Actually - I really enjoy properly done "HDR" When I say properly done, I mean going by the adage that "less is more".
I frequently produce images that had gone through a kind of HDR treatment. I may not mention that was the process, but I appreciate the way HDR techniques can give me the intent of the image more closely than mere gamma adjustments would or more than tools such as DxO. That is, my eye saw the wide range of luminance but I know my camera's sensor isn't gonna get all of it.
I've even used it to save a couple of portrait images (stupidly) taken in the bright sun. I've found that I can get more natural results than I would with the post processing tools that provide a "fill flash" effect.

Right now, I am working on a stitched panoramic image from last winter in Paris - when they had their holiday lights out along Champs-Elysées. The images were shot at night from the top of the Arc de Triomphe looking down on the avenue. I know it's a cliché shot, but the colors along the avenue were impressive to me - Only through a version of an HDR technique am I able to get the glow of the lights in the trees, the light from the traffic, and enough light on the sidewalks to show the relevant details of the street to make it interesting.
Otherwise, the images are either over exposed or underexposed and they would merely amount to holiday snap-shots.

I've tried to make some hdr -pictures few times, but they didn't look very nice, no idea what was wrong. :D But what I've seen on the Internet, about 99% of hdr pictures are modified too much, people want to adjust all levels to the maximum which will give quite unrealistic and stressful results to look.

Hi

I have gradually been experimenting more and more with HDR images over the last 12 months, and am getting results that I'm very pleased with. I think a lot of the negative vibes around HDR images stem from some of the 'extreme HDR' images out there. HDR is still a relatively new technology to digital imaging which is another reason, I think, that it's not widely adopted.

As for the interest here, it has a little following, but it's not that big yet- I guess it's just a case of experimenting with it and producing results that you like. I did a quick search, and here is the link to the results for HDR on AMW. http://www.alphamountworld.com/gsearch?domains=www.alphamountworld.com&q...

One are that HDR can be extremely useful is in retrieving some lost detail in images and maximising the DR of a sensor, in the following link you'll see an image that has had the HDR treatment to it. I didn't have time to use my ND grad and ended up with a sky that I thought was bleached out, however the power of RAW and HDR produced the image you see.

http://www.alphamountworld.com/forums/photo-sharing-forum/wells-next-sea...

Anyway this is an interesting thread and it will be interesting to see how HDR develops in the future.

Andrew

Being honest, I hate HDR with a passion! Sorry folks..

Ok, I have seen a couple of shots done with it that were good, but most have that rather nasty "renderware" feel to them. My advice, if you do HDR it, please don't smack it all the way up to max...yuck!

if it looks fake, it probably is. :)

HDR like anything used correctly can have pleasing effects, but to me it is the precursor to turning a photographer into a graphic artist. But again, it depends on how it is used and to what degree.

I've yet to merge two images of mine.

A bit ago David Kilpatrick was nice enough to feature one of my photographs in PhotoWorld, in it he said the photo was accomplished using an HDR process. I almost fell out of my chair on that. I guess when the skys are subdued to a scene it's easy to assume such.

I used old methods, a ND Grad and some dodging and burning of a single exposure only.

Oh well.

Carl

I just got a book from the library about HDR so I could learn more about it. (Thanks for the links Andrew.) While I don't like the fakeness that it can sometimes produce that doesn't mean the images can't be appreciated from an artistic viewpoint. I think sometimes photographs are manipulated beyond just being a photograph anymore. I would hope a perceived lack of following of the medium would not prevent someone from posting images that are HDR.

Heather - here is a link to a HDR image I posted a while ago ...

http://www.alphamountworld.com/featured-alpha-photos/world-trade-center-...

I don't think I over-cooked the image too much - I tried to mimic what I saw that evening. But perhaps I have over-cooked it and it looks fake and perhaps I can't tell anymore - perhaps, I'm too familiar with it.

I tried to reproduce what I remember seeing out of our hotel window. There was a great range of light - from the sunset, the darkening sky above us, the lighted working zone in the WTC and the darkening streets nearby. With my naked eye I could take all of that in simultaneously, but when I looked at the camera images - they were a bit too flat. So, I chose to use a particular HDR process to bring out the range that was really there at the time.

Hi all,

b shaw, I remember that image getting featured photo from a while back. It's a really great image and a perfect candidate to show just how powerful and versatile HDR can be. As Carl said, the one main rule is use with care, or rather 'season to taste'!

I know what you mean about becoming too familiar with a photo, it's easily done and then makes it that bit harder to be objective, in this case the image is superb and has only benefited from the HDR process. Your execution of the technique is spot on.

Heather, I'm glad you found the links useful.

Andrew

Well, the reason I ask is because I haven't been getting a lot of time to go out and shoot like I used to in the beginning of summer. Most of my shooting now is to get more accustomed to my camera to see what kinda shots I can expect from settings and to adjust the settings to get the shots I want in certain lighting situations.

However, I posted a thread recently and I haven't received any critique on it. It's funny I got a little worried about it cause I was watching this video of Randy Pausch on youtube (look him up, he passed away last friday.) The main thing he said was, if you have people that are correcting you or offer criticism, it shows someone cares. If nobody says anything to you, it just means you're incorrigible haha. That's not verbatim, but you get the idea.

Most of the people that talk to me about anything aren't photographers, so, their word doesn't hold as much merit as yours do. Since none of you said anything, I didn't know if they were so bad or if it was just uninteresting because they looked fake. I tried to recreate most of them to look as much as they did when I looked at it, as I could. Either way, glad I'm hearing different things from people haha.
--Kiran