More early attempts at tone mapping

[LaFoto]

To promote the old (but never quite so expressly stated) second function of this Graphics Programme forum (now with "...and photo gallery" in its title!), i.e. to serve as gallery for your heavily pp-ed photos, let me share some more of my earliest attempts at tone mapping with the help of the free Photomatix demo version:

With these two, and the given, very low light we had back in March of this year, the SOOC-versions were quite a bit boring, and nothing I did with ONE exposure only and the things Photoshop can do would bring about the colours and dynamic range that these two tone-mapped versions show. (And yes, no true HDR, but a merge of three differently saved RAW-versions of each).

 

[LaFoto]

Right. Here we go.
LaFoto actively goes out bumping her own submissions.
Openly - and saying so.

 

[Alex_B]

Well, with ripples on the water you have no other chance but starting with one exposure

I quite like them both, and they do not have that typical HDR feel which so many love but I myself despise (does not mean I would not try it myself one day ...).

The only thing that tells me this could be an HDR is the strong red in the shady parts.Else it looks like a DRI, or am I confusing terms here?

Photomatix or FRDtools?

Openly - and saying so.

So that is very different from me .. doing it secretly

 

[LaFoto]

So that is very different from me .. doing it secretly

Used to do it secretly by just seemingly adding another thought to the thread, but I am done with that.
Though I do see that it will take time for people to find out that the Graphics Programme is also a Photo Gallery, they don't yet come to look for photos, here, but they will in the course of time.

And yes, these having been my very first attempts at tone mapping, I was so unsure as how to really bring these together and NOT get the cartoon-effect. I only wanted for all things to show, the against-the-light water AND detail on the boat (which was almost all gone in the original RAW-file, dynamics WERE just too much for the camera!).

And all this is playing with Photomatix. I haven't got anything else.

 

[Alex_B]

[...] bring these together and NOT get the cartoon-effect. I only wanted for all things to show, the against-the-light water AND detail on the boat

So this is why it looks more like taken with (wide dyn. range) film then.

(which was almost all gone in the original RAW-file, dynamics WERE just too much for the camera!).

So you are saying, that by tonemapping you got detail which was really lost in the original RAW? Or are you saying that tonemapping seems a convenient way to convert a RAW of this kind into a JPG? I am currently experimenting with the latter, but I am not very successful yet

And all this is playing with Photomatix. I haven't got anything else.

I am playing with FDRtools basic, which is free. But as stated, I am not very good yet in telling the program what I want

 

[LaFoto]

The Photomatix version I am using is free, too, and actually leaves a watermark on the merged pic (which I cloned out in all three places where it showed, shhhhhh!)

And it is, by merging three "differently exposed" (har-har ... I had the RAWconverter do the "different exposures" for me) photos (saved out of the converter as TIFF-files, nothing else works, the conversion to jpg only comes later, after the tone mapping), one heavily UNDER-exposed (lowered the glare of the sky), one sort of normal, and one OVER-exposed (that brought out the detail in what was all dark in the original file) helped bring out both: not too much glare in the sky AND the kind of hidden detail in the boat. (That sentence of mine will get a 5 in any school-essay, oh dear, I really butchered that one with all the extra remarks in brackets. Sorry).

 

[LaFoto]

Those were the days, when even I tried my hand at HDR, even if they were "false HDR". I haven't created an HDR-pic in ages. I think the last I took (true one, bracketed photos to work with) I took in January of 2008...

 

[Bynx]

When using Photomatix there is a setting option to account for wave movement from one shot to the next in your group of shots for HDR.