PhotoWalkPro

Before I get into the meat of today’s post, I wanted to satisfy a request I received from several of you yesterday.  In comparing HDR processes, many of you wanted to see the images I used to create the HDR image.  Seen below are the three bracketed images used to create the final shot of the empty fish market in Bruges, Belgium.  I originally shot a 5 stop bracket but only used 3 images for processing, -2 stop, normal, and +2 stops. Be sure to click on the image for a larger view.

So, now that I have taken care of that, let me explain what I mean by “What you see is not always what you get”.  When I was processing my images for yesterday’s post, I tried to keep the tonemapping on the more photo-realistic side side of things.  What struck me though was the difference between the processing preview, especially in Photomatix Pro, from what I was seeing in my final rendered image.  Even though I thought I had been fairly light-handed in my processing, the rendered result was a bit more over the top than what I saw in the processing view.  This isn’t the first time I have noticed this but I thought I would bring it up because it can certainly play a role in how you actively process your images.  To give an example, take a look at the image below.  This is a screen capture of what my processing looks like for this HDR rendering of the inside of a church in Belgium.

Now take a look at what happened to the image after I hit the Process button.  The contrast, colors, shadows, and detail enhancement was more than anticipated during processing.  This is probably due to the fact that the image being viewed during tonemapping is not the full-size image but a preview rendering used to judge the processing before it is applied to the HDR image.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing but it’s certainly something to be aware of while processing your images.  It’s always a good idea to keep the strength of your processing dialed down a little bit more than you think you should to keep yourself from having to go back and re-process again. That being said, I never consider an image finished after tonemapping. I always take my tonemapped image into Lightroom or Photoshop for final adjustments to color, contrast, and density.  This way, I can always bump things up later if I prefer.  I find it’s easier to enhance contrast, detail, and saturation from a gently processed HDR than it is to tone them down.

The news of improved HDR processing in CS5 was big news to many photographers, especially those that use other HDR products such as Photomatix Pro or HDR PhotoStudio 2. I have been playing with the new feature in CS5 and I think that the jury is still out on this one. Last week my buddy Matt Kloskowski wrote an article comparing CS5 and Photomatix. Matt’s bottom line is that a lot of folks will probably make the switch to CS5 based on the Remove Ghost feature and the lack of noise.

Unified Color, makers of the HDR PhotoStudio program also weighed in on the issue on their own blog. In response to the release of HDRPro in CS5, they had this to say:

“I think Adobe has really missed the mark with respect to HDR. They do the imaging community a disservice by perpetuating the myth of “The HDR Look” to mean grungy, over processed, over saturated, hyper realistic, images with halos that most photographers would go out of their way to avoid when sharpening regular images.”

So where am I on all of this?  Well, I’m not sure yet.  I see advantages to all of these programs and each one can deliver its own look to an HDR image.  I agree with Matt that the Remove Ghost feature is fantastic.  Photomatix offers wonderful control and ease of use, especially in creating hyper-realistic image. And HDR PhotoStudio creates probably the most photo-realistic image I have seen in any HDR program.  So for now I will probably continue to use all of them until I really find my comfort zone.

Read the rest of this entry »

What a crazy busy week it was last week.  I was so busy with everything that happens at Photoshop World that I didn’t even get a chance to talk about a lot of other things that were going on.  Here’s my take on some things that surfaced last week, with some that you have probably heard, and maybe a few that you didn’t.

Adobe Releases LR Beta 3.2

Like I said, you have probably already heard about this already but it does bare repeating.  I got a chance to download the latest beta while I was in Orlando and then once again when I returned home.  I am now running it on 3 different computing platforms, my MacBook Pro with OS 10.6, my home desktop PC running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional, and my little Netbook with the less than mighty Intel Atom processor.  As you can see, I am giving the beta a thorough going over and if there is a bug, I am most certain to run across it.

One thing I found interesting about the new beta was all of the instructors that were using it in their classes.  I’m not just talking about Lightroom classes but people using it for one of its newest, best features, tethered shooting.  Zach Arias used it for his first class and he had just downloaded it.  That’s a lot of confidence and I can tell you that it didn’t let him down.  Myself, I have been blown away by the new noise reduction features that were finally unleashed.  I might still use a noise reduction plug-in every now and then but it will be significantly less than I used to, that’s for sure.

There are other updates to the beta but it’s always more fun to discover on your own.  In fact, if you haven’t already, why not head over to the Adobe Labs download page and get yourself a copy now.  It is free after all.  Just remember this, any libraries that you create will not be imported into the final shipping version of Lightroom 3.  It is a beta after all and they don’t want you bringing anything that might be buggy into the final version.

