High Dynamic Range Imaging

[Mike Umscheid]

Wow, great stuff guys. I'm guessing that these are examples of the exposure blending only? Or did either of you try the tone mapping also?

I'm also really curious to see some examples using the Photomatix way (including the tone-mapping).

Keep it coming guys!

Darren Addy
Kearney, NE
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After looking at that photomatix site and reading their descriptions of exposure blending and tone mapping... I like to think that what I am doing in my work is applying both methodologies manually, I guess. I am a stickler for trying to make my photos appear as close to how I remember seeing the scene with my own eyes. Unfortunately, it is my experience that algorithms that do HDR automatically are not flawless, and can make the photo look rather strange in some cases. I do everything manually when it comes to blending. This basically means using a layer mask and paintbrush tool of various opacities to create my manual HDR photo. I love the post-processing stage in digital photography; I am allowed the ultimate flexibility in how to make my photos represent the scene how I saw it. The same is true for complex stitching for panos. I do that manually with layers/masks too... all in PSP X. My opinion is, learn and master layering/masking techniques and use the paintbrush on a mask to your advantage. It can do wonders

Mike U

 

[John Diel]

Darren,

I'm only blending. No tone mapping or real extra or Uber deep processing. I don't think PS7 allows for the tone mapping anyway. Or it's simply deeper than I care to delve.

Mike,

Oh man.... Simply awesome. That first one, I would almost accuse of being faked, but I know better

You know, as far as Storm Photographers go, I tend to believe that this board has some of the best in the world. You folks that pull it off consistantly are my inspiration. I get one or two really good shots each year, where some get 3 or 4 really good shots each storm.

I may have totry some of the stuff I'm readnig about and work more in RAW/TIF formats a bit more.

 

[Mike Umscheid]

Mike,

Oh man.... Simply awesome. That first one, I would almost accuse of being faked, but I know better

I may have totry some of the stuff I'm readnig about and work more in RAW/TIF formats a bit more.
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The fields in SD are really, really green, it's pretty amazing... but the photo may be a bit over processed for my liking... that's one I processed quite some time ago like last summer... before I got Pixmantec RawShooter... That's in the large batch of storm shots from last season I'll be processing more carefully again with RSP and PSPX. The digital noise reduction is much improved now in version X vs. version 9 of paint shop pro. The beauty of RAW, you can always go back to your photos and improve the processing as newer techniques/software emerge

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Just a heads up that I did some HDR tests today and have posted the results at the blog linked below. I have more to learn about this, but I'm very impressed with what HDR can do. One of the strange things about HDR is that, unless I want to do histo compression, I end up having to selectively put contrast back into images, as the HDR opens the shadows up so much that it almost looks unreal.

Very, very interesting.

An example (there are more on my page):



becomes:

 

[John Diel]

NIce experiments on every day subject Ryan. Colors are a little more "punchy" that I like, but that's more a personal preference than a detriment. I'm wishing I had PS CS2 at this pint and some nice waterfalls to experiment with. I may try with a fountain this weekend though. Just to see how it come out on blending alone.

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

Thx John. I liked that program so much I jsut went ahead and got it. This blending is great. It doesnt distort the photo to where it appears fake or tampered. It actually jsut makes the photo appear as if you were there to see it. IMO.

 

[Rockwell Schrock]

I always use a similar technique of combining exposures for landscape shots. It can be really effective, and is quite easy to accomplish once you learn how.

http://www.deviantart.com/view/29616672/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/28741889/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/25116327/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/23776031/

I have just ordered CS2, so I can't wait to revisit some of these shots using the HDR method and see if they come out better.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Just thought I'd mention that I tried my first HDR storm photo on the 23rd. After some tweaking, here's how it came out:

 

[Oscar van der Velde]

Just thought I'd mention that I tried my first HDR storm photo on the 23rd. After some tweaking, here's how it came out:
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Hmm, although it looks attractive at first sight, it does appear unnatural to me for the reason that it is impossible to have the land look brighter than the part of sky where the sun shines toward you. The foreground also has no color cast at all, whereas from this position it should have a mostly blue cast because of the sky over/behind it (unless clouds reflect warmer light back from behind you)
Probably you can still use this technique but only if the result seems physically still realistic. This must be possible if the sky is on average 4 stops brighter than the foreground you can crank up the foreground like 1.5 stops, and bring the sky back 1.5 stops. Then watch it if dark sky parts become darker than the land if this was not like that in reality. If not, you are making a nice picture (or horrible, depending on the effect) without realistic meaning - like many postcards I've seen.

