LIGHT Discussion: HDR

schmoo · April 16, 2010

[imgr]http://ivar.smugmug.com/photos/406751698_7q7hi-M.jpg[/imgr]

HDR: Halos defy reality!

Photo by ivar

Actually, it stands for High Dynamic Range. With the marvels of modern technology you can use a bunch of techniques to wiggle each and every little detail out from hiding.

Love it?
Hate it?
Confused about it?
How do you do it?
Who does it best?
(... but is it art? :lol3 )

Feel free to discuss, banter, share, link and illustrate as you please. There's a gazillion examples of HDR photos in Landscapes so we hope this is a topic near and dear to your hearts. :thumb

< Go back to the Light

ront · April 16, 2010

All I can say is count me in as one who really likes HDR!! For me, I do not care for the over the top type, although, I have seen a few pics that I really have liked. I tend to like HDR used more to recreate a scene more closely to how my eye saw it.

To date, these are my 2 favorite HDR photos that I have taken.

Generally, it is good to use a tripod, but in both of these cases, the photos were taken hand held. I do really like Photomatix Pro 3 for creating HDR photos. It is easy to use with good results!

I am looking forward to more input in this thread as I would like to learn more about HDR!!

Ron

schmoo · April 16, 2010

Ron thanks for being the first to chime in! The two shots you posted are really nice and the first in particular is a nice example of subtle HDR used in a realistic way.

There are definitely different camps out there - some who do some fantastic digital art with super saturation, and some who do it just to bump the details in the shadows.

I admit - I typically don't "believe" in HDR, although I am no stranger to blending exposures in PS and making composite images. Practically every image I process has one or two simple adjustment layers bumping the curves, or slices from different exposures entirely. I've always believed these were two different techniques, but I see in Wikipedia that they can be considered part of the same family.

Of course, is everything on the Internets true?

Anyway, I introduce myself to people as the Laziest Photographer Ever and that carries through to doing HDR. Layers and masking works great already, so I leave the Photomatix and experimenting to the creative heads out there!

Chris H · April 16, 2010

I'll not only vouch for HDR but put forward an arguement that is certain circumstances it's absolutely necessary. Take this shot below for instance, in my view I couldn't have captured this as successfully without using several exposures. Sure I could have used a grad filter, but that's just going to darken the tops of the mountains too much. Plus the river reflections are (were at the time too) just as bright as the sky, so how do you balance that out successully without several exposures.

Ok, so I could have taken a 'best in camera' photo and spent hours pouring over it in Photoshop with several adjustment layers. I'm sure I could have got close to this result, but probably with more noise in the shadow areas and it would have taken a lot longer.

Take a look at the shot below, HDR or not?

In this case, no, I had around a dozen adjustment layers on this. Not to mention a sharpening layer and a noise reduction layer. Why? Simple really, I shot this before I new about HDR!

What about this shot:

How long would this have taken to process the shadows without HDR!?

I'll finish off with a couple of shots of my house. One is HDR one isn't, not saying which is which! I'll use HDR when I feel its the right thing to do, I'm finding more and more often that it is.

pillman · April 16, 2010

Love using HDR to extract what I actually saw when capture taken. Also fun to let your
artistic visions materialize.. A few below..Many on site..Have gotten fantastic results just using one
capture, making 3 in raw, then on to Photomatix..Takes awhile experimenting in software to feel comfortable
with result. HDR here to stay and vote me as one who loves it. Last one is site of my Son's wedding reception.
Owners were so impressed that they bought..

ian408 · April 17, 2010

I'm in the "don't like it" camp. I really shouldn't be as there are instances where it's been used successfully and you don't notice the effect. By that, I mean many HDR photos look way over processed. Where correctly done (in my opinion), use of HDR techniques should not be noticeable.

Architectural photographers have used the technique to successfully photograph interiors for some time. In many of those shots, you'd hardly notice the processing--the space just looks evenly lit using existing light.

NealAddy · April 17, 2010

Great topic and interesting discussion.

I like it when used correctly. I'm not a huge fan of the overdone look but I do think it has a place in the "artistic" realm. It's only the purist side of my nature that balks at it. Us "purists" tend to think of it as a corruption of "true photography". That's actually not fair. All it is is simply a tool for expanding our camera's capabilities. When done right it can produce a beautiful image that more closely translates what our eye would naturally see in a scene. The dynamic range of a sensor or film is so much more restricted than the human eye. What's wrong with broadening that range and expanding the camera's capabilities? Any tool that allows us to do that is a useful one.

