cooltouch
10th of February 2009 (Tue), 13:14
I'm pretty new to the whole HDR thing, and have seen some stunning photos posted here so far. Makes me want to find some place more appealing to shoot than my backyard and my shop. Still, for my first HDR images, I was most interested in finding out the differences in dynamic range between an unaltered photo and a set of images massaged in HDR software.
I've tried three applications so far: Qtpfsgui, Picturenaut, and Photomatix. The first two are free, btw. Qtpfsgui is kind of bewildering, cuz it appears one must use the preset operators supplied, and all work differently with mixed results. I was able to come up with a couple of adequate images of my test subject, but neither were as good to my eye as those I was able to produce using Picturenaut or Photomatix.
Following are a few sample photos of my trusty old Nikon F2. I deliberately placed the zoom lens between the light source and the camera to produce deep shadows on the camera's left side. The first is the middle photo of a set of nine that I took, bracketed 1 EV apart. I have done no PP to it other than reduce its size and save it as a jpg. The second is a Picturenaut HDR, ad the final one was, obviously, done using Photomatix (still using the trial version).
Single exposure:
http://michaelmcbroom.com/nikonf2midrangeraw.jpg
Picturenaut:
http://michaelmcbroom.com/nikonf2HDRpicturenaut1a.jpg
Photomatix:
http://michaelmcbroom.com/nikonf2photomatix1.jpg
Of the two HDR images, the Photomatix image is more "HDR-like" than the Picturenaut image. I haven't spent enough time yet with either application to get good at tweaking images toward either the more or less surreal looking, but for this test, I was trying to keep them as "normal" as possible. In that respect, I have to give the edge to Picturenaut . . . so far. I'm sure as I play around more with Photomatix, my abilities will improve.
With the Picturenaut image I was able to render blacks pretty accurately without losing too much detail in the shadows. I had less luck accomplishing this with Photomatix. They came out closer to 18% gray. Perhaps as I understand its controls better, this will improve.
I should point out that I did do some additional PP on both HDR images. Mostly a slight amount of contrast and saturation enhancements, and a touch of USM. You'll note that both HDRs have saturated the yellows more than the original. I tried reducing this effect with the Picturenaut image in PP, but with limited results. I tried the same with the Photomatix image with even less results. I don't find the strong yellows objectionable, but I do find it interesting that there seemed to be a saturation bias in their regard.
CC is always welcome.
Best,
Michael
I've tried three applications so far: Qtpfsgui, Picturenaut, and Photomatix. The first two are free, btw. Qtpfsgui is kind of bewildering, cuz it appears one must use the preset operators supplied, and all work differently with mixed results. I was able to come up with a couple of adequate images of my test subject, but neither were as good to my eye as those I was able to produce using Picturenaut or Photomatix.
Following are a few sample photos of my trusty old Nikon F2. I deliberately placed the zoom lens between the light source and the camera to produce deep shadows on the camera's left side. The first is the middle photo of a set of nine that I took, bracketed 1 EV apart. I have done no PP to it other than reduce its size and save it as a jpg. The second is a Picturenaut HDR, ad the final one was, obviously, done using Photomatix (still using the trial version).
Single exposure:
http://michaelmcbroom.com/nikonf2midrangeraw.jpg
Picturenaut:
http://michaelmcbroom.com/nikonf2HDRpicturenaut1a.jpg
Photomatix:
http://michaelmcbroom.com/nikonf2photomatix1.jpg
Of the two HDR images, the Photomatix image is more "HDR-like" than the Picturenaut image. I haven't spent enough time yet with either application to get good at tweaking images toward either the more or less surreal looking, but for this test, I was trying to keep them as "normal" as possible. In that respect, I have to give the edge to Picturenaut . . . so far. I'm sure as I play around more with Photomatix, my abilities will improve.
With the Picturenaut image I was able to render blacks pretty accurately without losing too much detail in the shadows. I had less luck accomplishing this with Photomatix. They came out closer to 18% gray. Perhaps as I understand its controls better, this will improve.
I should point out that I did do some additional PP on both HDR images. Mostly a slight amount of contrast and saturation enhancements, and a touch of USM. You'll note that both HDRs have saturated the yellows more than the original. I tried reducing this effect with the Picturenaut image in PP, but with limited results. I tried the same with the Photomatix image with even less results. I don't find the strong yellows objectionable, but I do find it interesting that there seemed to be a saturation bias in their regard.
CC is always welcome.
Best,
Michael