Usually utilizing the Shadow/Highlight tool in Photoshop CS with not too large amounts of compensation is perfectly acceptable, even though/because it can't do the same effect.

Oscar

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Hmm, although it looks attractive at first sight, it does appear unnatural to me for the reason that it is impossible to have the land look brighter than the part of sky where the sun shines toward you. The foreground also has no color cast at all, whereas from this position it should have a mostly blue cast because of the sky over/behind it (unless clouds reflect warmer light back from behind you)
Probably you can still use this technique but only if the result seems physically still realistic. This must be possible if the sky is on average 4 stops brighter than the foreground you can crank up the foreground like 1.5 stops, and bring the sky back 1.5 stops. Then watch it if dark sky parts become darker than the land if this was not like that in reality. If not, you are making a nice picture (or horrible, depending on the effect) without realistic meaning - like many postcards I've seen.

Usually utilizing the Shadow/Highlight tool in Photoshop CS with not too large amounts of compensation is perfectly acceptable, even though/because it can't do the same effect.

Oscar
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Yeah, I'd definately agree -- it's been very hard so far for me to figure out how to make HDR look 'natural'. The original HDR downsampled file before correction looked even less realistic -- there's just something weird about everything in a backlit scene having nearly equal exposure. Even the human brain doesn't see things this way -- while the above photo is punchy in color and pleasing to the eye, it doesn't look anything like what I saw as I was standing there watching the storm. The bottom of the cloud deck was much muddier and brown-tinted, for one thing.

Still, I think there is a lot of potential here -- I just need to figure out how to make HDR work well!

 

[Mike Umscheid]

Post processing using HDR is an art. You can do whatever you wish... there is a fine line, however, between something that looks pleasing to the eye yet still natural looking, and something that has that "wow!" factor, but is surreal and probably unrealistic physically. I'm finding more and more that the only time I use any sort of HDR technique is if the ground is some 4 or more stops darker than the sky... pretty much what Oscar mentioned. In my processing, I try to bring the most out of the photo, trying to recreate what I remember seeing with my own two eyes, but at the same time making the photograph pleasing to look at. Higher contrast and higher saturation is certainly more pleasing to look at versus something flat that comes straight out of the camera in RAW format.

Mike U

 

[John Diel]

So much of this type of "photo manipulation" has been debated in recent years as better cameras come into the price range that Joe Average can afford. It's been debated that doing simple sharpening and selective brightening, contrast adjusting, etc. is "not legal" (for lack of better words). H0wever, much of this falls into the same category as the Darkroom burning and dodging, masking, etc.

There are "purists" out there that really do believe that manipulation of the photo in any way is bad and invalidates the photo. There are those that believe that this same manipulation is simply a way to convey the feelings and present the photo as "more real". Then there are those that wildy manipulate the original photo, add to it, take away from it and come up with something so totally out of whack and still try to pass it off as something they "saw".

It's an interesting debate, but even with the manipulation I've seen on the photographs presented in this particular forum, I certainly wouldn't call them "unrealistic". But then that's really in the eye of the beholder isn't it?

Sorry to get off on the side tangent here. For me, does the final image represent what I want to convey to the veiwer? If it does and the feelings I felt when I took the photo get across, then I've done my work well.

I enjoy all the photos that come across here, but the ones I really enjoy are Mike U's, Mike H's, Ryan's and Aaron's(there's a couple more too, but these are the one's I can name in 5 seconds without looking ). These guys have mastered the art of conveying the majesty, power, and beauty of a Thunderstorm. Many of us strive to get there and a few of us get a good photo more by accident than design, but these guys really are the ones to learn from.