Unfortunately I'm not (yet) very good at achieving that effect with the tool. Here's a recent example of mine that I realize is "overdone" and could use more work. It still has somewhat too much of a "candy" effect. But I like the image.

Nikonic1 · April 17, 2010

Chris H wrote:

I'll finish off with a couple of shots of my house. One is HDR one isn't, not saying which is which! I'll use HDR when I feel its the right thing to do, I'm finding more and more often that it is.

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<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/bowdown.gif" border="0" alt="" >bow<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/bowdown.gif" border="0" alt="" > Nice house you have there!!! WOW!!!<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/bowdown.gif" border="0" alt="" >bow<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/bowdown.gif" border="0" alt="" >

Chris H · April 17, 2010

Nikonic1 wrote:

<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/bowdown.gif" border="0" alt="" >bow<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/bowdown.gif" border="0" alt="" > Nice house you have there!!! WOW!!!<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/bowdown.gif" border="0" alt="" >bow<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/bowdown.gif" border="0" alt="" >

Thanks!

newb · April 17, 2010

Wow, theres some awesome shots in here! Ill definitely keep an eye on this thread.

Nikolai · April 17, 2010

While I'm not a big fan of "mechanicl" HDR and really hate the halos/effect of the early attempts to produce some, I must say the technology is not holding back. The new CS5 HDR offers unprecendented control over the halos, so in many cases you can actually use it without causing the typical HGR (HDR Gag Reflex). To be fair, sunrise/sunset are still much better off with manual bracketing/masking, but such things as temple interiors and others "mixed" scenarios (which are totally impossible to process manually unless you employ some skilled slave labor) can now be processed automagically without displaying typical HDR birthmarks.

coscorrosa · April 17, 2010

I'll preface by saying this is just my opinion, to avoid sticking IMO all over the place, and this applies only to natural landscapes (not architecture interiors, or surrealistic landscapes). To summarize, in general: HDR is great, tone-mapping isn't.

HDR encompasses a wide variety of techniques. They all have one thing in common: trying to achieve a greater dynamic range than what your camera sensor can capture within a single exposure.

Certainly the most common technique these days is tone-mapping (which can be further divided into local and global contrast, with the former being more popular). Tone-mapping also leads to the worst results in landscapes if your goal is to produce something that looks natural.

My issues with tone-mapping aren't just with the current implementations (e.g., Photomatix), which will likely improve over time and get rid of obvious problems now like halos, ghosting, softness, etc., it's the concept itself.

With tone-mapping you're taking multiple pixel values and averaging them. This is almost never what you want. Taking the example of two exposures, you often want pixel values from one or the other, not an average (like in genetics, you have a dominant gene and a recessive gene, not some weird bastardization of both). What that average ends up being is dependent on whether you're using a local or global-contrast tone-mapping algorithm, and whatever knobs and levers your tone-mapping program provides, but ultimately you're leaving it up to the algorithm to decide how to average the pixel values. You'll obviously want an average/gradation of pixel values at the borders where the exposures meet, but most tone-mapping algorithms will do the averaging everywhere without regard to aesthetics.

People spend thousands of dollars on gear and lenses that give them the flexibility to choose how a scene is captured and exposed, but then when it comes to processing the photos, they delegate that responsibility to an algorithm which generally produces inferior results. To me it's as bad shooting in JPG and letting the camera decide on saturation, contrast, etc. If the current state of the art actually produced acceptable results, it would be one thing, but it doesn't. Worse yet is I see this technique used even when the scene has a low dynamic range to begin with.

All of this is why I prefer to manually blend exposures. 95% of the time I can get all the dynamic range I need with two exposures (and I really wish my camera allowed me to bracket with two exposures and not be forced to use three). Using manual selections (often feathered at the edges to allow smooth blending) allows *me* to decide what exposure is used on each area of the image. It's also no more difficult (after a time) and in fact can be done faster than tone-mapping which often takes forever even on a fast computer. The technique of manual exposure blends can also be used generally in other ways (near/far focus, fast shutter in the foreground (like for moving flowers) and slow shutter in the background).

So I prefer HDR if done by manual exposure blending, and almost never if done by tone-mapping. The tone-mapping algorithms will get better (and will likely use a combination of heuristics and pixel-choosing rather than pixel-averaging and fix the obvious defects of current implementations), but I haven't seen anything yet that produces better results than manual exposure blends. I used to use Photomatix and tone-mapping, but found I could achieve better results without it, and haven't used it in the last 18 months at all.

And while we're on the subject, the notion that there has to be "detail" everywhere in a photo, and that all shadows are evil, needs to go away. It's OK if part of the image falls off the left of the histogram, and, I know it's heresy, but it's also OK if some of the channels are blown out to the right of the histogram too, depending on the situation.

