HDR?!

dream rider · Dec 22, 2007

hello everyone,

Been a while since i posted on here, and i searched for this but couldnt find anything on here. I was curious, how do you do HDR photos? because i've seen quite a few and they look awesome! and i really want to give it a go, so if anyone could help me, that'd be great! thanks!!

Jeff

GwagDesigns · Dec 22, 2007

dream rider said:
hello everyone,

Been a while since i posted on here, and i searched for this but couldnt find anything on here. I was curious, how do you do HDR photos? because i've seen quite a few and they look awesome! and i really want to give it a go, so if anyone could help me, that'd be great! thanks!!

Jeff

HDR images are the process of combining 2 or more photos with different exposures to get a wider range of color on the ending picture. special program are used to combine them like Photomatix, or what i use, Dynamic Photo HRD. Photoshop also has its own process of combining them, but the 2 mentioned programs work better. a few tutorials to read are the following:]

Deals with Dynamic Photo HDR, but has a great intro to HDR images.
http://www.mediachance.com/hdri/help/index.html

Short good one with examples
http://eirikso.com/2007/08/10/hdr-photography/

Heres an example of my recent work with HDR, i took the following images with the following settings.
Lens: 50mm @ f1.8

Shot 1 - 1/50
Shot 2 - 1/200
Shot 3 - 1/800

Brought them into Dynamic Photo HDR, which then aligned them for me, and combined them, then went into tone mapping, and after playing with the settings for a while, came up with the following.

If you want to know more, just search Google for "HRD Tutorial" thats how i came to know most of what ive learned.

doenoe · Dec 22, 2007

here is a link to a thread that is on this forum:
HDR EXPLAINED

Sideburns · Dec 22, 2007

I use photoshop for HDRs if you wonder. You don't NEED to go out and get Photomatix or anything...

GwagDesigns · Dec 22, 2007

Ive tried using Photoshop, it goes a lot slower for me, and when using PS, what do you do instead of tonal mapping? i didn't see an option for that.

shorty6049 · Dec 22, 2007

yeah, i'd like to know how people do good HDRs in photoshop becasue i cant ever get results even CLOSE to what photomatix does automatically. Also, i'd like to suggest to the mods that we take the most informative HDR thread and make it a sticky. This topic comes up ALL the time.

Alpha · Dec 22, 2007

shorty6049 said:
yeah, i'd like to know how people do good HDRs in photoshop becasue i cant ever get results even CLOSE to what photomatix does automatically. Also, i'd like to suggest to the mods that we take the most informative HDR thread and make it a sticky. This topic comes up ALL the time.

As with everything else in the post-processing world, "automatically" is always less preferable to doing your own custom work. Learn custom tone-mapping and you'll have much better control over your processing.

shorty6049 · Dec 22, 2007

i agree max, i try to stay away from most automatic processes (besides a few photoshop actions i found) but I have tried doing HDR in photoshop and cant ever get it to look like a real image, (always very fake and too surreal) is it mainly curves that you work with to tone-map in PS?

Sideburns · Dec 22, 2007

shorty6049 said:
i agree max, i try to stay away from most automatic processes (besides a few photoshop actions i found) but I have tried doing HDR in photoshop and cant ever get it to look like a real image, (always very fake and too surreal) is it mainly curves that you work with to tone-map in PS?

After you merge to HDR, you have a 32 bit image.
You go to image > mode > 8 bit.

Then you adjust that little curve until it looks correct. Then it renders your HDR into an exposure that will work on your screen.

Then you play with curves and levels and whatnot after that.

Usually when it asks you the first time to adjust stuff right after you merge, I just leave it. Then when you change it to 8 bit, you fix the picture then.

I probably make it sound more confusing than it is...

shorty6049 · Dec 22, 2007

possibly, haha, i'm pretty sure i know what you mean though, i've tried it before and remember converting to 8 bit , although as i recall, 16 worked too if you want to do more work on it, i just couldnt ever get what i wanted out of it, but i'm not great with curves yet either

rae128 · Dec 22, 2007

Im new to this too, and really want to know more on this... i have photomatix and been using bout a month or so.... i agree that the photomatix looks a lot better than using the PS "merge to hdr" (maybe from my limit of knowledge in Photoshop in hdr).. most of the time i PP the output from the photomatix with Photoshop.

And i still have an issue using photomatix.. when i want to hdr a portrait or moving subject... my only option is to chose a "single raw conversion".. after it merged.. i noticed that it has lots of noise in the dark area... and it create a limitation for me to tone mapped it... but when im using a single hdr conversion it work great.. what i do is convert the raw to jpeg-> change it to different exposure-> and photomatix the different exposure jpeg. and the result is no noticeable noise. Is it the photomatix didnt correctly determined the EV spacing... when it convert the raws to whatever file it convert to during that process..

n my raw is cr2