NYT on HDR
One of the many benefits of Flickr is seeing trends in imagery before they get out into the mainstream. HDR, or “high dynamic range” photography, has been around for a while on Flickr — but the article in today’s New York Times definitely means it’s hit the mainstream.
They have uses on book covers, but so many that I’ve seen are just overdone — the “high” range produces something that looks artificial. (We’re used to seeing range constrained to the “usual” range offered by cameras, among other reasons.) Plus, far too many people are enamored with the process, producing images that neither need nor work with the HDR technique.
Both of the examples in the Times article and many of the images in Flickr’s HDR group are fall into that “too much” category, in my opinion. But before you dismiss the technique and something that’s only good when “artificial” is appropriate for your book cover, consider that it’s useful for helping “pull” an image from flat into something more, well, dynamic:
From Waxy Poetic. Says “postcard” to me — even some months later, this was one of the first images that came to mind when I read the article. Improved, not overdone.
HDR is definitely a tool worthy of photographers’ and book designers’ attention. Please, though, do it well.
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Posted by Giles, Thursday, August 3, 2006, at 2:00 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Flickr | Photography