IMO

Tango · April 18, 2010

excellent Ron. IMO:D

Nikolai · April 18, 2010

AaronNelson wrote:

excellent Ron. IMO:D

dseidman · April 18, 2010

coscorrosa wrote:

Well said.

Alpha_Plus · April 18, 2010

I agree with Ron, in that the basic HDR methods generally do not come out with outstanding results. But as a beginner, such as myself, I think software like Photomatix can a good starting point. I posted one here just last week that went through Photomatix and then I blended it with the original photos to get what I wanted.

I ended up using a lot of masking, cutting out the HDR composite but ended up with a pleasing result. For any beginners out there to check out this tutorial. IMO it's a great place to start if you want to get into this high dynamic range photography stuff.

kevincaophotography · April 18, 2010

schmoo wrote:

I admit - I typically don't "believe" in HDR, although I am no stranger to blending exposures in PS and making composite images. Practically every image I process has one or two simple adjustment layers bumping the curves, or slices from different exposures entirely. I've always believed these were two different techniques, but I see in Wikipedia that they can be considered part of the same family.

Long time lurker, but after moving from Flickr to Smugmug, I'd thought I'd make this a new home.

Thought I'd chime in on my thoughts since I discuss and debate this with a my colleagues almost weekly.

I've seen the HDR fad in so many stages, and I completely agree with you schmoo. I've also blended layers, but don't know if I consider that the "bad" thing, whether it's as HDR or not.

When it comes down to it, it's a matter of moderation for me - knowing when to hold back. I think we can all agree with this? Everything can be overdone, and I'm an example of that...since I've been known to over-saturate some of my own photos.

Chris, your images are beautiful and I agree, HDR was absolutely necessary to produce those images. But what separates your images from others was your ability to hold back.

I've worked with Photomatrix, but really prefer Camera RAW settings over it. Here is a shot of my winter trip to Honolulu. No HDR, just bumping the RAW settings:

Here's another. This one had some layer blending.

Alpha_Plus · April 18, 2010

Welcome to DGrin Kevin, Fantastic images too

It really is a matter of taste, as photography is an art, and with our shots, we like to process them to a particular look and feel that we are after. We all have the artistic licence do do this as we please. And I guess that we hope that someone else is out there to appreciated our idea of what we saw at 'that location'.

As you said, Chris's images required the HDR effect, and, yes, he has used it effectively with moderation. I like the shots that look real! In your shots, you've made them look real with the added dynamic range using blending or raw manipulation. In some sense these have a higher dynamic range than the original photo so could be classified as HDR but not using the standard practice.

This is just my opinion

kevincaophotography · April 18, 2010

Thanks for the warm welcome, Karl. And you're absolutely right, photography is art and art can be extremely subjective. Personal preference plays a large role in it, as you mentioned. I absolutely love the photo you posted! Especially catching the water splashing off the rocks. I'm definitely not AGAINST HDR knowing what type of brilliance and creativity that can be accomplished with it. HDR is subjective within itself. I like to think of it as the auto-tune (music) of the photography world.

hawkeye978 · April 22, 2010

I'll throw my two cents in on this one.

I've been using HDR more lately but I agree with Ron, I'm using multiple techniques. I've used two exposures and blended by hand with good results. I also use Photomatix but lately I'm using it just as a preprocessor. I'm more in the camp of realistic looking shots and so don't crank up Photomatix tonemapping much. I will use it to get the details in the shot, get the luminosity level roughly right and then save as a tif. I'm finding that the HDR tonemapped images are flat. If you play with the tonemapping to try to increase the contrast they get pretty funky. So I'm probably spending more time in Photoshop with the preprocessed tif files that in Photomatix. In Photoshop I work with luminosity masks to generate the contrast I want and get it to look right.

Here is an example of something I did recently using these techniques. Still trying to work out the workflow but I'm liking what's coming out. But I'm trying to avoid going over the top here also.

I think with 12+ bit cameras and trying to get shots at sunrise/sunset with detail some sort of HDR technique will be needed. I think I use about 3 different ways of expanding the dynamic range. It's always going to be a compromise trying to expand the image range. Whether it's the averaging effects of software like Photomatix or generate 'hand' made masks in Photoshop and blending that way there will be a trade off.

I like this discussion group and hope it continues.

ABCL · April 22, 2010

I love HDR when it is done right. I see far too many shots where everything just looks like an over-contrasted, soft wax picture thing and does not resemble a photograph. Chris H's HDR shots are the ones I like, it looks natural, clean and pleasing.. they look like photographs.

willard3 · April 22, 2010

I use HDR on high dynamic range shots, exactly as intended. I observe that digital images have less latitude than film and use HDR to compensate....where a photo wouldn't need HDR on film to get the entire tonal range, digital sometimes does.