I'm a "good" photographer in that I have the technical aspects of it down pretty well. I can do some really nice portraits in the studio and I can even go out and get a few really nice landscapes, but to be able to do it like these guys? Well, I've got a long way to go.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Just a couple quick things -

First, this thread rocks. Like, a lot. Ryan - thanks for going through the effort of Beta testing this method and posting your results. You can bet your buns that there's more than one photog interested in trying this out.

One question for you, though - how many exposures did you take to achieve that shot above? - and if I'm understanding this process right, and a person brackets 3 or 4 exposures that the software can then "merge" to draw the best levels from each, how do you avoid blur or camera shake? - In your images, your subjects are crisp. How did this work if you are dealing with a number of exposures? I've been trying to read up on this, but still haven't figured that point out.

Color saturation is what appears to be the biggest source of contention here (remember when chasers were arguing against Velvia for the EXACT same reason?). Personally, if it pleases your eye and does a decent job replicating the original feel of the scene in your mind, then process within the limits you are comfortable with. I think for me I might try desaturating some of the over-done images prior to merging ... the foreground is probably the truest color here, but just appears washed against that amazing orange behind it. Also - since we are used to seeing photo after photo after photo, we have become accustomed to photos appearing a certain way (usually according to pre-set processing by digital camera manufacturers in jpeg mode, which fall way short from what most folks are actually trying to achieve). Anyway, I think that we may have prejudiced ourselves a bit against imagery like this, simply because we're not used to it yet.

I'm not as concerned with the same ethical arguments against photo improvements again in this thread, as I am in achieving these levels of exposure - which I believe will become an enormous tool for photographers. I doubt we are even capable of seeing where this is eventually headed, to be honest.

------------------

Edit - has anyone thought of trying this with good old b&w yet? - This may really work well for black & white. You won't have the questions about unnatural color, but you'll still enjoy the wide latitudes. I've already ordered PS-CS2 and think I'll give it a whirl just to see what the results are like.

 

[Glen Romine]

I've been enjoying this thread from the sidelines as well. I'm not very good at digital processing, I only switched over to a digital body this last winter. This technique looks quite interesting - and I'm eager to try it out on a few images I can think of off the top of my head. Anyhow - my question is for Ryan regarding the image above: what lens are you using? The perspective distortion is pretty bad on the vehicles - so I'm guessing it's some sort of fisheye lens, which you are then processing to convert back to rectilinear. I would agree the foreground is too bright - but I think that mainly is disturbing because of the shadowed treeline on the horizon - that gives the illusion that the foreground has some artificial lighting supplement. There also seems to be some color halos in the cloud edge near the upper left - which makes me wonder if this was a slow bracketed shot.

Does anyone have to use the Adobe DNG raw converter for CS? I've found a fairly low tolerance for exposure compensation without introducing a lot of noise. Maybe I should be using some other type of raw processing that others could recommend.

Glen

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Does anyone have to use the Adobe DNG raw converter for CS? I've found a fairly low tolerance for exposure compensation without introducing a lot of noise. Maybe I should be using some other type of raw processing that others could recommend.

Glen
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I've used CS's converter and Canon's and notice if you have to open something up very much it'll always do that. Part of me doesn't think you gain a whole lot extra by using the raw converter to open something up rather than just using photo shop curves or levels. I kind of think it is more or less dealing with the same info. I think you might gain something when you want to lower the exposure with something blown out(since it is supposed to be capturing the raw data as it exposes and somehow keeps that info...so you could take it back down....but it really then wouldn't be getting any extra info to open up since the exposure obviously stopped....if any of that makes sense or is even correct). But anyway, I've seen that noise thing too.

I had some shots one night at I think ISO 400 and ISO 800. The two I had with it set on 400 were under exposed and I had to open them up. The one at 800 was not under exposed. Both the two at 400 when opened up to the same level as the 800 one had more noise. It makes sense and I'm sure is common knowledge, but I figured I'd mention that while it went through my mind just now.