would delete these shots but i used them as examples of what you can do with bad exposures and shots


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## asaseaban (Aug 9, 2005)

Picture 3 look awesome, IMO. Great job!


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## The Otherside (Jun 30, 2009)

Wonderful!!

I love to see little pointers like this!

Nice little trick!

Thanks!!


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## The Otherside (Jun 30, 2009)

Were these taken in "manual" with all the same F-stop and shutter speed?


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## mathjak107 (Apr 1, 2006)

Aperture priority was used -different shutter speeds..hdr should never be shot with the aperture varying. last thing you want is depth of field changing on pictures that will be merged

the first picture is 1 photo, the other 2 pictures are 3 photos merged with different exposures done by varying shutter speed ....


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## The Otherside (Jun 30, 2009)

Right on. I thought you went +2 -2 with white ballance. My bad.  Sweet!


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## Gig103 (Sep 10, 2007)

I realize the HDR is more dramatic, but even just the second photo with -2 and +2 is pretty nice. What does "Fused" mean anyway, is this something that Photoshop would do too? I don't have Photomatrix


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## mathjak107 (Apr 1, 2006)

i belive photoshop can merge pictures together but i dont use it


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## BMW_GAL (Apr 7, 2009)

I like the third one as well


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## Skiddy (Apr 12, 2007)

mathjak107 said:


> i belive photoshop can merge pictures together but i dont use it


It can but it does not produce the same level of results that Photomatix does. In saying that, most people who are "into" HDR will use Photomatix and then continue post processing in Photoshop.


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## mpowa (Apr 10, 2004)

I have a similar demo of a "bad" shot which I turned into a HDR type of thing from just one RAW file. Do you mind if I post it in here?


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## mathjak107 (Apr 1, 2006)

sure, post it.....


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## mpowa (Apr 10, 2004)

oh yea nice job on your recovery - 3rd shot looks great! 2nd too.

here's mine, start to finish - just taking a shot that is ehh and giving it some kick!


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## mathjak107 (Apr 1, 2006)

how do you do that with the mouse changing pics?


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## mpowa (Apr 10, 2004)

hey bud its just an animated GIF file - showing the steps


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## mathjak107 (Apr 1, 2006)

i still dont know how to do it ha ha


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## mpowa (Apr 10, 2004)

mathjak107 said:


> i still dont know how to do it ha ha


what you do is save your progress along the way as separate images.. get a GIF animation program (I use JASC Animation Shop 7.0 - old program) - size the images down to whatever size you want and bring em into the animation program and make your GIF. try looking on google about it theres tons of tutorials out there -


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