I only ever align and overlay images and only do PP with the completed image. HDR is an excellent tool.

I used HDR here because the sun was peeking through on the barn and the rest of the scene was very subdued. Hand-held.

ABCL · April 22, 2010

Forgot to upload my example

I used it here because the sun was making the ground in front of the structure very subdued and a tad bright, the HDR brought out the details not only in the grass and stones on the ground, but also on the bricks and kept the original sky color (I love that tone of blue).

New Image.JPG

jamesl · April 22, 2010

I view HDR techniques as just another tool in my box used to recreate a scene the best I can. I love it for certain situations, and I bracket almost all of my shots now with the intent of creating a tone mapped end result. What I've seen:

Good:
Greater dynamic range in the image
punchier image
more accurate reproduction of original scene

Bad:
Can look unrealistic
Increases noise significantly
Lots of extra work
Halos!

Most of the bad can be easily mitigated with careful use of whatever tool you are using (I use Photomatix). I've also found that using 16 bit TIF files really helps keep problems under control.

All that being said, the proof is in the pudding, and in the eye of the beholder. ;-)

6 Horizontal images bracketed -1/0/+1 stitched using PTGUI and mapped using Photomatix

12 Vertical images bracketed -1/0/+1 stitched using PTGUI and mapped using Photomatix

6 Vertical images extracted from a single RAW at -1/0/+1 stitched using PTGUI and mapped using Photomatix

6 Vertical images bracketed -1/0/+1 stitched using PTGUI and mapped using Photomatix

Have fun!

James

dlplumer · April 22, 2010

Great stuff here. Here's a couple of mine:

ront · April 22, 2010

Incredible photo Tom!!!! It is beautiful!

There are some awesome photos in this thread. What a sight for these eyes!!!!

Ron

Dooginfif20 · April 22, 2010

the problem I have with HDR is sometimes they turn out completely awesome and sometimes they suck bad. Maybe I am choosing the wrong times to use it. Recommendations as to the best times to do it would be greatly appreciated.

Joashots · April 22, 2010

Agreed, incredible images and very informative discussion.
I still haven't decided, mainly because I don't particularly like many of the HDR images I see (unlike the ones here, of course

). I am doing a lot of reading and looking though.
For now, I really like using my Singh-Rays, and find enormous satisfaction in pressing the shutter release when I've somewhat 'tamed' the dynamic range within my little LCD.
One of these days though.....

Marc Muench · April 22, 2010

Aside from Schmoo......
Are there any women HDR'ers?
or is this just a mans techno geeky item to hang on the tool belt?

I have been immersed in studying HDR for about 8 years when a colleague opened my eyes to the possibility of combining several sheets of scanned film together and masking together the best parts. Since that time the technique has flowered into its own word. Is it in the dictionary now?
Kinda like a bad habit, what I enjoy about it, I keep discrete. Not because of some secret mysterious technique, but rather I dont want the viewer to consider a specific technique was used at all. Most editorial image buyers dont want to know! However, most gallery owners love to explain with tremendous adjectives just how the photographer employed their artful technique into the piece.

Great post Ron

Great images everyone

Like a Abalone I think HDR should be pried from its foundation, stretched, yanked and pounded until ready to eat:D

schmoo · April 22, 2010

Marc Muench wrote:

Like a Abalone I think HDR should be pried from its foundation, stretched, yanked and pounded until ready to eat:D

chrismoore · April 22, 2010

ian408 wrote:

I'm in the "don't like it" camp. I really shouldn't be as there are instances where it's been used successfully and you don't notice the effect. By that, I mean many HDR photos look way over processed. Where correctly done (in my opinion), use of HDR techniques should not be noticeable.

Architectural photographers have used the technique to successfully photograph interiors for some time. In many of those shots, you'd hardly notice the processing--the space just looks evenly lit using existing light.

I fall into the same category, and generally don't care for it, but as you can see here, others have done a great job with it. I prefer other tools such as grad nd filters and manual blending in PS. I think that the software is improving dramatically, and certainly I have seen fewer garish examples of it nowadays than a couple of years ago when it became the rage. I think HDR, when used subtly, can be used as another tool in the toolbox to improve the limitations of tonal range inherent in todays cameras. The main problems with it are the halos, uneven/reversed tonality, extreme variations in contrast, and saturation. When these problems are corrected with some photoshop magic, all seems to be well.

LIGHT Discussion: HDR

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