RJD wrote:HDR if done subtly can be ace, heres one of my early attempts, with photomatix.

shame its cut the rest off

That better?

Very amateur, but the view was worth taking a picture...

Just thougth I'd mention a friends new NZ photog forum, http://hellophoto.co.nz/index.php

Its small(for now) but quite friendly some good advise (and some not..! ). Worth a look round, I dont know many other kiwi focused photo forums?


(has been OK'd by tama...)

RJD wrote:

That better?

Holy crap! Thats such a WIIIIIIIIIIDE photo. Is it a few stitched together? Or one ... ? What sort of camera you using?

And excuse the noobishness (and this is a general question...) I know HDR is 'High Dynamic Range' but what actually is it? What does it mean?

Chur

Ah its actualy 1 pic with the top & bottom cropped off.

Shot on a 350D with a Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm - so it just looks wide.

On a normal photo you can only capture so much information, say 8 'stops' , if the scene fits into that fine, if not then you start loosing information - either the highlites or the shadows.

HDR tries to remedy that by mixing several photo's of the same subject all exposed slightly differently, so I usualy shoot 7 or 9 shots all 1 stop apart.

Then its down to how you 'mix' thse shots into one single 8 bit jpg.

RJD wrote:Ah its actualy 1 pic with the top & bottom cropped off.

Shot on a 350D with a Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm - so it just looks wide.

On a normal photo you can only capture so much information, say 8 'stops' , if the scene fits into that fine, if not then you start loosing information - either the highlites or the shadows.

HDR tries to remedy that by mixing several photo's of the same subject all exposed slightly differently, so I usualy shoot 7 or 9 shots all 1 stop apart.

Then its down to how you 'mix' thse shots into one single 8 bit jpg.

Aaah, ok. So that photo is a HDR? and I'm assuming you take 7 or 8 photos with different f-stop values? Can you 'combine' them all with Photoshop?

What's the advantage of a HDR photo over a normal one?

I'm gettin all excited now!

Yep thats HDR.

Photoshop does HDR (at least CS2 on does) but I find my CS2 doesnt acheive good results, prehaps its enhanced later.

You can download photomatix as a demo and use , yo just get watermarked results. Try and play.

Best normaly to use manual mode meeter for the scene and use that as your central exposure, shoot x stops above and below using altered shutter speeds ( keep aperture the same).

How many shots dependson the scene - sometimes you dont need HDR at all but i can be fun nevertheless.

What camera you using, RJD?

Canon 350D, bit ancient by todays standards

Greetings all. I have a photo that has a slanting horizon (only slightly), and I'm just wondering if anyone knows how to correct that? I have Photoshop CS3

Mr_GTR wrote:Greetings all. I have a photo that has a slanting horizon (only slightly), and I'm just wondering if anyone knows how to correct that? I have Photoshop CS3

You can just rotate the image till it's level, then crop out the gaps it makes.

Mr_GTR wrote:Greetings all. I have a photo that has a slanting horizon (only slightly), and I'm just wondering if anyone knows how to correct that? I have Photoshop CS3

I think the easiest way is to use the crop too.

Put a square crop area anywhere on your pic.

Move either the top or bottom middle marker on the crop frame to the horizon.

Then with the mouse pointer outside the crop area to the top right you should get a rotate icon.

Rotate the crop frame till the line is level with the horizon.

Then adjust the crop frame to what you want & crop.

Hmmmm, while on the subject of Photoshop - being the cheap cunzor that I am, what editing programs can you download on the net for free ? Good ones.

The best free one is the gimp, takes some getting used too though.

Theres paint.net too..?