Tone mapping?

[BrandonS]

I keep reading you can tone map images to bring out the shadows, lower highlights, etc. However when I search all I can find is stuff relating to HDR. I can't believe everyone is assuming that all of us are bracketing every single shot. Can someone give me insight on what this would mean for a single exposure shot? Maybe point me towards a tutorial.

I'm trying to learn post processing, but it seems a more daunting task than learning to shoot manual mode and manually focus; which really wasn't too bad.

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[Garbz]

You called it what it is thank god!

The reason your search for tone mapping is turning up nothing is because most standard sheep follow the online blogging idiots who take a single photo run it through a HDR program and call it a HDR photo.

Search the forum for single exposure HDR and you may come up with something.

Basically the principle is the same. Tonemapping is a dynamic compression algorithm where by pixels are adjusted based on the brightness of surrounding pixels. In HDR it is used to reduce the 32bit file which can not be displayed and definitely not printed back down to a normal 8bit file. But tone mapping can also be applied to single photos, often with a loss of contrast but any decent tone mapper will allow you to adjust it.

[Alfred D.]

Photomatix can do both. You can download a free trial. Have a look.

[ann]

gosh, what a nice reality check, i was thinking i was out in left field with my thinking about this very thing; lumping hdr and tone mapping together always regardless of the fact that a 3 exposure image does not mean automatically it has to be toned mapped.

whewwwwwwwwww

[BrandonS]

Yea I tried the whole single exposure HDR search. I just come across mounds and mounds of garbage.

Really the reason I ask is I'm getting frustrated with not having any clue what I'm doing when I PP. It's mostly randomly fooling around with the same things over and over until it looks OK. I figured this would be a good place to start as it seemed a good foundation; then got mad when I couldn't find any information on how to actually do it.