Couple of days ago, Brad Moore (Music Photographer extraordinaire – Photo assistant to Scott Kelby) came to me with an image that he shot on his way to a Bluegrass festival. The shot was from The Desert Inn in Yeehaw Junction in Florida. He didn’t think much of the mood in the area other than “Hey.. I think this image would do well as an HDR shot. ..”
While normally someone would look at the image and say “Eh, Sky’s not too good – environment is blah – kinda decent building but I should’ve been here at X time” and then throw the image out – I usually just perk up. See, I consider myself to be (Photographically speaking) Part Artist – Part Technician. I love making pictures of people and landscapes. I equally love making artwork in Photoshop – and both of those are satisfied very well inside the world of HDR – specifically 1 shot HDR.
There is a general feeling about HDR that you need 3-5 images to play with in order to produce something. I call – hogwash. You are hereby given permission to go out there and do whatever you wish in the world of HDR – including single shot HDR images. This frame would have been something that would’ve been thrown away normally, and there was so much to it.. if we just spent some time coaxing out the nuances of it.
Is it a picture? Nope.. but I never intended it to be – hence the textured overlay on the shot. I just wanted it to be pretty… plain and simple. I didnt want to get into the argument – didnt want to talk techie specifics. I just wanted to make something cool. So much so, i’ve even added a section of it on my personal collection of stuff (gets rotated a lot though). Check out the Before and After movie of the shot!
Now, I want you to make something cool too – and if you do, i’ll give you a prize! Let’s do this- let’s add a link below here for you to download a copy of that NEF source file that I started with:
Click here to download the source NEF file
Go ahead and play with it and make something that’s your own. Once you do, send me a message via Twitter (making sure you’re following me) or send a message through the contact section of this page. Point me to where -you- posted your image. We’ll go ahead and choose a winner from there.
The winner will get a copy of Trey Ratcliff’s amazing book “World in HDR” (Thanks to our folks over at Peachpit) AND a copy of Matt Kloskowski’s “Real World HDR” DVD. . Contest will end Midnight EST Feb 11, 2010. Be sure to tell your friends!
NOTE: Just added a prize for this! how about a signed print of this image from both Brad and Myself? There you go! 
What a great idea! New to digital slr photography, just bought CS4 and Photomatix…here is my effort. Tone rendered twice, posterized and highlighting the sky and other areas…….still learning!!!
What a great idea! New to digital slr photography, just bought CS4 and Photomatix…here is my effort. Tone rendered twice, posterized and highlighting the sky and other areas…….still learning!!!http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0ZqywAzM60tADSl83RulgA?feat=directlink
Hi, here is mine:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45159321@N03/4341612647/
I used Photoshop to create 7 TIFF 16 bit files with different levels of exposure. Then I used Photomatix Pro to generate the HDR. At last I worked on the final shot with Lightroom.
I tried to stand out the clouds of the sky more than possible.
Here’s my best effort! http://www.flickr.com/photos/btpalmer/4342763999/
Here’s my first attempt.
http://www.photographybygerry.com/Public/Photo-Contest-Pics/11191029_4KPom#784610452_i6s3e
Woo Hoo, here’s mine
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2747/4344194482_a2de302190_b.jpg
I started with the sky on mine. I used the tonemapped images mostly for shape in the sky and then to create some grittiness for the building and the foreground. Each area was worked separately with layer masks. I thought the picture looked like it was from a time in the past so I removed any reference to current day and changed the marquee sign. I also had some fun lighting up the neon lights in the Desert Inn sign.
http://gallery.me.com/thjackson#100401
My trial
http://s1.pticica.com/pticica/foto/0000877340_l_0_9ab8ty.jpg
Fun project!
Here’s mine:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisdustin/4344090105/sizes/l/in/set-72157623242311757/
Good luck all. Here’s my try.
Thanks
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25190266@N03/4345125640/
here’s my try at it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremymoore395/4345007090/
Hi
I posted a message with the link to my take on the HDR photo yesterday, but I think it did not go through. Anyway here is the link again (I hope you consider flickr links)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gillmanmeet/4342842316/sizes/l/
Another link is http://www.gillmanmeet.wordpress.com.
