KeithT:

Am I mistaken in thinking HDR is simply digital blending by another name.  If so, I realise I have been doing this already for some time, so I might have been getting a bit confused.  After trying the CS2 way, I was disappointed with the end result and googled for  a better way to do it on the web.  I found it, and the method I use (very sparingly I might add) is called the Layer Mask Technique and is absolute child's play to do.  Details on how to do it can be found at Luminous Landscape  HERE.   There are three ways to approach it: The Painted Mask technique; The Layer Mask technique, or you can spend money buying software to do it for you.  but I use the easiest Layer Mask method which costs nothing and gives the same results.  I printed off the instructions and keep the hard copy in a folder just to refresh my ailing memory when I do it.

HDR and exposure blending run along to same sorts of lines, with using different exposures to create one ballanced image, but, HDR does it in a way that brings out pretty much all the tones at once, and levels them off with some human interaction.
Exposure blending is good for landscapes which contail various areas of different exposure, but HDR increases the actual dynamic range, the amount of tones in the photo.
Like negatives and transparencies, digital files have only a certain amount of pixels to take in light, and mainly in RGB.
What HDR does it take that light from a photo, of which theres multiple exposures, and builds up a 32-48bit image, layer after layer, using the shadow detail recorded by the blown out, over exposed shots, and the hightlight detail in say clouds, from the dark, under exposed shots, and takes readings off all the colour details and luminescence details, and compiles it into one shot.

Then to make it viewable, for those of us not fortunate enough to have a HDR graphics card and HDR monitor, you tonemap the 32/48bit image, down to a 8, preferably 16bit image, which is viewable on a stardard screen.
When doing that, you control the software, and you pick what tones should be shown, which disregarded for the greater good of the shot, how they react with each other, and the over all visibility of the effect.
So its like exposure/digital blending, but a more hitech, and thorough way of doing it.
I hope that sheds a bit of light on the differences.

Matt.

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 Stevey, I like both these shots.  The HDR version is nice and has some great colouring, but the original has that early morning naturalness about it that I have come to know and love living here on the Isle of Wight for 30 years.  But of course, colour is what our eyes like to feast on, and the HDR version has certainly given that.  The thing to ask is, how do you remember seing the scene and which image comes close to the reality.  However, the HDR image is quite impressive.

Thanks for that, Matt.  I can see there is a bit more science to it than meets the eye (no pun intended).
My only concern is that images might lose their naturalness and panda to the feast of colour the eye likes best.  A lot of Westerns were shot using HDR tecniques to bring out the details in foreground and background of those marvelous sunsets that the hero slowly rode into, so it isn't a new thing.  However, these were mainly shot in Vistavision or Technicolour which to my mind and eye was always a bit overcooked.  Nonetheless, I will remain impressed with some of the images posted in this thread and am still interested by it all.

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KeithT:

 Stevey is I like both these shots.  The HDR version is nice and has some great colouring, but the original has that early morning naturalness about it that I have come to know and love living here on the Isle of Wight for 30 years.  But of course, colour is what our eyes like to feast on, and the HDR version has certainly given that.  The thing to ask is, how do you remember seing the scene and which image comes close to the reality.

Kieth

You already know the answer to that question the orignal. My thinking is on the same line as yours for certain projects I would consider using HDR, for others no. Knowing that the finished picture is really down to me and my understanding of my camera and light etc gives me more pleasure and stifaction. Although they do look good!!!!!!!!!

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Stevey I do agree with you.  Have a look at this guys work.  He uses only the light and his lens and does not resort to 'trickery', or so he says.  And I believe him.  http://www.mikebonsallphotography.com/ 

If you click on the About link on his site he tells you what equipment he uses and how he gets his wonderful images.

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KeithT:

Thanks for that, Matt.  I can see there is a bit more science to it than meets the eye (no pun intended).
My only concern is that images might lose their naturalness and panda to the feast of colour the eye likes best.  A lot of Westerns were shot using HDR tecniques to bring out the details in foreground and background of those marvelous sunsets that the hero slowly rode into, so it isn't a new thing.  However, these were mainly shot in Vistavision or Technicolour which to my mind and eye was always a bit overcooked.  Nonetheless, I will remain impressed with some of the images posted in this thread and am still interested by it all.

No problem.

The basis of the new HDR technique with digital cameras is like the of yonder year, but with the aid of a whole new generation of technology, computers, camera sensors.
The problem with photography, is that it is hard to capture all the subtle nuances that our eyes see in a landscape.
Granted, digital and mainly slide film can come close, but its still quite a way off, you must agree to come extent.

While a photo can capture the beautiful, gentle, pastoral colours of a dawn or sunset, it will sometimes lose the subtle toning the same light gives to the foreground.
And granted, there is ND grad filters, but they come in steps, .3, .6 and so on. And although they come close, a scenes hardly ever .3 or 1.2. Theres always changes.

Thats where HDR comes in.

The more shots you take, the broader the dynamic and tonal range you can compile, so closer to the original scene that you viewed through the view finder or from above during a long exposure.
I've shot HDR's with over 20 exposures, and granted, its a right pain in the *** sometimes, you can get really good true to life shots.
This one here, shot with my D70, uses 13 exposures, and to my eyes, has come pretty close to the scene I was looking at when I shot it. Granted, I've boosted the saturation of the pebbles a bit, but thats for the sake of the viewing public.

