Quick Test of Unified Color HDR PhotoStudio 2.15 for Mac

This app is my new tool for HDR, hands down. I was bummed when it first came out and I had to run the trial on WinXP on my Mac. Now, the Mac version is out and I am impressed with my initial experience with their approach.

The attached image is a very rough (highly compressed - not the best quality image) test I made - three different window portals - i shot 12 exposures @ 1EV just to see how HDR PhotoStudio would handle the amount of data. It turns out that there is a LR plugin that will help export your RAWs to your desired format (I used TIFF16) and then merge them in HDR PhotoStudio. The controls are intuitive and special attention is paid to color rendition and reduction of halo artifact. The results are natural and the user has a lot of control over the tonemapping process. Best of all, the final image that you produce is true to the on-screen representation of the preview as you go through the tonemapping process. The test image suffers from sharpening artifact when I reduced the image size for posting here - sorry about that.

I intend to purchase the full version (I am using the 30 day trial) and write up a more detailed review. Here is what got my attention this summer:

http://www.hdrlabs.com …php?id=18863569​9592187796

Try it, you'll like it.

http://www.unifiedcolo​r.com/

Kirk

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Nice merge! I'll be looking into that one. Thanks for show and tell.

I'm considering this app too. The $99 price is only good until the end of February, then it bumps back up to $149.

I just got an iMac in November, and was not happy to discover the easyHDR software I've been using is only available for Windows (I have a Win XP laptop). I've been using the trial software for Photomatix, and do not like the results I get compared to my easyHDR. the Photostudio app seems to produce better, more natural looking results so far. I still need to read the tutorials and play some more, but I'm leaning towards Photostudio at the moment.

Dennis

The interesting thing about HDR PhotoStudio is that it is a fundamentally different approach to the creation of a final image from HDR data than, say, Photomatix. It is sort of like Photoshop on steroids with extra capability in that it uses a unique color model that helps maintain color and luminance fidelity during 32 bit operations. Better than PS, HDR PhotoStudio has more 32 bit tools to adjust color and brightness and the halo reduction and noise reduction tools are huge. I have been playing a little with it and trying to get a handle on the range of each tool, so I am by no means an expert - but I have been doing this HDR thing long enough with enough various tools that I can tell this one is different in its approach. I don;t think this will be one of those apps that everyone flocks too like Photomatix, but rather a tool for those who are really interested in the technical aspects of HDR imaging and want more control over the data. I am looking forward to putting it through its paces and writing a review here.

Stay tuned!

Kirk

Kirk,

You may not have tested this in HDR PS, but a question.

I have a whole bunch of images that photomatix has never been able to handle. They were originally shot to be blended manually in PS. They are not bracketed, but rather there is two different exposures for each image. The different exposures may be as little as 3 stops apart, or as much as 5 stops.

Having worked with HDR PS a little, do you think it could produce quality images with these?

For the record, I have tried various workflows in photomatix such as making 3 tiff exposures for each of the two files and calling all 6 into photomatix. But photomatix has failed each time to do a good job.

Thanks.

As buggy as hell for me (win xp, sp3). Almost to the point of unusabillity.

Open a brightness/contrast window. Won't close. Open a shadows/highlights window. Won't close. If you drag one adjustment window on top of another adj. window, it leaves its impression on the lower window, making the lower window unusable (control obscured). Click brightness/contrast, it opens a duplicate b/c window, and on and on. I can theoretically open so many duplicate adjustment windows / tabs that it completely obscures the image I am working on.

Buggy as hell. I may try it a few more times, but if this behavior continues, I'll pass until they get their acts together. Not ready for prime time.

Windows users, stay far away from HDR PhotoStudio!

I realize that, at least on Windows systems, some people have problems with apps, some don't. Depends upon video drivers, cards, and lots of other stuff.

That being said, my advice would be to not install this bug-infested piece of garbage. It not only doesn't work properly, but it has trashed my Photoshop CS2!

I thought I would give it another try this morning. Still buggy, adjustment windows open but won't close, adjustment windows obliterate other adjustment windows, etc.

So I thought I would capture a screen and post it.

That's when I found out I could NOT START CS2. Gives me an error that the msvcp80.dll file (C++ module) cannot be found. Then it hangs.

Joy, joy, and thanks a lot Unified Color. Looks like I get to spend time fixing my system today instead of working.

I know damn good and well it was this app that trashed it because I was using PS immediately before the install and this is the first time I have tried to start PS after the install.

You've been warned. Do what you want. Take your chances, but you have been advised this app has the potential of not only performing as a bug-infested piece of crap, but trashing your photoshop (and anything else?) as well.

CH - as I said in the other thread following this app, that sucks and I'm sorry to hear about your troubles.

Also, from their site, in case it makes a difference to users considering the trial:

kirkt wrote in post #9546317
CH - as I said in the other thread following this app, that sucks and I'm sorry to hear about your troubles.

