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Thread: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

  1. #21
    Brownbear's Avatar
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    Hi Dave,

    Thank you. I truly appreciate that you would take the time to let me know about the automatic merge option. This is the first time I have tried combining exposures, so it is all totally new to me.

    I was not aware that images that are not aligned properly can lose sharpness, so very helpful to know. I have plans for some other images so I will see if I can figure out how to do this.

    I like John's treatment, too. I can see from his treatment and also from Chauncey's exercise that my colours are somewhat bleh. I will have to find my happy medium.

    Thank you.

    Quote Originally Posted by dje View Post
    Hi Christina

    You seem to be getting on top of this merging quite well and I'm reluctant to introduce another option - but - have you tried the automatic merge option in PS ? (File/Automate/Merge to HDR Pro). One of the things about this method is that it will attempt to align your images automatically and you can minimize the tone mapping as you desire.

    I have had trouble in the past with images slightly out of alignment causing a loss in sharpness, even when using a tripod and bracketed exposure.

    Your image is very nice and I personally like John's treatment. I think his application of Unsharp Mask has given it a bit of pop. Everyone to their own taste of course.

    Dave

  2. #22
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    From memory the video shows how to manually and automatically align the layers in PS. He uses keyboard short cuts so if a problem might be best to google things like photoshop move layers and photoshop align layers etc.

    The link I posted shows something I have found. If the light areas in the dark shot are made even lighter and the converse in the light shot this can improve the results - or make them worse. There are several way that the light levels can be changed - curves or levels as shown in the video. It also makes sense to try simplest first and get more complicated if needed.

    I tried enfuse on a couple of my shots. Via the Linux gui and EnfuseGui the free windoze one. One thing I noticed was that the results were flat colour wise and that the contrast slider didn't seem to do anything. The easiest way to fix this is tone mapping but tutorials are a problem as HDR just crops up and that's not what it has to be about. It basically can alter contrast on the basis of the contrast that is present in the shot. The term reducing global contrast is often used but it's odd that one way or another it increases it. There is a GIMP tutorial and it should be possible to do the same thing with PS. The layer modes might even be the same. Beware of the gaussian blur. On some shots this may leave strange pale outlines around objects.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMlKVDjJFfY

    Quick process. The only thing that can take time is the amount of variability that is available.

    John
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  3. #23
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    This should be of interest as well

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZe7ebYezqg

    The software can be downloaded here

    http://www.hdrlabs.com/picturenaut/

    This runs under wine on linux too. I just tried it on a tricky one done to get some very faint cloud detail into a shot as an exercise using 2 exposures from raw. It's worked rather well. There are several tone mapping methods to try. The one in the video didn't work so well on this but the logarithmic one did. It tells me that it's put 10 EV into the shot. An attempt to capture very early winter that part worked out.

    How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    John
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  4. #24
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    Thank you John. I will review those links. Truly appreciated.

  5. #25
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    Quote Originally Posted by ajohnw View Post
    ... I tried enfuse on a couple of my shots. Via the Linux gui and EnfuseGui the free windoze one. One thing I noticed was that the results were flat colour wise and that the contrast slider didn't seem to do anything. ...
    Oh, no, it's doing something. It just doesn't affect the contrast in the final image the way you think.

    I keep having to explain this, because those labels in enfuse mean something quite different than in other tools.

    Enfuse doesn't adjust colors at all, unlike tonemapping. That's why the default results tend to be much more naturalistic than with HDR/tonemapping. Whatever pixel values are there in the original member images are what you're going to get in the final image. It's just that individual pixels may come from any one of the member images.

    The three selection criteria are based upon contrast, saturation, and exposure, and messing with a slider labelled one of those three things in an enfuse front end means you're adjusting the importance (weight) that factor has in selection. If you weight most heavily on exposure, you're exposure-fusing. If you weight most heavily on contrast, you're focus-stacking. If you weight most heavily on saturation, you're picking the most saturated pixels among the member images.

    This is why I mentioned I do enfuse, and then I do a curves adjustment. Most HDR/exposure fusing methods in essence are doing the equivalent of a reverse-S curve adjustment or lowering contrast, so by default a lot of hdr image placed into a smaller range somehow are going to look flatter coming out of the algorithm. In fact, lowering contrast with in-camera processing is how some video shooter extend dynamic range.

  6. #26
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    Quote Originally Posted by inkista View Post
    Oh, no, it's doing something. It just doesn't affect the contrast in the final image the way you think.

    I keep having to explain this, because those labels in enfuse mean something quite different than in other tools.

    Enfuse doesn't adjust colors at all, unlike tonemapping. That's why the default results tend to be much more naturalistic than with HDR/tonemapping. Whatever pixel values are there in the original member images are what you're going to get in the final image. It's just that individual pixels may come from any one of the member images.

    The three selection criteria are based upon contrast, saturation, and exposure, and messing with a slider labelled one of those three things in an enfuse front end means you're adjusting the importance (weight) that factor has in selection. If you weight most heavily on exposure, you're exposure-fusing. If you weight most heavily on contrast, you're focus-stacking. If you weight most heavily on saturation, you're picking the most saturated pixels among the member images.