As Long As We Are Talking Adobe…

It was announced late last week that Adobe will be announcing Photoshop CS5, which is really weird because they made an announcement about when they are going to announce.  It’s all very confusing but what isn’t so confusing is that the next version (oh wait, I can now sort of officially call it CS5) will have some really amazing stuff inside.  There are some video clips about one of the features but since I am a beta tester (yes, I am one of the lucky ones) I can’t discuss any features.  I can show you some of my work that I have done but I can’t tell you how I did it.  Oooh, it’s so suspenseful, isn’t it?

The official launch will take place on April 12th at 11:00 A.M. Eastern.  And speaking of things I can’t talk about, check out this amazing little video for a very cool sneak peek into one of the features that I can not officially confirm or deny. Click here for the YouTube link.

Oh, and since I can, here’s a before and after image that I made in CS5 using the really cool (fill in the blank) tool.

UNIFIED COLOR LAUNCHES “TRUE VISION HDR PHOTO CONTEST”

Finally today, I thought I would tell you about a very cool contest that will be held throughout the year with some very cool prizes for the winners.  So here’s the deal, Unified Color Technologies, announced the Unified Color “True Vision HDR Photo Contest.” Photographers of all experience levels are invited to submit their finest images created using Unified Color Technology’s HDR PhotoStudio software. Contest participants have a chance to win prizes totaling more than $30,000 including a Grand Prize of a photo workshop through National Geographic Expeditions and a 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Unified Color’s True Vision HDR Photo Contest will award the most creative and technically beautiful HDR images. Judged by a panel of HDR experts and renowned photographers, the contest will be held in three cycles throughout the year with the grand prize to be selected at the end by public voting. There is no limit to the number of images a photographer may submit and no purchase is necessary to participate. Starting today, photographers can submit their images in one of three categories, architecture, nature and “freestyle,” on www.unifiedcolor.com/contest.

Using HDR PhotoStudio (a free download available at www.unifiedcolor.com), photographers create their HDR images and submit the .BEF file (HDR PhotoStudio native format) for consideration to http://www.unifiedcolor.com/contest-submit-photo. Images can be submitted in one of three categories: nature, architecture or “freestyle,” an open category for any image that does not qualify for one of the other categories.

Awards and prizes will be presented in each category three times throughout the year followed by a grand prize announced on December 1. All the winning images from the three cycles will be considered for a grand prize which will be decided by public vote.

The first round of awards will be announced in mid-May and entries should be submitted by May 12, 2010. Photographers are encouraged to submit as many images as they like. There is no entry fee to participate.

So if you really love making HDR images and would like to score a little bling for your efforts, download a copy and get cranking.

It’s amazing how a little processing can change the look of an image.  This is especially true when the image process is HDR in nature.  There are so many looks to HDR and it seems that most folks really like that hyper-realistic look that comes from pushing the sliders to their max.  If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, check out this image from inside the St. Salvator’s Cathedral.  I shot a 3-shot series of images for this picture and then used Photomatix Pro to create the HDR and tone map for the final look.

Please click on the images for a larger view

As you can see, it has some extreme stuff going on but it does have great information in the shadows and highlights.  Unfortunately the colors are way too vivid and the mid-tone contrasts are way over the top.  Or perhaps I should say that they are way too over the top for me.  That’s the thing about HDR, some folks really prefer the way this image would look over the ones below.  For me though, it’s just completely unrealistic and doesn’t come close to representing what I saw.

To get things a little more on track, I ran the process again but this time I was less aggressive with the sliders.  It still has that classic HDR look to it but there are less halos, the colors aren’t nearly as bright, and the tonal contrasts are a little smoother.

Still though, when I sent this to a buddy, he kind of snapped me back to reality that this image was still not very “true to life”.  After giving it another look, I decided to process my image one more time, just to see if I could tone things down a bit more while still getting the benefit from the HDR process, which is better tonal values in the shadows as well as the highlights.  To do this, I ran the bracketed images through HDR Photostudio 2.  I find that this program has a much smoother look to it when creating photo-realistic HDR images.  As you can see from the result below, there is much less of a gritty look to this image and yet it still has great tonal values thoughout.

I guess the moral of the story is that when it comes to HDR processing, there is definitely more than one way to move those sliders and it’s all about where your personal preferences lay as to how much is too much.

A couple of months ago, HDR Soft, the creators of the vastly popular Photomatix Pro HDR software, released a new version of their software called Photomatix Light.  This new version is meant to take all the heavy lifting out of the HDR process by reducing the number of sliders and making things much more automatic for the beginning HDR enthusiast.  I hadn’t given much thought to the product but after receiving quite a few inquiries from my readers I thought perhaps I should give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »