My question is: Would someone be willing to please post their process of shooting a HDRI portrait (i.e., camera, settings, exposures)? My attempts in the HDRI portrait department have not meet with the success of the examples posted.

Thank you

Wait… was that a rant? Damn… Anyway, you have a good selection here, thanks for sharing it!

Adolf

Taylor - haha — most of my best pictures have you in them And…

AWESOME criticisms. I challenge you to look more closely, though (if you haven’t already). Like most digital photography, these are all MUCH higher res in their original versions than the puny space I was able to give their thumbnails on this page. Thus — take the reminder at the bottom to GO SEE THE FULL VERSIONS if you haven’t already!

I chose both of those pictures because I thought they had something VERY unique to add to the conversation, and with both, that special “something” is in the details. Get the full-res and I bet you’ll see why neither could be done with merely “saturation” or just a black and white filter. They both show dynamic ranges WAY beyond what normal photography can offer. In fact, those seemingly super-saturated whites of her eyes turn out to not be over saturated at all — you still see details in the highlights in the full-res. And with his black and white, you see shadow details unimaginable with a standard shot.

Perhaps you’ll still disagree — which is, of course, fine. The whole point of ANY art is that the artist is expressing his or her self — not necessarily to please everyone out there. I know YOU know that as well as anyone Your photography is AMAZING, yet some people just don’t “get” it. (*cough*… Fair Judges… *cough*). Don’t write HDR off as a viable form of photography though! (I’m not saying you are… that’s more for anyone else tempted to do so.) There is no “good and real” HDR standard to meet — only what the artist is attempting to express, which can change a million times before AND after the picture is taken

Unfortunately, the series is still going, and I haven’t gotten to my tutorial and specifics of HDR. BUT, I did leave a short description of what the technique does to photos in the first post in the series, so check that out for the basics: http://www.thatindiedude.com/2008/10/inspired-3-hdr-photos-flickr/ . Other than that description, stay tuned for the next post in the series for the in-depth on what is going on and the how-to

-A

I also am flattered you used that photo of me you turned into a HDR portrait up there

I am torn with HDR though. I guess for someone who has no idea what it is.. Some of the portraits you posted as examples i find very poor examples.. if thats what HDR is such as the blonde woman with the finger on her mouth.. where all they did was basically make the white of her eye so intensly bright it looks terrible.. then I don’t get it. I wasn’t sure what it was exactally for a while. Now I seen enough photos to know what good and real HDR is. I mean is that real HDR or just a random oversaturation of the Dodge tool in photoshop on her eye.. or like the BW close up of the guys face four photos down.. dosent look like anything was even done to the photo.

I just would like to know more about what HDR is and what process or things you do to acheive actual HDR looks.