Merge to HDR problem - help pls

dear members,

I am writing to you all because I'm somehow not able to merge several differently exposed files to one hdr image.

I use PS CS2 for all my post processing, that's why I was keen on trying out the HDR option for quite some weeks.

I already did one with several differently exposed photo files, taken on a tripod. Worked quite okay.

When trying to expose ONE raw file 5 times ( -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 exposure ), saving these all as 16bit Tif's and then opening them all again with the merge to hdr option it simply doesn't work.

I get a pop-up message from PS saying "There is not enough dynamic range in these images". The process then stops.

Is there any way to get around this? I tried with JPGs and TIFs so far. I know it is possible to do a HDR from one raw file.

BTW: also tried making a HDR with these 5 exposed files on another photographer's photomatix program, but the result was INCREDIBLY ugly... really, totally unusable.

Thanks for your pointers...
F.

I've never come across that before.

I tried the very same process with about 3 other photos, no success with any of these.

To visualize the problem :

http://www.floriantroj​er.com/gallery/bilder/​hdrprob.jpg

The original HDR should have been done with 7 files, -3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3.... can't see why not enough dynamic range should be a problem.

That's because CS makes a good acessment of the dinamic range.
You get an ugly result from photomatrix, because there really isn't dinamic range to perform the HDR.

This because several exposures in camera do not equal several exposures in RAW (you can test it yourself in studio (home)conditions. Although RAW gives latitude for processing, it does not replace a good exposure (or several).

Actually the reason you get this message is because the EXIF for all 5 files is the same. If you save each shot as a TIFF and strip the EXIF you can then merge them in CS2.

Thanks Jamie. I am of course aware of that, I was just messing around with old files of mine. I nowadays always shoot multiple frames when planning to do a HDR.

Now I guess THAT helps me a bunch! Very helpful, will try that and let you know... thanks!

Me again... any pointers how exactly I can delete the EXIF data of a photo? I've saved it as tif, 16bit.

Thanks!

Nobody a pointer for me? please...

This is the only way I know how other than Save for Web.

Open the file you want to use for HDR.
Make any adjustments in ACR and click open.
With the file now open in CS2 click File > New.
When the dialog appears click Window on the CS2 toolbar. At the bottom of the drop down menu is the file you have open. Click on that file. This puts the dimensions and settings into the New Document dialog box. Click OK to open a new document.
Click on the window with the image.
Press V to get the move tool. Press and hold shift while clicking and dragging the photo to the new blank document.
Press CTRL E to merge the layers. Now save the file as a TIFF, JPEG, whatever.