Processing
Not all HDRs are equal
16/Aug/09 21:08 Filed in: Photo | Processing
As you might know, I really like to work with HDR files from time to time and I always prefer to keep them pretty close to natural looking (just with a higher dynamic range). Some time ago I spent a day playing tourist guide to friends in Frankfurt, which was kinda fun since you never look at cities you consider your home the same way as tourists would (in fact, this was the first time I had my camera with me in Frankfurt). During that photo shoot, I took almost exclusively three RAW files of every file to be able to make HDRs since the sky was super blue and I didn’t have an ND filter with me.
One subject was especially suited to HDR: a dark gate under an overhanging on which the sun was shining.
This is how it would have looked as a normal photo (totally unprocessed)
It’s really not too bad but the gate does not really pop and you can’t really see all the details in the structure. Therefore I took three shots with the AEB automation with exposure of +/- 2 to get extreme differences in exposure.
As I said, I had taken a lot of shots for HDR processing that day, so I decided to do a batch processing in Photomatix, which is pretty great, even though I can’t do much more with my Mac while this is running. I always let it do three versions of the photo (the two options you find under tonemapping and the fusion option with automatic lighting). The best version was this one:
As you can see, it is pretty close to the originall, just the gate itself is a lot lighter and the reflections in the glass are more pronounced. There is also more contrast in the stones. But I wasn’t totally satisfied with it, so I tried a few more ideas:
The first was a version for which I made the HDR in Photoshop CS3 and then used the tonemapping plugin of Photomatix in Photoshop. The result can be seen below and while I liked this version, the details in the gate do not come out at all, in fact, I have a lot of artifacts in the darker areas (remember, click any photo to see a large version).
Then I decided to try Hydra, a HDR app for Macs (I am still using the first version, though), which has pretty good results sometimes, too. This was the result from Hydra:
I didn’t really like this result because it did none of the things I wanted to accomplish, so I decided to fire up Photomatix once again and do a manual processing with it of the photo. I also decided to play a bit more with the levers in Photomatix than I usually do to get a bit more extreme results than usually. This is the version I finally decided on:
As you can see, its a much more moody picture than any of the other versions and the details look like they are supposed to look! It’s really amazing how different you can process an HDR and how different the results can look.
What do you think, did I decide on the right version?
One subject was especially suited to HDR: a dark gate under an overhanging on which the sun was shining.
This is how it would have looked as a normal photo (totally unprocessed)
It’s really not too bad but the gate does not really pop and you can’t really see all the details in the structure. Therefore I took three shots with the AEB automation with exposure of +/- 2 to get extreme differences in exposure.
As I said, I had taken a lot of shots for HDR processing that day, so I decided to do a batch processing in Photomatix, which is pretty great, even though I can’t do much more with my Mac while this is running. I always let it do three versions of the photo (the two options you find under tonemapping and the fusion option with automatic lighting). The best version was this one:
As you can see, it is pretty close to the originall, just the gate itself is a lot lighter and the reflections in the glass are more pronounced. There is also more contrast in the stones. But I wasn’t totally satisfied with it, so I tried a few more ideas:
The first was a version for which I made the HDR in Photoshop CS3 and then used the tonemapping plugin of Photomatix in Photoshop. The result can be seen below and while I liked this version, the details in the gate do not come out at all, in fact, I have a lot of artifacts in the darker areas (remember, click any photo to see a large version).
Then I decided to try Hydra, a HDR app for Macs (I am still using the first version, though), which has pretty good results sometimes, too. This was the result from Hydra:
I didn’t really like this result because it did none of the things I wanted to accomplish, so I decided to fire up Photomatix once again and do a manual processing with it of the photo. I also decided to play a bit more with the levers in Photomatix than I usually do to get a bit more extreme results than usually. This is the version I finally decided on:
As you can see, its a much more moody picture than any of the other versions and the details look like they are supposed to look! It’s really amazing how different you can process an HDR and how different the results can look.
What do you think, did I decide on the right version?
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Project: Edit my Picture
Another blog project: This time the project initiator, Phil Price, asks participants to edit his photo, which you see pictured here, and to submit their results to him. In this post you’ll find most of my edited versions of this photo, including what I did and what I liked and disliked about each one. Of course, at the end of the post you’ll also find the photo I am submitting to his project Lesen Sie mehr...
