Trey Ratcliff of Stuck In Customs fame has released a new eBook called Top 10 Mistakes in HDR Processing and How to Fix Them . Of course, we’ve all seen HDR mistakes and some would even argue that some of Trey’s past work was an HDR mistake. The funny thing is that so does he! In this short 35+ page eBook he goes over the lessons he’s learned both in imaging his own HDR work as well as critiquing many others. In this book he provides some basic tips on how to solve these problems as well examples of his past “mistakes” and current work that represents a correction of these problems.
If you’ve already purchased Trey Ratcliff's Digital Workflow for Photographers then you’ll find a similar format here. It’s easy reading without a ton of depth or step-by-step instructions like you would find in a Scott Kelby book (i.e,. 7 Point System), so I found it to be a little too generalized for my taste. However, the book is very well done and for those that have a good understanding of Photoshop will probably find the high level tips enough to get them off and running to address these common issues. For the rest of us, it’s more about raising awareness of what is bad HDR and what can be done to solve it (i.e., Mistake #10 – Too Many Colors, Fix: Don’t saturate more than one color).
Conclusion
If you are a big fan of HDR, then for $9.95 it’s hard to go wrong with picking this one up. There’s some practical tips that will set you straight so that you aren’t looking at the mistake images he discusses and think “hey, that’s pretty cool” (as I did with a couple). It’s more like cluing you in to what you might be clueless on right now! However, I should caution those that are looking for instructive solutions that you aren’t going to find that here, so if detail and depth are your thing this this probably isn’t the best solution for you.
Useful Software for HDR Fans
For those doing HDR, Trey and I both still recommend HDRSoft Photomatix, Topaz Adjust 4, Nik Software’s Viveza 2, and Nik Software’s Color Efex for the best results. If you are interested in the Nik Software products, I strongly encourage you to consider getting the bundle as it offers the best value.
Other Trey Ratcliff products
In addition to those already mentioned, here are some other products Trey offers on his site:
Disclosure
I was given a free copy of this book to review and if you purchase it from the links in this article I will get a small commission.
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