Photo or Video Game?

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A photo taken at Nippori Station in Tokyo with a Nikon D80, looks remarkably close to something you’d find in a video game. Matter o’ fact, it is damn hard to tell the difference now. You be the judge:
 
For me, this is certainly skirting the edge of believability. There are three things in the picture that bug me:
1) Depth of field is really huge.
2) The histogram in this picture doesn't seem....right. Same goes for color saturation. Almost like various exposure levels were stitched together to make the picture, or the brightness curve was tweaked. I'm not a photographer, maybe someone else can better define this....
3) Everything is out of focus. And uniformly so, not like a 'real' camera would do. Maybe this is the same as #1. But it's like the photoshopper did a gaussian blur over the image.

All that being said, it's a very nice image.
 
It probably looks so fake because it's been processed with a bunch of cheesy HDR techniques.
 
It is a real picture, but nothing is said about post-processing...

Just looking at the image, a series of steps and photoshop filters start coming to mind.
 
I did same type of post processing on this pic from ireland using photomatix HDR plugins in CS3.

very simple to make any multiple exposure pic come out this way.


iehdr4.jpg
 
noc_81 said:
It is a real picture, but nothing is said about post-processing...

Just looking at the image, a series of steps and photoshop filters start coming to mind.
Click to expand...

At Nippori station, Tokyo.
3xp(2EV) handheld.

[EDITED]
- 3 exposures (-2EV, 0EV +2EV). EXIF for middle
- SLR camera and lens: Nikon D80 /w Tamron SP AF11-18mm (A13N)
- tripod and head: handheld
- software: Photomatix Pro 2.5.3 on MS-Windows XP
 
It's HDR that was done handheld.

THe HDR to 8 bit tone mapping gives you the saturation and weird contrast. The histogram looks odd because it WAS stitched together form multiple exposures.

The fact that it was taken handheld gives you the odd super depth of field. Since the background was slightly blurry due to DOF in each shot, you notice the camera shake less as they composite into something that looks more like the original of each frame than the foreground elements do. The foreground elements blur out to match the background because they don't register correctly due to it being handheld (visit the link and look at the original sized image, it is MUCH more obvious what is going on in that).


Then of course you downsize it and it gets very soft and cartoony looking becuase you throw away a lot of the info that lets you see what is going on.. which makes it look soft. If you look at the original sized image, it really doesn't look much like something you'd see in a video game.

Then to top it all off, The original was made brighter using high iso rather than a longer exposure. This gives more noise. Which is then exagerated by the HDR process. This adds some more surreality to things and make the colors look more drawn/painted than they would in a normal photo.
 
anyone else remember the picture of a real pub that looked just like a scene from Oblivion? Funny how something in a real life photo can end up looking like a video game though, isn't it?
 
It's called high dynamic range photography. You take multiple exposures and put them together, effectively creating an image with shadows, mid-tones, and highlights all equally visible.

It's not "fake", as some of you are saying, it's just a form of photography.
 
I think we got it backwards... we should be making games look like real life, not real life look like games. Come on now.
 
That looks pretty much exactly like something from the game Crackdown on 360... maybe higher poly count, but verrry similar.
 
half of the "videogame" feel of the image should also be attributed to Japan's aesthetic. bright appealing colors. things that "pop", and an overall bright "pleasing" feel. "Blue Skies"
 
Half-Life 2 came to mind.

It's a really cool photo, but kind of disturbing in the "Life imitates art" sense, like Kyle said.
 
^^My point to that is that HDR and tone mapping just has that kind of "effect" on pictures with people in it.
 
There's just one thing that is bugging me about that picture, why is there no people or birds in it?
 
zeroidea said:
It probably looks so fake because it's been processed with a bunch of cheesy HDR techniques.
Click to expand...

I agree regarding hdr. As soon as I saw it I knew it had to be. As far as cheesy though I don't totally agree. If you don't go crazy with it it has its uses. They went a bit overboard with this pic so it looks a bit outlandish but under certain conditions its a useful tool.
 
can someone elaborate again on how to do these hdr techniques? when you say you "take multiple exposures" does that mean you take 3 separate photos and put them together or do you just take one photo and can create 3 separate exposures from them?

im assuming its taking 1photo as taking 3 separate ones is not very common sense like, so how do you create the separate exposures with photomax?
 
noodlesnspam said:
can someone elaborate again on how to do these hdr techniques? when you say you "take multiple exposures" does that mean you take 3 separate photos and put them together or do you just take one photo and can create 3 separate exposures from them?

im assuming its taking 1photo as taking 3 separate ones is not very common sense like, so how do you create the separate exposures with photomax?
Click to expand...

You take 3 separate photos using three different exposures. Of course you are not limited to only 3 photos. You can take as many as you think are required, but usually 3 is enough.
 
If your original photo has exposure data, then you can take it into Photoshop and make separate exposures with it. It works out fairly well if there's enough data in the image. Just today I made some HDR images out of a picture I originally had only 1 exposure of.
 
The thing about some HDR photos is that they can look REALLY cartoony and sometimes it just looks retarded. But that's not to say that all HDR photos are like that. I try to do HDR images that still look completely normal, but have that extra punch of detail. It isn't a cheesy form of photography unless you overdo the effect.
 
There is a pretty intersesting project going on that originated with Gary's Mod for HL2, where they use some kinda complex video filters with HDR to make video game characters look extremely life like in real life photos, i'll find a link.
 
Mohonri said:
For me, this is certainly skirting the edge of believability. There are three things in the picture that bug me:
1) Depth of field is really huge.
2) The histogram in this picture doesn't seem....right. Same goes for color saturation. Almost like various exposure levels were stitched together to make the picture, or the brightness curve was tweaked. I'm not a photographer, maybe someone else can better define this....
3) Everything is out of focus. And uniformly so, not like a 'real' camera would do. Maybe this is the same as #1. But it's like the photoshopper did a gaussian blur over the image.

All that being said, it's a very nice image.
Click to expand...

Possibly had it set to a low aperature setting to get the blurry/out of focus shot. Of course, post processing could've acheived all of this (but a gaussian blur is too obvious). I was hoping for something that was photo-realistic, honestly. :)
 
The difference between HDR in video games and photography kills me. I hate HDR games.

In HDR photos, as has been discussed, you compress the dynamic range so that highlights, midtones, and shadows all still show detail. This is how your eye works. Look out your window on a sunny day. You can see detail in the clouds, and on the windowsill inside, at the same time. You camera can't do that. Either the inside would look good and the clouds would be blown out, or the clouds would look good and the inside would be dark. Increasing the DR of camera sensors to emulate the eye's ability is something we want.

So why is it that in games we go backwards? Games as we have had them forever ARE HDR in the photographer's meaning: the artists control palette and lighting so no place is too dark or too light. You see every texture as the artist intended.

But in modern game-marketing-speak, HDR means that when you move your view to, say, include the sky, the sky washes out. Or you walk into a dark room from a bright place and your virtual eyes take a moment to adjust. This is dynamic range REDUCTION. And it is retarded.

My two cents on the matter anyway.
 
4saken said:
I did same type of post processing on this pic from ireland using photomatix HDR plugins in CS3.

very simple to make any multiple exposure pic come out this way.
Click to expand...

All that post processing and you couldn't level the horizon?
 
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