    This is why I mentioned I do enfuse, and then I do a curves adjustment. Most HDR/exposure fusing methods in essence are doing the equivalent of a reverse-S curve adjustment or lowering contrast, so by default a lot of hdr image placed into a smaller range somehow are going to look flatter coming out of the algorithm. In fact, lowering contrast with in-camera processing is how some video shooter extend dynamic range.
    Thanks for that Kathy. I haven't used it for a long time and had noticed that the contrast slider can make a difference to the result but not the expected one. In this case nothing at all and the result was flat which I agree is unusual. Being fair though the 2 I put through it were exposed to blend one very slightly into the other to slightly accentuate cloud detail.

    Actually I wondered if some one has fiddled with MacroFusion defaults so just looked for an old tutorial on the web but no signs of it.

    John
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  7. #27
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    The enfuse manual is here. It's a command line tool so some of the options are not available in the gui's that are usually used with it. There are a few pages of actual usage guidance in it.

    http://panorama.dyndns.org/EandE-doc...ion/enfuse.pdf

    John
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  8. #28
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    I just took 2 rather rough shots hand held guessing one of the exposures and use MacroFusion to blend and align them. EnfuseGUI free for windows should achieve the same thing.

    I used a matrix reading for the basic shot and then dialled in -2.3EV for the bright parts. Looks like minus a bit more would have been correct. That was partly offset with a slight adjustment to the exposure bias which also darkened some of the basic shot detail at the dark end. Then just a slight curves adjustment and reduction. The full 16mp image showed slight alignment problems. Of no concern reduced to web size.

    At least the shot shows what the software can do. Another exposure for darker room detail would bring up more but I would have needed a tripod. No typical HDR signs. The brighter patch on the carpet is real and may have been augmented a bit. Carpets are good for catching dog hairs.

    How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    John
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  9. #29
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    I finally managed to get LR Enfuse on my computer working.

    To share with others for the sake of learning, here is the same image merged in LR Enfuse.


    How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    It was simple, quick and easy to do, even for a neophyte. The result is natural looking. However, I can see why merging the images in Photoshop CC is appealing for more control. After the merge, I found the trees in this image a little dark so I applied a curves adjustment to the trees to lighten them up.

    The colours are still perhaps a bit too soft but the scene was soft. As I learn I will eventually find that balance between too soft/flat and too saturated.


    Anyhow just to say that LR Enfuse it is a very easy program to use to merge exposures.

  10. #30

    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    I think you should use Lightroom Enfuse to blend the images in LR. If all you want is to combine areas based on correct exposure,that will works fine.

  11. #31
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    Hi Patrick,

    Thank you. That is exactly what I intend to do. This was an exercise for me to learn how to bracket exposures for images with high dynamic ranges and learn to combine them. One of my goals for this year is to improve my landscape images.

    However I think it is good to learn how to combine images using layer masks, for a year from now as I progress and learn more about Photoshop CC I will likely use it more. I love Lightroom for it's simplicity but one of the things I adore about Photoshop CC (comes with LR in the Cloud Package) is that I can use my Bamboo pen to select things with finesse. I use it to sharpen my images with birds with water and sky in the background.

    But I love the ease and simplicity of LR enfuse so I will start by learning to use this program.

    Quote Originally Posted by patrickjohnson View Post
    I think you should use Lightroom Enfuse to blend the images in LR. If all you want is to combine areas based on correct exposure,that will works fine.

  12. #32
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    Kathy may be able to offer some guidance on what to look for when the shots to be used are processed before merging. I just aim to get the contributing areas each have correct. That results in the unwanted parts of the shot being too light or too dark. Sometimes I augment that but results seem to be more mixed. It may be more appropriate on another package I use that auto generates and merges layers. On that one extreme changes aren't a good idea. I suspect enfuse will be the same.

    I think the softness may be down to movement between shot's - the light green tree tops etc. Also ripples in water are bound to be moving. At larger sizes the same effect is noticeable in the conifer outside in the shot I posted.. Fortunately Enfuse doesn't seem to get confused by this sort of thing and will align "major" detail even when hand held shots are used. It's made a brilliant job of bringing the lamp posts up, they were still.

    In the case of your shot if I sharpen the entire image it crisps up the lot including the dark green trees, a sharpening brush where needed would be a better option. If the effect fades near the edges these are easy to use as well.

    You should try 2 exposures from raw too. No movement and a lot lot quicker than other methods. Your likely to be able to near double the dynamic range going into the results that way. Often more than enough.

    John
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  13. #33
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    Re: How to combine bracketed images - seeking simple tips

    Thank you as always for some great advice and tips...

    Will do! Appreciated!

    Quote Originally Posted by ajohnw View Post
    Kathy may be able to offer some guidance on what to look for when the shots to be used are processed before merging. I just aim to get the contributing areas each have correct. That results in the unwanted parts of the shot being too light or too dark. Sometimes I augment that but results seem to be more mixed. It may be more appropriate on another package I use that auto generates and merges layers. On that one extreme changes aren't a good idea. I suspect enfuse will be the same.

    I think the softness may be down to movement between shot's - the light green tree tops etc. Also ripples in water are bound to be moving. At larger sizes the same effect is noticeable in the conifer outside in the shot I posted.. Fortunately Enfuse doesn't seem to get confused by this sort of thing and will align "major" detail even when hand held shots are used. It's made a brilliant job of bringing the lamp posts up, they were still.

    In the case of your shot if I sharpen the entire image it crisps up the lot including the dark green trees, a sharpening brush where needed would be a better option. If the effect fades near the edges these are easy to use as well.

    You should try 2 exposures from raw too. No movement and a lot lot quicker than other methods. Your likely to be able to near double the dynamic range going into the results that way. Often more than enough.

    John
    -

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