HDR / Photomatix

Anyone else here into HDR?

For those unaware of HDR, here is a quick & basic explaination -

In computer graphics and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allow a far greater dynamic range of exposures (i.e. a large difference between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to the deepest shadows.

HDRI was originally developed for use with purely computer-generated images. Later, methods were developed to produce a HDR image from a set of photos taken with a range of exposures. With the rising popularity of digital cameras and easy to use desktop software, the term "HDR" is now popularly used to refer to the process of tone mapping together bracketed exposures of normal digital images, giving the end result a high, often exaggerated dynamic range; however, in this case neither the input nor the output qualify as "true" HDRI.

Here is an example:


And here is (IMO) the best software program to utilize tone mapping / HDR processing - Photomatix

I love that program. I used it a ton when I first got my DSLR. Forgot i had it. Thanks for remindin me....

Wow! Those photos look so awesome! Thanks for the heads up, Doc.

How does it work exactly? You drag your RAW file over it and open it up in that app instead of Photoshop and work the image there? I'd be curious to see the interface, what type of controls there are, if you can select the number of pixels per inch, etc.

But for sure, I might download the trial version and see how it works.

I have never tried it yet, but I will be doing it when I get my new DSLR for christmas. If im correct you take three different pictures of exactly the same image (good idea to use a tripod) at different exposures. then you import these three pictures into software and it does it for you.

I used to have it, i forgot all about it i must download it again. HDR can produce some great results.

fyrman22 - great image!

MacHeadCase - tobywuk is basically correct.

For anyone interested, here is a link I hope will answer most questions http://www.hdrsoft.com/resources/dri.html#capture

Another example -

Thank you all for your input. That's quite interesting. I'll have to try it out. It looks totally awesome. This is a problem sometimes in photos, to get a nice sky you have to have too much shadows and to put emphasis on the objects, you need to wash out the sky. This app seems to save both.

That's pretty cool. Thanks for the tip.

If anyone has questions the link doesn't provide or the program (which is easy to learn), I will try my best to answer them.

Did this one last night

here is my attempt at hdr, very different to the ones shown before







all done with photomatrixs

and a link to the god also he has a tutorial

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/

tutorial
http://stuckincustoms.com/2006/06/06/548/

I love that Mini shot would you happen to have it in Hi-res?

pm me mate as i have lot of different ones you can look through

HDR can be over done, just like selective coloring, but when done right can produce a great photo.

MHC - As far as getting a sky that's correctly exposed with the rest of the pictures, there's a couple of things you can try without having to resort to HDR. The problem with trying to make an HDR image is that the whole image shows the effects unless you do some editing. Plus doing an HDR image correctly requires three exposures and enough dynamic range in the actual scene, or else it turns out kind of flat.

To correctly expose a sky, you can use a Circular Polarizing filter or a Nuetral Density filter. The CP filter won't work 100% of the time and will only work when the light is reflecting at a certain angle. The ND filter (It may be a Graduated Nuetral Density filter, I'm not 100% sure) has the top half of the filter darker than the bottom, which can cause the sky to expose several stops darker than the bottom, which will expose the sky correctly and then expose the landscap correctly.

Here's a few examples of a CP filter.

you could also balance the exposure off the sky for the image,
unforutnaly a lot of these are to far gone! for my taste