automate HDR creation from within iPhoto, without the HDR..

[wunderbar]

first post here - sorry, not sure if this is best forum, but hope this is of some use to others.

i was looking for a way to simplify creation of tone-mapped extended exposure photos, using iPhoto on Mac since that's where i collect most of my pics

i recently found 'enfuse', which is an amazing, free command-line tool that merges multiple exposures w/o making a HDR image first:
http://wiki.panotools.org/Enfuse

many claim the results are better than most HDR packages (including photoshop cs3). plus the process is automated.

there's a front-end app for mac and you can see some samples:
http://pangeasoft.net/pano/bracketeer/

bracketeer is okay, but if you hack a bit, you can use enfuse with the iphoto plugin from below:
http://www.n8gray.org/code/scriptexport/

follow instructions for scriptexport. then create a few simple shell scripts, and then the whole process is automated. you just select the multiple exposures in iphoto, run "export.." and the final image is created on your desktop (or wherever)


here are the 3 scripts i created for scriptexport. save these some place convenient, then put the path to the scripts in the export window of scriptexport.

enfuse-pre.sh:

#!/bin/sh
# create a working dir (make sure it's empty first)
rm -rf ~/Desktop/enfuse-working &1>/dev/null &2>&1
mkdir ~/Desktop/enfuse-working


enfuse-per.sh:

#!/bin/sh
# copy each source image (path passed by ScriptExport) to the working directory
cp "$iPImagePath" ~/Desktop/enfuse-working


enfuse-post.sh:

#!/bin/sh
#process the images, putting a timestamp on output file
/path_to_enfuse/enfuse -o /path_to_put_result/enfused-`date "+%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%S"`.jpg ~/Desktop/enfuse-working/*
#remove the working files
rm -r ~/Desktop/enfuse-working


(change the path_to_'s in the last file accdgly). give it a shot.. the export plugin is only for Mac, but maybe there is PC version (or a similar utility for whatever photo mgmt software you use)

 

[DigiJay]

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[nynfortoo]

Do you not think it's a bit daft to automate a creative process? Especially with something as drastic as HDR.