HDR and Motion

[SilverMercury]

Hello everyone,


My name is Stephen and this is my first post in The Photo Forum. I'm interested in practicing HDR in environments where multiple exposures merged in post-production yield conflicting results as a result of elements that move in the frame. What I mean to discuss is photographing scenes that involve natural occurrences such as ocean waves or the movement of leaves, or even clouds.


In my experience, photographing successive frames will help minimize the amount of motion that occurs naturally in nature, but obviously that solution is subjective as it would have no effect on a beach setting where there are waves, for example.


How do HDR photographers overcome this problem? Importantly, I am trying to overcome the issue without having to rely on activating certain preferences in post-production softwares. The reason for this is because the photographer would be required to own the software in order to activate the preference (such as in PhotoMatix, for example), which is a program I personally hate using to render my HDRs.

Thanks guys,
Stephen

 

[ann]

Sorry, these techniques are overcome with software, including PS.

Check out a website with Captain Kimo, the has a video where he goes into the specific you mention in your post; ocean waves. As i remember , it is a combo of Photomatix and PS layers.

Nik's HDR program handles motion , at least minor motion, but am not sure it would help with waves. Download a trial version and see what it will do.

I am testing photoengine right now, but haven't tried it with moving objects so I can't recommend that without knowing.

What are you using now to merge your images?

I am sure someone here who has a lot of experience with PS will chime in with the steps for a layer workflow to accomplish this.

 

[joealcantar]

I don't shoot it but this site may be helpful know it was a topic on a recent issue of the magazine:
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Search Results | Photo Answers
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Shoot well, Joe

 

[spacefuzz]

You can do it Stephen all in photoshop, especially if you hate programs like photomatix. I blend all of my HDRs by hand and although time consuming compared to photomatix I like the results better. Another benefit is that for issues like ocean waves (I shoot a lot of seascapes) I make all of my bracketed exposures and then stop to think what is moving. With waves, I then make sure I have a nominal exposure for them or I will take an additional shot. Then when I blend, all of the waves are the same image and you get no ghosting. You can do this after you run your photo through photomatix, but photomatix can make things look a bit cooked compared to the original (setting dependant of course). So then if you blend in an original exposure, it may not fit with the rest of the image.

If you want more details let me know.

For example, here is one where I used the method above:

 

[Bynx]

If its a really windy day, or there are waves, traffic or people walking around, I will use one of the shots, after the HDR is made, to blend over the HDR and it stops any ghosting. Blending it in is the tricky part.

 

[SilverMercury]

Thanks guys.

I'm interested in learning more about the idea of 'blending' an image into an HDR after it has been made. I'm not quite sure what you mean to 'blend' the image, but I imagine it means just merging an appropriate exposure of the same scene into the HDR result.

Could you explain what it means to blend an image after HDR processing, and maybe some steps or instructions about how to go about doing this?

Really appreciate your responses. Thanks again.

 

[480sparky]

.............Could you explain what it means to blend an image after HDR processing, and maybe some steps or instructions about how to go about doing this?
...........

I generally just Clone the portion with the movement issue from a single frame into the HDR.

 

[spacefuzz]

Thanks guys.

I'm interested in learning more about the idea of 'blending' an image into an HDR after it has been made. I'm not quite sure what you mean to 'blend' the image, but I imagine it means just merging an appropriate exposure of the same scene into the HDR result.

Could you explain what it means to blend an image after HDR processing, and maybe some steps or instructions about how to go about doing this?

Really appreciate your responses. Thanks again.

I import each exposure into photoshop on seperate layers, so have 2-3 to start. Then I use the layer mask function to start blocking out the portions of the exposures i dont want. Once the exposures are blended to my satisfaction I will crate a composite layer and continue with my processing. If you are using elements you can fake layer masks using adjustment layers.

This works well for nature shots where you have a clean horizon, gets more difficult with trees, and becomes even more difficult if your shooting some sort of city scene in an ally with all sorts of strange lighting.

 

[Bynx]

As spacefuzz says, to blend I use layers in Photoshop. When i say tricky, thats when there are like trees against the sky. The trees blowing in the wind have blurred themselves. Taking the best image to replace the trees can be tricky because the color of the sky around the trees and showing through the branches wont match the color of the final HDR sky.

 

[spacefuzz]

As spacefuzz says, to blend I use layers in Photoshop. When i say tricky, thats when there are like trees against the sky. The trees blowing in the wind have blurred themselves. Taking the best image to replace the trees can be tricky because the color of the sky around the trees and showing through the branches wont match the color of the final HDR sky.

To help with this you can use a small 15% opacity brush and just lightly paint in color where you can. If you get enough of it the trees can look like they are not blurred and you can fool the eye into thinking there is color everywhere. Very anal type of a move though and can take hours to do it right.