PhotoWalkPro

The HDR software market is getting a little more crowded each day. There’s Photomatix, easyHDR, FDRTools, and many others that will all create, post-process, and enhance your RAW and HDR files. If you already own Photoshop, you might already own all of the software you need to enjoy the benefits of HDR imaging. Let’s check out some HDR processing using just Adobe Photoshop CS3 (and a little Bridge and Camera Raw too).

Above you see the three exposures I used to create my HDR version of the scene. I am not going to cover creating the HDR file because I have already done this in a previous tutorial (click here to see the tutorial covering this subject). Read the rest of this entry »

I was feeling better his weekend so I decided to record part III of my HDR tutorial series.  This installment deals with creating a pseudo-HDR image from a single RAW file.  Often times the ability to shoot for HDR just isn’t a reality.  Either you forgot your tripod or maybe your subject matter just doesn’t lend itself to multiple exposures.  What ever the case may be, you can still derive the benefits of HDR from just a single image.  Most digital cameras that are shooting RAW have an exposure latitude of 7 to 11 stops, far great than any film.  By using the Single File Conversion process in Photomatix Pro, you can process the entire tonal range of your file and have it converted to an HDR file that you can then tonemap the file as per any HDR.

I couldn’t take multiple exposures of this scene out my airplane window but i could still perform some HDR processing using the single file conversion process.

Here is the completed image that was processed in the tutorial.

If you are interested in seeing more HDR imagery that I have created, try checking out my new  HDR Images page that can be found by following the link on the banner at the top of the page or by clicking this link.

Another first for the PWP site, a video tutorial.  I receive requests all of the time to show how I process my raw files into HDR images.  I am going to be writing a complete tutorial on this but I thought I would also do a video tutorial for those that want to see the process in action.  I am going to be doing this in two parts.  Part one shows how I go about creating the HDR image using three different exposures of the same scene using the Bridge, Camera Raw, and Photoshop.  This is my preferred method and I explain why in the video.  So give it a watch and let me know what you think but be kind, it is my first attempt at this.

If you are having trouble viewing the embedded video, you can follow this link to the video on YouTube.

I wrote this up for one of my buddies at work. He was trying to organize some images and was having some issues with his images not being organized in the order that he wanted.  I found this to be a pretty simple solution to his problem.

So here is the problem, you have a large group of images that you want to deliver to someone on a disk. The problem is that you may not have shot them in the order that you want them to be viewed in. This may be no problem for you but your clients may not have the software or prowess to rearrange them. The other problem is that computers are logical machines and like to have their files listed in a logical, sequenced order. That means it will look at the file name and start listing the files in an alpha-numeric sequence. You may have noticed this when looking at a file list and saw the following:

Image_1.jpg

Image_10.jpg

Image_2.jpg

Image_3.jpg

Image_4.jpg

Obviously Image_10.jpg shouldn’t be listed after Image_1.jpg and what if you wanted Image_9 to come after Image_3? Well here’s the answer to your problem, the Adobe Bridge.

The Bridge allows you to resort your images by dragging and dropping your thumbnails into whatever order you choose.

Once you have them arranged, you can utilize the batch rename tool to re-sequence the images.

Make sure that you select a digit sequence number that will cover the number of images you have. If you have anywhere from 1 to 99 images, you can use the 2 digit sequence, from 1 to 999, use the 3 sequence number and so on. This sequence number will put zeros in front of your numbered file names so that a computer will list them correctly in the sequence that you want like so:

Renamed_Image_001.jpg

Renamed_Image_002.jpg

Renamed_Image_003.jpg

Renamed_Image_004.jpg

Etc., etc…

When renaming, you can also choose to rename the files in their current folder; move them to a new folder; or copy them to a new folder. Also, you can include all types of data in the file name such as metadata, the preserved file name, the date/time, or the folder name. Just click on the plus sign to the right of each naming option to add a new one.

The bottom of the dialog box will display an example of your current name and what the new name will look like.

A pretty useful tool, indeed.

Now scroll down for a little special alert news items for the traveling photographers out there.

I hear a lot of people talking about how Lightroom has supplanted the Bridge as their program of choice for handling all of their image needs and workflow.  I have to admit that I use Lightroom and it does have some butt-kicking features for photographers.  I think that the reason Lightroom is so good is that Adobe finally involved the public in the development process.  It’s hard to give the people what they want if you don’t ask them first.  That being said, I still find it hard to give up my Bridge.  Sure, it’s still a little slow to load and there are features that I find completely ridiculous like the magnifying loupe  (Hey Adobe, I want to zoom in on the whole image, not just a little piece).  But all of that aside, it beats Lightroom out in a couple of categories.

First and foremost, sometimes when I want to open an image in Photoshop, I want it opened without having to save a whole new copy that I may never use.  Maybe I want to work an image and post it to my blog.  Lightroom only gives me one choice for a raw image and that is to make a new PSD file that Lightroom automatically saves into the same folder.  So now I have this PSD that I fiddle with and have to save as a jpeg for uploading to my blog.  That means I now have 3 copies of the image on my hard drive.  The raw file, the PSD, and the jpeg, all taking up valuable bits and bytes on my already crowded drive. Now I have to go back and delete the PSD to save space since I never wanted it in the first place.  A little suggestion to Adobe for the next version of Lightroom, give me a jpeg option under  Edit in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Another great thing that the Bridge lets me do is view and work with images that don’t reside on my drive and, more importantly, I don’t want to have to import to work with.  If I want to do anything with an image in Lightroom I have to import it first.  Of course this is because you aren’t really changing anything in Lightroom that actually effects the image, it just holds those changes and applies them when you export the image.  That’s a great concept except sometimes someone hands me a thumbdrive containing an image that they want adjusted and printed.  Guess where I’m going first, yup, right to the Bridge to pop open some thumbnails of those images.  Then I am going to right-click and open those images in Camera Raw.  And I’m going to do all of this without saving the images to my hard drive first. The same holds true if I only shoot a couple of images that I need to work with right away but don’t care about saving for later.  I don’t always shoot two or three hundred images at a time that I need to store and sort and adjust.

Finally, there are those great Photoshop goodies like Contact Sheet II, Image Processor, Merge to HDR, Photomerge, and others that are all available to me right inside the Bridge by going to the Tools/Photoshop menu.  I use these all the time and I love the fact that I don’t have to open Photoshop first, find my images, and then apply the tools when I can do it all from the Bridge.

So do I love Lightroom?  Absolutely!  It is a remarkable program that has revolutionized the workflow process for photographers.  Is it everything I need in my workflow?  More often than not, the answer is no.  Which is why I am still a huge fan of the Bridge and will remain so for some time to come.