First Attempt at HDR - Elements 10, CS6 (not mine) or a special programme please?

[Colin Southern]

My real objection to using the term tone mapping interchanged with HDR is that it doesn't differentiate the 2 processes and in essence many operations on a shot effectively map one tone to another so why not call the lot tone mapping including simple brightness and contrast adjustments etc,

John,

I'm essentially in agreement with all that you wrote (I might add that I'm still a little confused as to why you feel people are confusing HDR with tone mapping when just the opposite has been explicitly mentioned though). Bottom line is though that simple brightness and contrast adjustments are very much examples of tone mapping with, in essence, the only differences between that and the type you're meaning being the fact that one is done on an image with potentially a huge dynamic range (being a DR "composite") and having a non-contiguous application due to local contrast adaptation verses one where it's applied to an image with a DR that is equal to or less then the DR of the sensor, and it's applied globally, equally. Either way it's still translating ("mapping") a source value to a different destination value though.

Regardless though, my pet HDR "hobby horse" is people stating that single exposures can be made into HDR images when; (a) the destination - by definition - will never be able to contain more information/detail than was captured in the original, and (b) mostly what they're referring to is the "Happy Potter gone mad" application of tone mapping which - like you - I have a somewhat limited pallet for. I certainly agree that - done correctly - a good "HDR image" may well look like any other normal dynamic range image (which I use myself).

[ajohnw]

At least the the thread has finally made me sort Enfuse out. On Linux unlike windows and mac versions I had to compile it which is easy enough but finding the missing library files was a bit of a nightmare on this one. It's an interesting application and when I have suitable shots i can see what it can achieve. It will add images taking the "good" parts from each. Omitting out of focus parts too it seems.

It did this immediately with my fake hdr duck. I just touched it up after merging with enfuse. Reduced, sligh tone map to mid and less to low tones, sharpen slightly, touch of extra brightness in dark areas. It wouldn't align two different sized images apart from that perfect really. I'm impressed. I didn't defringe this one - Pens sensors are known for that..




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This what the camera jpg looked like due to a lot of backlight.

[John Morton]

One thing I quickly noticed about HDR, and that I really like, is that it is outstanding at bringing reflections up into images where they would normally be too faint to be noticed.

I spotted something interesting and somewhat related, I think, in a recent HDR image from this year's autumn photography: the HDR process seems to have actually captured color reflected from the autumn leaves onto other surfaces!

You can see this with light reflecting from the red and orange leaves onto the tree trunks in the upper right corner of the photo; and with the yellow leaves, in light reflected onto (about midway) the tree trunk that runs along the left hand side of the frame.

[Colin Southern]

At least the the thread has finally made me sort Enfuse out. On Linux unlike windows and mac versions I had to compile it which is easy enough but finding the missing library files was a bit of a nightmare on this one. It's an interesting application and when I have suitable shots i can see what it can achieve. It will add images taking the "good" parts from each. Omitting out of focus parts too it seems.

It did this immediately with my fake hdr duck. I just touched it up after merging with enfuse. Reduced, sligh tone map to mid and less to low tones, sharpen slightly, touch of extra brightness in dark areas. It wouldn't align two different sized images apart from that perfect really. I'm impressed. I didn't defringe this one - Pens sensors are known for that..




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This what the camera jpg looked like due to a lot of backlight.

I really hate to say this John, but the process has resulted in a truckload of noise in the revealed shadow area in front of the duck.

[FrankMi]

All I know at the moment is that it must be obvious that some kind of processing has been done after the image was taken and the tutor mentioned a 'HDR effect', so I thought that would be the most visual example.

So it sounds like the instructor wants to see an exaggerated HDR processing technique, the very look that we try to avoid when doing HDR processing.

For starters, if the subject is a Mall then unless you are shooting at night it may be difficult to get a scene that has sufficient contrast range. One possibility could be a scene that contains shadowy indoor and brightly lit outdoor elements in the same scene.

A Mall scene has its own additional issues of setting the White Balance when multiple lighting sources with their differing color temperatures are involved, yet another reason to use a single light source when possible as I did in the two images I posted previously.

Shooting at a Mall introduces another element that works against getting a typical Auto Exposure Bracketing 3 exposure set, and that is the shoppers! Unless you don't mind a jumble of ghosted people moving through the three source images or can find a location that is movement-free at the Mall, this will usually be detrimental to a pleasing result.

