Thread: HDR - High Dynamic Range - an example

HDR - High Dynamic Range is a way for photographers to compensate for a vastly contrasted lighting in a picture.

For example....bright sunny sky, dark mountains or visa versa.

Camera's tonal ranges are quite limited whereas our eyes are able to adjust and we can see the full range of light within a scene.

So the camera's meter will try to 'average' what it sees and you are often left with a poorly exposed picture...1/2 of the picture is ok but the other 1/2 is either too bright or too dark:



BUT, thanks to imaging programs - you can use HDR to capture the entire range of light within a picture by using multiple exposures of the same image.

Basically there are two ways to accomplish this, but for the purposes of this discussion let's chose the scenario where A) the photographer takes 5 differently exposed images of any scene...if you will - different exposures to expose the sky in one frame, the mountains in another and so on, water, trees, etc.

Then you take the 5 images and blend them in Photoshop or another program. You can blend them by hand, or another way to do this would be to use their automated "Merge to HDR" function...I've tried this and for whatever reason have always failed.

BUT I found a new program, Photomatrix...check out the number it did on the before



after



{both unedited}, the after was comprised of 5 or 6 shots...

SWEET??? :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Very cool and or SWEET

Originally Posted by grim

Very cool and or SWEET

thanks mad hatter!

this is why I took 3,480 pictures on our vacation to CO mg: mg:

19.4GB :twisted:

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my motto: when it matters, shoot RAW

RAW gives you massive exposure latitude

the other way to do this would be to take a single RAW file and make different exposure adjustments....hence another way to utilize the POWER OF RAW!!!!!!!!!!!

so from one raw file you could basically do the same thing without taking 5 pics! not sure though with an older camera like mine taking 5 pics vs using the one raw might yield better results...


but I digress!!

How many of those

3,480 pictures

were safe for TV?

Originally Posted by grim

How many of those were safe for TV?

only 12 but that's beside the point!!

here's another example!

before (attached)

after:

Amazing changes! Nice software and pics.

Do you guys see the face in the cloud looking down on that river?

Wow, that's something else! And loving the pics, Tim!

Hey, did you ever find the pink flower for me? I loved it!

Originally Posted by noppid

Amazing changes! Nice software and pics.

Do you guys see the face in the cloud looking down on that river?

thanks yous. I missed the face until you said something!!! wild stuff mg:

the SW is killer. I'm going to get lots of usage out of it for sure.

Originally Posted by Kalina

Wow, that's something else! And loving the pics, Tim!

Hey, did you ever find the pink flower for me? I loved it!

it was yellow/orange was it not?

I still need to look for it, or course now it'll take longer since my files are farked over

Yes, that's the one!!

I don't see a face in the clouds.

Originally Posted by Kalina

Yes, that's the one!!

I don't see a face in the clouds.

there's a face and a hand puppet actually

Originally Posted by timsdd

there's a face and a hand puppet actually

Cool, thanks for circling it, I noticed the hand part earlier.

This was at a park the other day. We spent like 3 hours there and to me it seemed like 30 b/c I did not feelvery well!! But I digrress.

While this isn't the best example, it shows what kind of things you can do with HDR.

Very nice Tim, bottom one looks like the sun is setting.

Originally Posted by Kalina

Very nice Tim, bottom one looks like the sun is setting.

Tks, I think it would have been more dynamic :P had it been an hour later during the actual sunset but time did not allow.

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Here's another one, rolling through my CO pics still...

On thing I did not 'consider' once I first started editing the HDR pictures. Since I am combining several different exposures, often times the composite is super saturated. None more so evident than with the snow in this picture.

Was the snow really this brown? Probably not but it was quite dirty being in June and unless you made the picture really really bright, it would look discolored for the most part.

Dirty snow.,..gotta hate it. But alas PS to the rescue - apply a mask, change the 'lightness' and walla! my snow is white again or whiter at least:

thats great Tim. I had heard about and tried taking pics at diff exposure and mixing them to get the correct exposure as per actual shot in PS but was not much successful. I will try this photomatix thing

Originally Posted by Jijo

thats great Tim. I had heard about and tried taking pics at diff exposure and mixing them to get the correct exposure as per actual shot in PS but was not much successful. I will try this photomatix thing

there is a way to do it in PS but I never had any luck with it. PS has a built in script that generates 32 bit HDR's but I think I was missing a key component to the equation...perhaps 'tone mapping'

Photomatix combines the images for you, even tries to align them if they aren't dead on perfect and then once you do that, you need to select tone mapping and that's when the 'magic' happens.

of course with PS, there are probably 5 different ways to accomplish any one task, HDR among them I bet.

Another way you could do it, is to blend the images manually which would at least give you a better good foreground and background if you tried to do it with 2 different images. A little more time consuming though and you'd better have a steady hand or be good with masking!

Originally Posted by timsdd

and the final cut:

Originally Posted by timsdd

pre-edit HDR


final cut:

cool right :P

They look beautiful Tim!

Sweet! Any chance of us getting wallpaper size?

Originally Posted by Deejay Dan

Sweet! Any chance of us getting wallpaper size?

TIMMYwebSHOTS

Y, I need to make so for yous guys

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