Also, from their site, in case it makes a difference to users considering the trial:

Thanks, yes I meet all min. req. XP, SP3, 32 bit, dual core, 4 gig. Besides, even if min. req. were not met, that should not cause the trashing of a C++ overlay file. Thanks for your help.

CannedHeat wrote in post #9546100
You've been warned. Do what you want.

I won't question/argue whether there is a problem with it or not, but I don't think you said what your computer specs are where you're having the problem. It is apparently VERY processor intensive, and I have my doubts that I could even run it on my old P4 that is my main machine still. I can't increase memory beyond 1.5G, so I have to wait for when I can upgrade the box. When that happens, it will likely be an i7. I'd be curious to know the specifics of your computer.

Edit : Ok...for some reason your answer to this question wasn't showing on my page when I typed this. Sorry.

I sent an email to support, but figured it out before they replied. Only wasted 3 hours of my day, but what the H--, it's only time.

It was their file format plugin. It appears the CS2 version of photoshop does not inherently have the C++ r-time lib files necessary to support the plugin whereas CS3 and 4 do. So when installed on a CS2 system, it won't work. Why the system hung when initiating the plugin lib, I don't know. Perhaps sloppy coding by Adobe. Seems to me if something as insignificant as a plugin is erring, they would just skip over it and continue loading.

Bottom line:

On a CS2 system you will need the proper versions of the msvcp80.dll and msvcr80.dll r-time lib files (plus maybe others) to support the plugin. The workaround is when you are installing, uncheck the option to install the plugin to photoshop.

Reinstalled and the app and PS are both running. However, on my machine it (the hdr app) is still rather buggy but usable.

Hope that helps somebody not waste 3 hours of their day.

Edit: And yes, it is very processor intensive. On my Core 2 even importing only 2 30D files runs slow. I shudder to think how long it will take to process 7 or 9 files from the 5D M2.

All of the above problems aside, here are some images that I have started to make from some old -2/0/+2 RAW sequences. These images were shot at an incredible sculpture installation called "Grounds for Sculpture" in Trenton, NJ.

http://www.groundsfors​culpture.org/

This place has hundreds of pieces on display in a 30+ acre setting, with many of the pieces reproductions of paintings, set in full-scale 3D environments.

The day was very clear and bright, and with the harsh shadows I decided to shoot bracketed (handheld) to give myself some more latitude in PP. HDR PhotoStudio is really a natural progression in the processing of images like this - I am still getting the hang of it so these images are rough, but the toolset is very powerful. The veiling glare tool and the halo reduction feature are incredible - the "halo" around the woman in the first image is some less-than-stellar USM. The ability to preserve the highlight detail in the woman's dress and the sunbathed building and simultaneously the shadow detail in the woman's shaded, veiled face and the detail in the pond and building interior would not be possible with a single RAW. The smooth skies with no halo artifact are remarkable. In the building image I applied a gentle amount of NR in the sky region in HDR PS2 to test the NR, and it is spot on. Just enough without blurring the other detail and all done in 32bit. I made these images on my MacBook Pro, which does not handle deep shadow very well, so when I write up a tutorial, it will be done on my Mac Pro/Cinema DisplayHD - however, the app is flexible enough to produce nice results on my laptop.

I will write this up once I get a chance.

Kirk

Some more tests of some old image sequences. All of these sequences were shot as JPEGs and I revisited them for some small tests. They are 5 shots (or so) sequences, I stop apart. They all had mixed lighting that caused WB problems across the image; however, the Color Tuning tool is the perfect solution to bring those casts back under control. The image of me sitting at the computer was a 5 shot sequence taken automatically with HDRCapOSX (you can see it running on screen), originally written by Greg Ward (the father of the Radiance file format and several pioneering advancements in HDR) and has been rewritten by Denis Fan here:

http://www.iesd.dmu.ac​.uk/~jm/doku.php?id=re​sources

You shoot tethered and the app controls the Canon camera - you tell it how may images you want to shoot and the EV interval and it will find the first suitable exposure and then acquire the sequence. It permitted me to hold my breath and acquire, well, me in HDR. The laptop display had a bluish cast and the main light in the scene had an orangish cast. I was able to WB for the lamp and Color Tune for the laptop to bring it back closer to neutral. Very cool.

The dining room scene had a huge green cast from the outdoor light coming from a very lush green forest. It bounced around the room and mixed with the warm red/orange wood and would have been a nightmare to go through and correct locally. I was able to WB for the green and then Color Tune for the red. Really straightforward and all in 32bit goodness.

The office image is super-mundane, but presented another WB problem with the indirect, very blue outdoor light mixing with the overhead fluorescent. Again, no worries. I went very gentle on the fluorescent to leave some of the greenish awfulness in, just removing the blue. It really is impressive what flexibility in color control you have in this environment.

Not very visually appealing, but really interesting and nice tests of this app.

Kirk