Thanks for looking
It’s all about the feel and the details. No blown out areas, reduced noise and retained good details, neon, light at the top of the building, natural dirty color on the gas pump, wood grain enhanced on fences and flower barrels, crispness in the letters on the sign, Open sign cleaned up, sky brought to life, removed distracting telephone pole and lines, did retain the antenna and pole as they add character, slight highlights on the two floods in the corners, blacks are more black, beer bottle on the picnic table, picture not to bright, asphalt darken, horizion darkened slightly,. This was a great exercise and a chance to utilize numerous tricks and techinques. Thanks for doing this.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wowphotoshdr/4340769294/sizes/l/
I posted this here yesterday but it looks like my comment got deleted so I’m trying again.
Here is my take on the Desert Inn image
http://gallery.me.com/thjackson#100401
my shot
good luck all
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25190266@N03/4345125640/sizes/l/
Had a snow day today, so I played…. Here’s mine:
http://www.chriscina.net/Other/playing-with-HDR/11203587_WjeeW#785530564_siPTZ
Here is my version http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4005/4347892866_1594d5aa47_o.jpg
Posted through Twitter, but in case it was lost:
http://www.regolithic.com/one-shot-hdr-contest-entry/
I hate to break it to you, but if it’s only one shot, it’s not HDR; it’s tone-mapping.
It’s not a ‘general feeling’ that you need 3-5 images, it’s the definition of HDR. A single image has a set dynamic range and unless you use multiple exposures, you cannot have high dynamic range.
Not so much hogwash, I’m afraid.
Good Morning,I posted my image on my blog (two comments above this one) and last night I noticed that the site has serious tech problems,I have therefore quickly created another blog, and therefore hopefully still have a chance in the challenge.
Regards
James
http://www.jimmyjamesweddingphotographer.com/blog/
Here’s my take on the photo.
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kneckenbauer/4347778005/
Full size: http://sonitus.se/desertInn-jk.jpg
Very nice image to begin with!
/Jonas
Here is my one shot HDR retouch of the Desert Inn shot. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pnking/4348001197/
Here’s my take on the photo.
Flickr: http://bit.ly/cH61td
Full size: http://bit.ly/90rmwN
Awesome photo to begin with!
I posted a comment here on the the 8th But cant seem to find it here anymore. here is mine again http://princesden.blogspot.com/2010/02/photo-contest-entry.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mstapley/4348992481/
I didn’t use photomatix or any other pug ins in photoshop (I can’t add them to my work machine, and did this in some of my downtime). I used shadows/highlights adjustments, overlay sharpening, and some solid fill burning/dodging
Looks like my entry didn’t take, I had some errors when submitting it. Here it is again:
http://photos.jflphotography.com/Other/Random/9605580_n8kmR#781044003_6hwFh-A-LB
This was such a fun challenge! Good luck to everyone
Great idea!
Here’s my entry:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4058/4337713390_2b5946e840_b.jpg
This was fun to play with. Here is my entry as B/W http://www.flickr.com/photos/8951719@N02/4349744729/
i use capture nx and ps4
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17863773@N05/4350939763/
Here is my entry, plus others on my NAPP portfolio -
http://www.photoshopuser.com/members/portfolios/view/image/146843
Thanks for the great content
Oops ! miss read ,”Go ahead and play with it and make something that’s your own.”
I read or “add something of your own”
Sorry
Bummed that I just found out about this contest from a buddy. In case it gets extended or just to share, here is my rendition:
http://brianmatiash.com/files/1-shot-desertinn.jpg
Hope you like it!
Brian
the change is incredible i am also working on HDR now sin’s 2-3 years and i have a particular person that does HDR that i would like to thanks because he helped me a lot to learn HDR, you can see some of his picture on http://www.photoserge.com
hope you’ll get to the TOP
Hola !
Here is mine:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sacoux/4582108264/
Hope u like it !
Sacoux
Hi,
layersmagazine.com is een zeer goed webpagina, daarom ik heb een vraag aan u.
Ik zelf kan ook beslissen, waar ik wil mijn volgende grote vakantie te nemen.
Alle landen zijn mooi…
Het is het beste: reizen en de hele wereld !
Mijn vraag aan het forum is: in welk land ze willen om te reizen? Naar Egypte, Spanje, Turkije,…?
Zie je spoedig!
Owespisinnill
Mijn beste reis: Spanje