FBB in the media?

[fuzzybabybunny]

And here's a gallery with all the photos:

http://www.victorlinphoto.com/slideshows/SFGate

 

[yhelothar]

Here are the originals that went into those two shots with the glowing trees. Does anyone know how to get them to look natural using a very quick process? The less I have to do by hand the better.

http://www.victorlinphoto.com/downloads/sfgatebrackets.zip

Whoa they're glowing out of the camera...
Anyways, I use the brush tool and set the blending mode to darken. Choose the correct color of the sky and brush out the glow. It won't affect the trees since the trees are a darker shade than the sky you're painting on.

Nothing automated... and you prob already know this technique.. but I don't know anything you can do with automate that can fix something like this. But it shouldn't take more than 1-2mins.

EDIT: I think you're getting halos because you're using high clarity setting on your raw files. I'd forgo using the clarity setting and just use unsharp mask and history brush tool back the halos.

 

[GoSharks]

Both images are using the identical Lightroom slider values. One exposure only, no merging or anything. Would look slightly better with RAW.

Recovery:100
Fill Light: 60
Clarity: +86
Saturation: +22
I was going for a quick match to your original HDRs. Probably could have thrown in some blacks and contrast adjustment.

As a sidenote, is the second photo a missed focus?

 

[yhelothar]

Here's a 30 minute shop job...first time doing HDR actually.

 

[angry hampster]

Here's a 30 minute shop job...first time doing HDR actually.

I like this but you have zero blacks.

 

[yhelothar]

I like this but you have zero blacks.

Blargh.. it looks perfect on my color calibrated PVA screen... but I see what you see on my IPS laptop.

The histogram shows plenty of blacks... curiously.
On my IPS laptop, it looks a bit overcooked. I don't like it much at all.
Sometimes I don't know if my huey pro calibrator is doing its job properly.

 

[dougp]

Blargh.. it looks perfect on my color calibrated PVA screen... but I see what you see on my IPS laptop.

The histogram shows plenty of blacks... curiously.
On my IPS laptop, it looks a bit overcooked. I don't like it much at all.
Sometimes I don't know if my huey pro calibrator is doing its job properly.

It's too much - but why is everything done in HDR anyways? Looks like his DOF is screwed up, and too many points of focus make a HDR look off. It's still a nice picture, just not what I'd have gone for.

 

[yhelothar]

Ok I adjusted the pic on my laptop screen. Does it look more natural now?
For best effect, close one eye to avoid the stereo info from both eyes from interfering with the image's enhanced monocular depth cues.

 

[dougp]

It has better depth now, but I still think there's too much detail in the foliage to make the HDR look good. Like I said, he needs to use a polarizer - it would have added some more depth to it, and enhanced the color quite a bit.

 

[Fayd]

Here's a 30 minute shop job...first time doing HDR actually.

honestly this almost hurts my eyes to look at. i can't quite pick out why tho.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

honestly this almost hurts my eyes to look at. i can't quite pick out why tho.

It looks different on different monitors. Looks fantastic on my iPad, looks too saturated (gasp) on my Samsung Epic (AMOLED) screen.

 

[olds]

This is how you do real estate photography...

 

[PhoKingGuy]

Why don't you do more of this? It seems like all real estate photos are taken with a broken 640x480 panasonic digital camera that still uses floppy disks by a 4 year old.

 

[Evadman]

Why don't you do more of this? It seems like all real estate photos are taken with a broken 640x480 panasonic digital camera that still uses floppy disks by a 4 year old.

Those cameras are cheap, and probably taken by a real estate agent that knows nothing on photography. The pics that FBB took are not of a cheap house.

 

[GTaudiophile]

It's so simple it's ridiculous.

Nikon D300 + D300s
3x8GB Extreme VIs
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8
Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8
Nodal Ninja
Cactus V5 remotes
Blackbird camera stabilizer

Gone are the days of the 50mm f/1.8, f/1.4, extension tubes, backwards mounted 10-20mm, Sigma 50-500mm, 180mm macro, 18-200mm superzoom...

So you rely a lot on HDR? No strobes/flashes?

 

[randomlinh]

cactus v5's... how are they? how'd you get them so fast, or did you literally just get them?

 

[SKC]

So you rely a lot on HDR? No strobes/flashes?

I was under the impression (completely amateur opinion) that there's been a significant rise in popularity with HDR photos in real estate photography, no?

 

[finbarqs]

he would need a shitload of strobes and flashes to evenly light or at least compress the light ratio to make it look decent. Otherwise, HDR is the solution (with some tone mapping)