Cragside

[Black Pearl]

One of these is a five shot HDR processed with Nik HDR Pro 2 and the other is a single file processed with Lightroom.

 

Which do you prefer?

 

 

 

 

[ChrisLumix]

I prefer the second ... which now you're going to tell us is the single shot in LR!! 

[colinb]

The tones in the sky look better in the lower pic and I'll go for that as the HDR

 

But looking at the full sized file I would prefer the top version and maybe burn the sky a tad.

[Phil]

Prefer the tones of the first but the sky of the second.

[JamWheel]

I prefer the second shot of the two, it is bolder and possibly the HDR I think.

Whichever is the HDR, this is the right way to do it; not the overcooked disaster we are used to seeing thanks to photo mags and tutorials.

[Black Pearl]

The bottom one is the HDR hence the richer tones and extended highlight detail.

To be fair I was surprised how well the single file processed though if you see the original at 100% (yes I pixel peep very occasionally and yes I'm appalled at myself for doing so) you can see the noise has increased dramatically due to having to lighten the shadows so much.Also there's nothing more to be pulled from the blown highlights, I could darken them but it would just produce a flat grey and not and real information.

 

The bottom one is proper HDR image which you rarely see these days. Normally you see (as Jam said) heavily tone mapped images which are not the same thing at all. 

[ChrisLumix]

The bottom one is proper HDR image which you rarely see these days. Normally you see (as Jam said) heavily tone mapped images which are not the same thing at all. 

 

Yes, they should rename those other so-called HDR shots : it stands for High Dynamic Range for gawd's sake, not "arty farty tone mapped psychedelia" (AFTMP?)