But I can see what you mean and if I was going to us it, then I suppose I would be looking for something exaggerated to demonstrate that?

I can think of one part of the shopping center, outside, that would be covered by a walk-way so I could stand under that, looking out into the rest of the open area of the center, perhaps that would give enough DR?

The walkway scene could help obtain a wider contrast range. Unless you can get a better clarification of what the instructor is looking for, I would think that the most important single factor in producing a good result would be the composition. I say this because the composition is the one element that set a snapshot apart from a compelling image and if the image is compelling a subtler ‘HDR Effect’ will be more pleasing.

If the source image must be a multiple exposure set then I would look for a scene where the Mall’s architecture is highlighted as that will minimize ghosting. If a single image of the scene is allowed (and then tonemapped to get an over-the-top HDR look), then including shoppers in the composition is possible and may be unavoidable.

If you decide to go with the tonemapped result that includes the shoppers, retain an original image and tomemap the copy. Most tonemapping will make skin-tones look sickly so you’ll want to blend back in the faces, etc. from the original image using layers and masking to avoid that pasty look while retaining the HDR look for the remainder of the image.

There have been a number of suggestions on how to do the tonemapping in this thread so I won’t repeat them but I will strongly suggest going to the Mall and scouting out the best locations for your composition and definitely play with the process as much as you can before the photoshoot.

[Colin Southern]

So it sounds like the instructor wants to see an exaggerated HDR processing technique, the very look that we try to avoid when doing HDR processing.

I agree - it's something the public general don't seem to get overly tired of though, judging by Trey Ratcliff's success (apparently he's living here in New Zealand with us now, so guess we'll have to make him an honourary kiwi!).

[Diggerdanc]

Nice photo's and I use PhotoMatix pro also and it is the best that I have found for HDR photography.

http://www.diggersphotorepair.com

[Bettyboo]

Hi Everyone, Happy New Year!

Sorry for the delay in replying to everyone, but once the conversation got going, I am embarrassed to say I got a bit lost and didn't want to say something that was stupid, even for me

So I thought I would wait until I had done the deed and show you what happened!

I did read everyone's contributions, advice and suggestions, thank you so much and I have saved them for future reference as I grow and understand more.

Unfortunately for me, the assignment was very prescriptive. It had to be of the outdoor part of The Oracle, Reading; it had to have the canal in it; it had to be ground level (I wanted to go to the top of the car park and use a tilt-shift to get a model village effect but wasn't allowed ) and it had to be really obvious that the image had been 'shopped' as this assignment related to the manipulation part of the course.

I had done some research on line and found an angle I liked, with lots of lines and curves and it was really 'out there', so thought if I had to do something I probably would never want to do again, I might as well go for it and make it surreal.

We only had about an hour there; it was raining the whole time and we were the only ones there, so I managed to make lots of images with my class mates in, then had to 'remove' them, in a nice way though .

When reading the posts I realised there was SO MUCH more to what I was trying to do than I thought and took the advice to use a programme. I got 15% off Photoamtic Essentials through Trey's website and used one of the pre-sets to get near what I was visualising. I had bracketed anyway, which I wanted to do to practice that, so used five images, before applying the pre-set.

I then sat down with my Kelby/Kloskowski Elements 10 book and cloned and healed away until I think I removed all the people, power lines, rain drops on the lens; flag poles and artifacts. The sky was just grey and flat and to be honest I am not entirely sure how I ended up with the sky I have now, but have been tinkering with it until it looked moody.

Also the lens I had to use was broken, it was the widest lens I had and I couldn't afford to buy a replacement, so have a massive amount of vignetting in each corner thanks to the light being let in. I had to crop it quite hard, as quite significant areas of the vignetting were completely burned and wouldn't take any cloning or healing.

I had some assistance from some other CiC members to try and rescue the name of the shopping center which I managed to not only almost miss, but didn't focus on very well! so many thanks to them.

Anyway, long story, I have to hand it on Tuesday and hope to get at least a pass. It is definitely not a look I want to do again, but have learnt a massive amount which I am very grateful for.

So, I know it is pretty much a pants image, but you have to experiment and I am sure the feed back I get from the tutor will help me develop, which is the point of the course I suppose

Thanks again to everyone for your guidance and advice and hopefully the original combined image and final one are below

Lynne