Photo of a small church (HDR image experiment)
Today I want to share with you a picture of a small church that I made at sunset in little village nearby my town.
Church photo
I have published some sunset pictures from this place and same day here.
When I took the picture below, the church was right behind my back. 
What is the better way to do HDR
I've always liked to see the HDR image. And I want to learn to do high-quality HDR photos, too.
Therefore, taking shots of this church I made three shots in the bracketing mode. All shots were taken without a tripod.
From various sources, I learned that you can create HDR different ways:
- make 3 images and stitch them
- make a picture in the HDR style from an ordinary photos using the post-processing (ideally need to have a photo in RAW format)
As I found out, there are many programs that can be used to create the HDR.
Including this Lightroom 6 can make it. In addition, it can be done with HDR Efex Pro plug-in from the Google Nik Collection.
With HDR Efex Pro or Color Efex Pro (Google Nik Collection) you can also make the picture in HDR style from one photo.
I decided to find out which method can give better results.
Therefore, I did 6 different images of church using my existing tools.
- HDR image made from 3 photos with postprocessing in Lightroom
- Same HDR image made from 3 photos with postprocessing in Lightroom + Sharpener pro 3: Output Sharpener
- Same HDR image made from 3 photos with postprocessing in Lightroom + Color Efex Pro
- Original photo with processing with postprocessing in Lightroom
- Original photo with processing with postprocessing in Lightroom + Color Efex Pro
- Original photo with processing with postprocessing in Lightroom + HDR Efex Pro
Here are all 6 versions in small size for ease of comparison. All images are clickable.
Most of all I like version # 2.
Which version is better in your opinion?
I will be glad to any criticism and prompts.
I like No 5
Thank you for the comment! Let's see what other people think 8)
Number 2 is my favorite!
Thank you! my too 8)
I like #3. Next to that will be original #4.
Thank you @ace108! Indeed at this photo turned out interesting light blue color of the sky. Especially when compared to the sunset photo, which is higher in the post
I like 4, but I think this scene didn't require HDR, the sun was behind you when you shot this scene right?
Thank you @shieha!
I like the picture with clearly highlighted structure of architecture and clouds. Such as it happened in the processing using Color Efex. I was hoping to get this effect by using HDR. Apparently I was wrong 8)
Yea just boost up clarity in lightroom :)
Tell me your secret please 8)
Very smooth objects are often visible in your photos. It is also the result of the processing?
I usually don't push contrast and clarity up beyond 20 in lightroom.
Thank you! I love this series of your posts 8)
Do you have a specific example in mind? Like which picture?
Like this
And all pictures of that geological formations
Thank you for posting @boddhisattva. Number one....seems to be best as it is less busy for the eye. If one may add to the dialogue....@there are several good photographers @Steemit.....@shaka takes lovely pictures of buildings....@cryptofiend says he prefers a darker photograph....@sulev will edit/critique your photographs...it would be nice if he could see these....you have two other Steemit photographs @koskl whose work includes many buildings...and @shieha's thoughts on the matter...a plus plus.
bleujay would add this....you have foreground, midground and background....however all seem to have the same scale of busy-ness..one could seek to photograph this on a less cloudy day and see what happens. Another thing one could do is lessen the colour intensity and see how that works.
All the best.
Thank you for such a detailed commentary @bluejay. I am familiar with posts of photographers you mentioned.
I hope they will see this post.
I think I'll go a few times to this place and do experiments
I like No 4
Thank you for the comment! Let's see what other people think 8)
8)?
Where is it?
I can't find it!
The question is "what is 8)"?
"8)" - a smile.
Usually people write :-)
Oh sorry.
I didn't understand that text.
maybe I'm too old.
thank you!
No problem 8)