HDR Question

[FSTOPMIAMI]

Do you get the same results when:

Bracket shoot , or change the exposure using PS RAW on one individual shot?


TIA
Armando

 

[Sideburns]

Do you get the same results when:

Bracket shoot , or change the exposure using PS RAW on one individual shot?


TIA
Armando

No you won't, because PS RAW is pretty much making up those exposures. Taking real exposures is the only way to get the best results.

 

[Johnboy2978]

I've never been able to use just one image and change the exposure in PS and do it like that. When I do then try it, it just tells me that there isn't enough dynamic range to make an effective HDR. The only way it works for me is to use real bracketed exposures.

 

[MACollum]

I've never been able to use just one image and change the exposure in PS and do it like that. When I do then try it, it just tells me that there isn't enough dynamic range to make an effective HDR. The only way it works for me is to use real bracketed exposures.

I used layers in PS to make a bland statue picture dramatic (I like it anyway :mrgreen. I made one layer light with levels, then one dark with the light one underneath. The dark layer was at 50% (or 35%, I can't remember) opacity, then color burn was done to the darker top layer. A few more tweaks with levels and saturation and it was finished. I wouldn't call it HDR though. The other one I did the same way has a bit of the dreamy HDR look to it but I wouldn't really call that one HDR either.

 

[HaydenS]

download photomatix and step up aperture settings etc - - if you look at some of the tutorials on google you can learn it conceptually

can't say anything for how you'll do in praxis though haha

 

[amateursnapper]

To get a true HDR image you have to take several different exposures. The idea is that each image will span a particular dynamic range, and then you can combine them to span a much larger total range. There's no way to do it with a single image because you can't rescue (or create) information in the highlights and shadows that wasn't there in the original photo.

Pete

 

[Alex_B]

Do you get the same results when:

Bracket shoot , or change the exposure using PS RAW on one individual shot?


TIA
Armando

No, because information which were lost in the highlights and in the dark parts of the image due to the sensor limitation cannot be reconstructed. Gone is gone if part of the histogramme is missing.

Also you will get more noise.

However, if you are just heading for the tonemapping effect in the LDR, you can do that with a single exposure and it might work nicely in some cases.

 

[LaFoto]

When your one RAW-file is correctly exposed, then that should actually mean that your histogramme is ok and nothing is lost, shouldn't it?

So when you take that ONE file, set it to 1.5 steps below regular exposure, save it as TIFF, go back to it, set it to normal exposure, save it as TIFF, go back to it, set it to 1.5 steps above regular exposure and save that as your third TIFF out of that one file, it cannot really be that any information is lost. It has always been there in the original file, hasn't it?

So if you then merge all three exposures taken out of the one file with the help of whichever programme you have for this process, should it not mean that all the information is still there, and stacked, so that in the subsequent tone mapping process you can create an image with a much higher dynamic range than your camera would ever have been able to create otherwise?

I know this is not "true HDR".

Only for me and my flimsy, cheap tripod, this is the only way, since my tripod is so bad that it lets the camera sink by a fraction of a millimetre between bracket exposures (OK, I admit I had the zoom lens on AND bracketed manually) so that in the end the photos were no longer merge-able.

So for the time being, unless I finally learn how to have the camera autobracket (I know the theory, only have I so far never felt the urge to put my new theoretical knowledge into practise), I only test-play with single RAW files.

Examples can be found in the Graphics Programs and Photo Gallery Forum on this very TPF!