Archive for category HDRI
To HDR or Not to HDR
Posted by Peter in HDRI, Light Houses, Massachusetts on February 15th, 2010
There has been quite a bit of discussion going on over at Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider Blog relative to the topic of HDR (High Dynamic Range ) image processing. The discussion all started with a Scott referencing a quotation about HDR that originally appeared on Dave Cross’s Blog.
Some of the comments remind me of the Chevy vs Ford, Toyota vs Honda, Canon vs Nikon, film vs digital arguments.
Personally, if the person creating the image is happy with the results what difference does it make what process was used to get there. Whether you used negative film, Polaroid film, digital capture, some processing is done to obtain the final results. Heck, even Ansel Adams manipulated the processing to create the final results of what he “saw” as Yosemite.
Scott goes on to mention “The biggest trigger point for most commenters seemed to be the amount or style of HDR tonemapping applied to a photo, and they seemed to feel that the over-processing was strictly to hide bad photographic technique.”
Can HDR be over done ? Sure, but when processed correctly (such as those done by Ben Willmore), HDRI can be the proper artistic technique to use and is better than the same image simply “Developed”.
Personally, I prefer a more subtle HDR tone mapping as done in the image below with final processing in Lightroom or Photoshop.
Though at times I do like to push the effect to what is obiviously not “real” but I do so because I personally like the effect, such as the image shown here.
Bottom line to me is, if you like what you are doing, create it and have fun doing it.
For an in-depth tutorial on the creation of and HDR image check out “My Deconstruction of the HDR image” by RC Concepcion.
On a cold and Gray New England Day …..
Posted by Peter in HDRI, Historical Location, Lightroom, Massachusetts, Photomatix on January 24th, 2009
…… I went back into my catalog of recent images I captured of the Concord River and Old North Bridge.
Normally when I merge to HDRi, I capture a range of exposures of +2,-2,+1, -1, 0EV. However for this set I only capture +1,-1,0 EV .
I was particularly concerned how this was going to render due to the snow cover (which is difficult to expose correctly without blowing out details in other parts of the image) and the fact that I was shooting mid afternoon on an overcast day.
Here are the +1, -1, 0 EV captures
After merging to HDR with Photomatix and while I was still in Photomatix, I applied a subtle tone mapping to avoid that “grunge” HDR look.
The tone mapped version was then imported into Lightroom. Once in Lightroom, I removed the blue cast that you can see in the snow, applied a local gradient to the sky to bring back some blue that was removed from the sky due to the previous step. I Then applied some tonal adjustments to the bridge to bring it more inline to what I saw. Lastly, I sharpened image and removed dust spots.
Resulting in this rendering of the Old North Bridge -
Have you driven a ….. lately ?
Came across this vehicle during a foliage trip over the weekend.
(click for larger image)
Post processing was accomplished utilizing Photomatix Pro 3.0, Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Lightroom.
Capture -
- Three exposures 0, -2ev and +2ev were made using AEB and multiple sequence capture.
- Exact alignment is critical to successful HDR processing. However since I was standing on the roadway, I was unable to use my tripod. Therefore to minimize camera shake, I used a image stabilizing lens.
Preparation -
- To minimize edge artifacts in the Photomatix HDR processing, proper alignment is essential.
- I have found that it is better to align the images using the auto align feature within Photoshop CS3.
- Within Lightroom the three RAW file captures were selected and with the right click option – open images as layers in Photoshop.
- the layers were aligned using the auto align layers found under the edit menu
- the resulting aligned images were then cropped to eliminate any unwanted areas.
- the individual layers were then saved as tiff files.
HDR Processing -
- In Photomatix Pro, open the three new tiff files
- Generate the HDR file and save the native HDR file for possible retrieval
- Apply the Tone Mapping. The settings are really up to individual taste and just how surreal or photographic you want as a user. I adjusted this image to suit my desired rendering.
- the processed image was then saved to a new tiff file.
Lightroom and Photoshop -
I have found that images coming out of Photomatix require some additional color and tonal adjustments. Depending on the amount of additional touch up required these adjustments maybe better done in Photoshop. I typically make as much of the global changes within Lightroom simply because I like the interface better than that of Photoshop. If I want to apply more local corrections or edits, I then select edit in Photoshop with Lightroom changes applied.
In this image, the vehicle had a “For Sale” sign in the window. To remove it sucessfully within Lightroom was doubtful, therefore I proceeded to edit it out within Photoshop. I then applied vignette once back in lightroom.
Single image HDR Processing..
Posted by Peter in HDR Simulation, HDRI, Photomatix on September 18th, 2008
I was just curious to see what would happen if I took a single image that was processed as a jpeg right out of my camera, as shown here (untouched by Photoshop or Lightroom )
Click on images for larger view
and I then processed with Photomatix using tone mapping – results shown here -
and then to get a little more “grunge”, I ran the processed image through the tone mapper again and some tonal adjustments with Lightroom – the result is shown here -
Better than I expected from a single image and a jpeg image at that.
I like the image and the effect, so I will plan on going back to my friend’s barn, take some bracketed RAW exposures, composed better and see what can be created from images of his “Toys”.
Just passing on the outcome of my experiment and as always comments are welcomed.
Thanks !
