Your opinion of HDR photography

[example_123]

I am researching the topic of HDR photography for a college paper and I am hoping to have a few questions answered pertaining to its influence on and acceptance in the photography community. Though I doubt I will come across an HDR professional, I am optimistic that youwill be able to offer an expertly reply.

Perhaps you own a certain bias as to whether this is a fundamental advancement in the field or rather a cheap mutated process and failing of an art. There are those whom believe that the “reflective images with a roughly 300:1 dynamic range” IS photography. Do any of you dislike the idea of this imaging technique become a standard to photography? And I know it was applied to photography quite a few years ago, but it seems very consumer-ready now.

I’d also love to hear any and all of the extensive information that you have on HDR itself, as this additional background information would benefit me greatly.

In fact, any discussion on this subject or the future of photography would be much appreciated (as I am plenty ignorant), and I’d love to hear where people stand on this topic.

Thank you for everything you are willing to contribute, objective or otherwise.

[codex0]

HDR itself, I believe, is a good thing.

What really bothers me is that the tone mapping algorithms built into Photomatix and related software is usually used to such an extreme setting that the image itself is distorted greatly. I'm all for subtle (read : "wow that looks really good, how did s/he do that"). I got sick of the "look" that so many people try to get (read : "that's another photomatix hdr") within about a day of playing with it.

[kevin_c]

I agree, too many HDR images are overdone IMO, they look fake.
I'm sure if done properly they could look amazing.

[StewartR]

Agree with Kevin 100%.

I've seen some HDR images that seem to capture the scene better than conventional ones do (Duder's Grand Canyon gallery (http://www.pbase.com/petejackson/grand_canyon) springs to mind), but most are awful because the tone-mapping is over-done.

[Virtual_D]

I think its a terrific response to a limitation of sensor technology. I see no difference in using HDR processing and the multiple steps such artists as Ansel Adams took to produce his stunning images. His famous "Moonrise" photograph required extensive darkroom manipulation to achieve what has become a true work of art. HDR is darkroom manipulation without getting your hands wet or cutting out burn & dodge masks.

And I echo the previous responses. When done properly, it can truely enhance an image and (hopefully) a viewers enjoyment of that image.

[TheSteveMadden]

A more accurate disctiption is CDR (Compressed dynamic range). When sparingly done to enhance shadow and highlight detail and saturation, it can be effective. Most are just unnatural. My opinion, of course.

[Virtual_D]

A more accurate disctiption is CDR (Compressed dynamic range). When sparingly done to enhance shadow and highlight detail and saturation, it can be effective. Most are just unnatural. My opinion, of course.

Wouldn't that be Expanded Dynamic Range (EDR)?:???:

[TimothyFarrar]

Though I doubt I will come across an HDR professional,

Well you are in luck. As a professional that builds and sells a HDR darkroom toolset (http://www.farrarfocus.com/ffdd) for Photoshop and someone who shoots every shot (http://www.farrarfocus.com/photography/) with HDR techniques, here is my opinion and some useful background,

First off, unlike Adobe HDR and Photomatix HDR processed images, our HDR method results in no artifacts. Take a look at our work and you will see first hand, no silouetting around high contrast edges, no haloing, no graying effect, and no strange tonal shifts caused by tone mapping. In fact, other than the fact that our images have no noise, one would not know that they are indeed HDR images. Here are two examples,


http://www.farrarfocus.com/m/20060318-017K.jpg


http://www.farrarfocus.com/m/20060314-026K.jpg


You get a completely natural look (if you can call a rainbow in Death Valley natural ;) ). See how the second example has no artifacts (haloing) around the branches which cross the horizon.

As a form of distortion, I think the "HDR" look provided by other HDR tool sets definatly has a place as an art form if done right. However I have yet to see photographers trying to sell this idea. Technically, the term HDR should mean a method of extending the typical 5 to 6 stop dynamic range of a single digital negative to the 8 to over 10 stop dynamic range possible with a blended digital negative. However, as Steve mentioned, "HDR" now seems to describe the un-natural methods of tring to compress this 10 stop digital negative into the much smaller dynamic range of a display and ultimately paper output.

The grand irony about HDR is that we, as photographers, have been using HDR methods all along without even knowing it. See, dynamic range refers to the ratio of minimum and maximum intensities. Another name for dynamic range is contrast ratio. The contrast ratio of a photographic slide can be 1000 to 1. Extended latitude negative film can have a contrast ratio over 2000 to 1. While the contrast ratio of a typical photographic print is only 100 to 1 (which is even lower for prints on archival matte paper). I bet you can guess where I am going with this...

We have allready been compressing the high dynamic range of quality film negatives into the tiny dynamic range of the photographic print for years with out using Tone Mapping or Adobe's Local Adaption HDR Conversion Option. So the "secret" to processing an HDR image and getting something natural, is to do the same thing you would have done in a chemical darkroom (adjust the contrast in the darks and the lights, mask, dodge, burn, etc).

The real advantage of HDR for the professional digital photographer, is in noise reduction. Compared to high quality film, digital has a very bad quality in the darks (too much noise, even at the best ISO). This becomes an even greater problem in development. Using proper HDR techniques, a series of digital negatives can produce a blended digital negative that has quality that rivals the best film negative.

Feel free to checkout our galleries of which 99% of the images are developed HDR blended negatives,

http://www.farrarfocus.com/photography

And our digital darkroom which has a huge amount of info on the topic,

http://www.farrarfocus.com/ffdd

Here is a link that contain useful info even for those who use Adobe's HDR or Photomatix,

Getting the correct exposure range when bracketing. (http://www.farrarfocus.com/ffdd/shooting.htm)

I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[Tsmith]

Timothy very nice looking application _ does it only function with CS2?

[Tareq]

I am using photomatix to produce HDR photos and it works great with me.
i will try Photoshop someday to do that but i hope it is easy to use as photomatix and get same results or better.

[TimothyFarrar]

Timothy very nice looking application _ does it only function with CS2?

Everything but the double actions (the enlargement) should work on CS1. In fact orgionally, the bracket and blend scripts were developed on CS1.