HDR in macro ?

[LordV]

Following a comment by MJ earlier in the week and a comment by another flickr member about the difficulty of getting good exposure on bumble bees I had a quick play with a recent shot. I just generated +1 and -1 exposures from the RAW and ran the -1,0,+1 shots through photomatix. Bearing in mind I have not the feintest idea what I was doing (never tried HDR before) the results is shown below. Original then HDR'd version. Although I think HDR works best with separate exposure bracketed shots that is obviously rather difficult for most macro shooting.

Brian V.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/2404376973_5e4e3edd87_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2245/2405611677_23129a8abb_o.jpg

[alliec]

Looks good Brian. I played around with HDR before but never thought of using it with Macro. The changes look very subtle, i like it.

[LordV]

Looks good Brian. I played around with HDR before but never thought of using it with Macro. The changes look very subtle, i like it.

Thanks Alistair :)
The idea was to try to bring out some more detail in the dark areas on the bee which it seems to have done whilst nicely flattening the flower petal exposure.
As I said I don't really know what I was doing but have a feeling it was really the tone mapping that did this. I suspect you can do tone mapping on just a single shot ?

Brian V.

[Greg_C]

I like the HDR version also Brian. It's toned down the bright area in the lower right and brought out more colour it the back of the bee. Certainly something to consider. I think your experience with shooting for stack will be very helpful but like you say getting a good series of sharp motionless images for a HDR will be the challenge

[macro junkie]

looks good brian.:)

[Attic]

Here is a HDR ladybird I did back on the 2nd April, I think it's a little colour strong but I like it :lol: Yours is much more subtle Brian ;)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3070/2381827569_d6c09bd0d3_o.jpg

[LordV]

Thanks for the comments :)
Alby - like it - was this from separate shot exposures or like I did ?
Brian V.

[Attic]

I made it from one image but made 3 exposures from it -1, 0 and +1. I think it would be quite difficult to do separate exposures of insects as setting up a tripod is a pain and the insect is likely to move or the wind would play a part and at the mag we use would be useless. Saying that though I might just have to give it a try now :lol:

[troypiggo]

For macro photos I find contrast masking works better than this. There is more detail in the HDR shot above, but I reckon you could get similar with simple contrast mask in GIMP or Photoshop.

[johnkermit1]

Very nice Brian, i saw this on Flikr last night.
i think it works well.

Alby, i like that ladybug as well.

Troy, i think i might have to try out a contrast mask, ive never used it before with the GNU software.

i dont really mess around with too much in that software, but i use the unsharp mask, and i adjust levels in there sometime..

i need to start shooting in RAW to mess around with it, but im not sure about if the GNU software will be good for editing raw files.

[Glenn NK]

The idea was to try to bring out some more detail in the dark areas on the bee which it seems to have done whilst nicely flattening the flower petal exposure.
Brian V.

I'd say it worked quite well - now how about an HDR stack?;)

[troypiggo]

Brian - I hope you don't mind, but I took your original image above and applied contrast masking to it just to prove to myself that the effect would be similar. I think it looks pretty close to the "HDR" #2 shot.

For those who aren't sure about what contrast masking is:
- open the original image in GIMP or Photoshop etc;
- duplicate the orig image in a new layer;
- desaturate the new layer so it becomes greyscale;
- invert the new layer so the dark areas become light and light areas become dark;
- gaussian blur the new layer about 10px;
- change the new layer's layer mode from normal to overlay. you will see the original image now with darker sections lightened up with more colour, and lighter sections slightly darker;
- the image may now look flat because of this. I either play with the opacity of the new layer, or flatten the image and use S-curves to add some contrast.

http://piggo.com/~troy/images/potn/2404376973_5e4e3edd87_o-masked.jpg