Playing with Textures
A lot of people are playing with their photos and textures to give their photos a slightly different feel. I always wanted to try this but for whatever reasons, I never did. After downloading a few textures last week, I decided to finally try it on one of my photos from last year.
The photo is an HDR of a church in the Smoky Mountain National Park and is very moody due to the heavy clouds with the light coming through. It’s a prime example for a photo that pratically begs to be made look like it was taken 100 years ago. There are several ways to achieve this but I decided to go with some dark, grungy texture and giving both the photo and the texture a sepia color overlay. Additionally, I lowered the opacity and the fill of the texture to make it look more natural.
In addition to that I also cropped the photo so that the cars are not visible in the photo since they would not fit with the mood of the photo. After I had done that I felt that something was still missing from the photo, so I decided to add some old-looking frame to it, which makes it feel more natural and lets the texture seem more like a natural part of the photo.
What do you think of my first try at textures? It definitely was easier than I thought it would be - so if you haven’t be sure to try it
The photo is an HDR of a church in the Smoky Mountain National Park and is very moody due to the heavy clouds with the light coming through. It’s a prime example for a photo that pratically begs to be made look like it was taken 100 years ago. There are several ways to achieve this but I decided to go with some dark, grungy texture and giving both the photo and the texture a sepia color overlay. Additionally, I lowered the opacity and the fill of the texture to make it look more natural.
In addition to that I also cropped the photo so that the cars are not visible in the photo since they would not fit with the mood of the photo. After I had done that I felt that something was still missing from the photo, so I decided to add some old-looking frame to it, which makes it feel more natural and lets the texture seem more like a natural part of the photo.
What do you think of my first try at textures? It definitely was easier than I thought it would be - so if you haven’t be sure to try it
Quick way to make your picture a Polaroid
Two weeks ago or so I read a post about a pretty cool software on TUAW.com that I immediately downloaded to try it. What software that was? An app called Poladroid (currently there is only a beta for Mac OS X but they are also working on a Windows version) that allows you to simple drag your photo onto the icon of the app and it will start processing your photo as a Polaroid. It will start out as a blank Polaroid, just as it would when you use an actual Polaroid camera and it will start processing from there, slowly revealing your photo, which you can speed up by shaking the Polaroid.
It really is a very fast and convenient way to transform your photo into a Polaroid. I also like how it affects the colors of your photos, making it feel so much more realistic. The most pressing thing that is missing right now is the ability to choose the area it should crop to for the square size of the Polaroid. Here are some more examples of my photos transformed by Poladroid:
and the originals:
If you want to see more, feel free to check out my flickr set.
Playing with potential
Summary: A post on how I took this picture and made it look a lot better using selective coloring and cropping. Additionally, the picutre exampes will give you a good example of how the composition of a photo will have an impact on the overall impression you get from the picture. Lesen Sie mehr...
Presenting a photo to its best advantage
Summary: Last week in my entry „make it POP“ I spoke about selective coloring as a way to make your subject stand out more. While browing my photos from the trip to the Berlin Zoo I saw another picture that I thought would benefit from selective coloring. As you can see (if you look closely), there is a reptile in that tree looking directly into the camera. The problem? Nobody will be able to see him hiding in that tree because he has the same coloring as the leaves around him! Click on „Read more“ to find out what I was able to do to improve this shot. Lesen Sie mehr...
Make it POP
Summary: A short exploration into the reasons why sometimes selective coloring will give you better results and also an explanation on how you can use this simple technique. Be sure to check it out to see the full before and after shots. Lesen Sie mehr...
Taking out unwanted objects
Berlin Cathedral
Flickr link
Summary: Do you know those awesome architectural pictures you have - which would be really awesome if it weren’t for some object taking away from their beauty? Sounds familiar, right? But what to do about them? You can’t just go to the people using the crane and ask them to remove the crane for a minute... (if you DO go out and try it, please tell me about your results
).I don’t know how you got rid of them during the film days but I do know how you can get rid of them in the digital age. Lesen Sie mehr...