I hate negative people who dont know what they are talking about!!!!!

[Admiral_A300]

sorry for the long title, but i really do hate negative people.

so here is what happened. i posted up some HDR toning(CS5) pictures of a car i did on another forum, and just got completely bashed. i know what i did isnt true HDR, i even said that, i used the HDR toning option in CS5. and they were all btw for hdr you need 3 pictures. pretty sure you need 9 photos or more to do really PROPER hdr, just sayin. i didnt have time to bracket 9+ photos of a moving car. besides the color HDR toning i did is as about to true hdr as you could get with only a single picture.

i understand that some people either like it, or they dont. but if you dont like it, dont go tearing somebody down because you think they "look like sh*t." that is why i dont show lost of my work. I like what i do and that is all that matters, but sometimes you want people to be like "wow, thats cool." or "i dont like it, but nice car." ya know? its just frustrating.

here are the pictutes i posted, you be the judge.

ORIGINAL




ORIGINAL

[Tom]

They don't do anything for me. As long as you are happy with them, that is all that matters, I guess.

[Wes]

I agree with Thomas in that they don't do a whole lot for me. However, that's not a criticism - beauty is in the eye of the beholder! What you experienced on the other forum is not necessary, IMHO. There are instructional ways to criticize someone's work, and then there are people that like to be mean. I don't like people that like to be mean.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by Wes

I agree with Thomas in that they don't do a whole lot for me. However, that's not a criticism - beauty is in the eye of the beholder! What you experienced on the other forum is not necessary, IMHO. There are instructional ways to criticize someone's work, and then there are people that like to be mean. I don't like people that like to be mean.

Even if you do it in an instructional way, a lot of people are only out to hear how great they are and turn themselves into a martyr for their pics when they hear something contrary. Not saying the OP did this, but it happens a lot.

[mercphoto]

Originally Posted by Admiral_A300

here are the pictutes i posted, you be the judge.

Sorry, but they do nothing for me as well.

What was your intent in doing these? What end result were you aiming for?

[venchka]

Paraphrasing an old quote:
I don't care for your photos, but I will defend to the death your right to make them. OK, maybe not actually dead, but you get the idea.
Personally, I think the 3 letters, HDR, should be stricken from the photographic vocabulary.
I actually think that your style may be on the right track. For carefully staged, framed, cropped and processed computer generated graphics. You'll notice that I didn't say "photographs." Illustrations like yours may start as a digital file generated in a camera. However, soon after you begin changing them they cease to be photographs. That isn't a bad thing. Just something different. In my personal opinion.
Keep working on your style. I think you can make something striking and visually appealing with some thought and planning before the shot.

[Nikonfan]

Number 2 has a sort of interesting look to it. I probably wouldn't frame it, but it's still kind of a cool photo. I love Ferrari's so of course I would think it's cool. Personally, I think a Ferrari in Ferrari Red is beautiful by itself and doesn't need to be changed up. But that's just my opinion. If you like the pics then that's what matters. It doesn't hurt a bit to play around with different filters and find out what you like. And if you like it then someone out there might just LOVE it. I would rather a small percentage of the population LOVE my work and everyone else hate it, than for everyone to just think my work is "decent." Be true to yourself and what you love and screw what everyone else thinks.

[hue-e]

I actually kinda like what you did with them... from a design standpoint. But I don't really see how they are HDR, but moreso just high contrast. hdr is about bring out details lost in dark/light areas and you've actually added more shadow/darkness to areas like under the covered gas pumps... as well as blown out your highlights.

[cfortner]

I'm a fan specifically of the "HDR" color look on the second shot. Don't sweat internet haters...

[rab3rd]

I like HDR stuff too, these are pushed a bit too far for my taste, it is a nice car by the way... NIce grab with the cop going the other way too....

[billbunton]

The problem is, they aren't HDR. They aren't pseudo HDR. They are simply heavily tone mapped images; unfortunately that has become synonymous with HDR. However, tone mapping is one of the steps in converting from an HDR (32-bit (typically) floating point) image to an RGB image.

Now I'm not saying there's anything bad about heavily tone mapped images, some people like them a lot (I'm not one of those people, but that's immaterial here). If you like them that's great, you've achieved your vision, and that's what is important.

[Admiral_A300]

to answer some questions.....i really had no intent, no vision. if you look in the original, there is dust, dirt whatever. it wasnt on the lens but on the sensor. so i wanted to fix the spots. i did. and was like....i want to play with CS5, being as how we were the first at our collegel to use it. so i was messing around and found the hdr toning. i really like the hdr style pictures, so i messed around and liked these, that is why there is one color and one black and white. i liked them so i decided to post them up on a car enthusiast forum, expecting to get nice car, cool car and all that fun stuff, but instead just got slammed on how my pictures look like a second grader colored them. hdr, or hdr toning isnt for everybody. i like it. thank you guys for the lift up. those comments just really put me in a non editing mood. i dont want everybody to look at my work, and love it or even like it for that matter. i dont care if you like it or not, but dont tell me my time was wasted and i do sh*tty work. that just makes me feel like poop. im not trying to be a whiney baby or anything, but i worked hard cleaning up those spots, color correcting, croping and then fiddling with adjustments.

Venchka said "Illustrations like yours may start as a digital file generated in a camera. However, soon after you begin changing them they cease to be photographs."

But once you color correct, fix blemishes, and remove stray hairs, then are those still "photographs" or do they, like mine above, become illustrations? I'll start another discussion, when do pictures stop being photographs and become illustrations, or designs?

anyways, thank all you guys for hearing me out and listening, and for your points and observations. i understand them all. bottom line is i like them and that is all that matters.

[hue-e]

I think photos stop being photos when they start to look like graphics. In your edited photos, you've started to get posterization due to the high contrast. that is more of a graphic effect, thus making it more of a graphic and less of a photograph.

I dunno, photos, graphics... it's all just design elements to me cause I'll just take and put it into some layout with type, logos, etc.

[ka5txl]

Originally Posted by Admiral_A300

anyways, thank all you guys for hearing me out and listening, and for your points and observations. i understand them all. bottom line is i like them and that is all that matters.

I'm not a big fan of HDR but I can tell you what "I" think you did wrong, You didn't have "ME" driving the car. Other than that if your happy with them OK

[J Eddington]

I think it is an improvement. You took an OOF photo and made it look better. It is a little extreme for my taste, I like the fake HDR a little milder. But that is just taste and you created a piece of art.