I fully agree that there should be a limit to HDR work, I still shoot normal photography, but only a limit cause tonemapping has come on along enough to give true to life results yet.
As I've said, the more exposures the more realistic the shot will look.

HDR is a great way of recording a scene that you want people to see and know that what they're seeing is how it was.
I hope you understand where I'm coming from. I'm not takin' a stab at you, but I genuinely feel HDR can come closer to a scenes real value then a normal shot can under the majority of circumstances.

Matt.

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KeithT:

Stevey I do agree with you.  Have a look at this guys work.  He uses only the light and his lens and does not resort to 'trickery', or so he says.  And I believe him.  http://www.mikebonsallphotography.com/ 

If you click on the About link on his site he tells you what equipment he uses and how he gets his wonderful images.

I have seen his site and visit every now and then his work is outstanding I think I got the link from one of your post's. Going off the subject I spent most of my summers as a boy on Guernsey, I hope to visit in the near future I always said I would take my wife but never got round to it we have only been married 21 years .

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Steve12:

I have seen his site and visit every now and then his work is outstanding I think I got the link from one of your post's. Going off the subject I spent most of my summers as a boy on Guernsey, I hope to visit in the near future I always said I would take my wife but never got round to it we have only been married 21 years .

Scared you might bump into an old conquest are ya?

I'm a fan of Mike Bonsall'.
His works constantly stunning.
Plus he's lucky living in the channel islands. The light and weather changes over there so quickly.

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mattharrisuk:

Steve12:

I have seen his site and visit every now and then his work is outstanding I think I got the link from one of your post's. Going off the subject I spent most of my summers as a boy on Guernsey, I hope to visit in the near future I always said I would take my wife but never got round to it we have only been married 21 years .

Scared you might bump into an old conquest are ya?

I'm a fan of Mike Bonsall'.
His works constantly stunning.
Plus he's lucky living in the channel islands. The light and weather changes over there so quickly.

You never know Just imagine walking around St Peter's Port with my beloved and come accross someone who looks just like me How would I explain that!!!

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Steve12:

mattharrisuk:

Steve12:

I have seen his site and visit every now and then his work is outstanding I think I got the link from one of your post's. Going off the subject I spent most of my summers as a boy on Guernsey, I hope to visit in the near future I always said I would take my wife but never got round to it we have only been married 21 years .

Scared you might bump into an old conquest are ya?

I'm a fan of Mike Bonsall'.
His works constantly stunning.
Plus he's lucky living in the channel islands. The light and weather changes over there so quickly.

You never know Just imagine walking around St Peter's Port with my beloved and come accross someone who looks just like me How would I explain that!!!

haha.
Could make an interesting action photo though.

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Woah - Photomatix ROCKS.

So I was sitting here jealous of all the cool stuff in this thread and editing a wedding where the b&g won't be back for a couple of weeks....

I set myself an hour to shoot and process an HDR image just to see if I liked Photomatix or not. So I ran up to a hill nearby (if I'd had 2 hours then I'd have gone to the beach) and blasted away about 15 frames on a couple of views. Came back and dropped them in Photomatix and I think I like it a lot. There's no way they are anythign liek the quality of the other snaps in this thread but they are enough to make me experiment on a more suitable day in a better location with more time.

Anyway, I also ran the snaps through Photoshop HDR to see what it could do. The result was pretty nasty so I played around with the curves a bit. Below are 3 pics - 1 from Photomatix, one from CS3 and one a single jpeg from the camera unedited just for comparison. Some notes:
1. I edited a dust spot out of the frame on each of the pics
2. I also cloned out the Photomatix watermark so you can see properly
3. Yeah my greens are that green - that's an S5 set to "make my greens really bright"



I think we can all agree
1. CS3 makes by far the worst job of it
2. I need a lot more practise at landscapes...

Now back to "work".

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Kidography. It's like photography. But more fun.

Christ, the grass aint half greener up your way Jon.

Later on after I've had a few, I'll fish out some HDR sets that I havent finished yet, and I'll try to pull the best images I can from them with every HDR package I have, to give an indepth idea of how they do it.
And I'll use HDR tonemapping plugins you can get for CS2/CS3 aswell.

The thing with CS2/CS3's tonemapping options, is that they're so feckin' vague.
They dont tell you anything about what the settings do.

But. If you dont want to use Photomatix's stand alone, they've just released their v1.2 tonemapping plugin for Photoshop.

I've also got a couple of black and white HDR Vs Single Shot Vs Exposure blending comparisons to upload later so.

Matt.

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Jonathan - your post was very useful as I was about to ask the OP whether or not he had noticed any improvement using CS3. I downloaded the pdf file mentioned way back in the thread (somewhere near the beginning) and have spent the entire afternoon absorbing it. The author however was using CS2 - would recommend reading it (if not already having done so) as a lot of good suggestions following his own experimentation are worth noting.

One question: did you shoot in RAW using Lightroom to process the images before saving as 16 bit TIFFS for the HDR work? I mention this as the author of the pdf was using a previous version of Photomatix and there was mention (can't remember whether it was a 'wish' or 'possibility') that future upgrades of Photomatix might be able to take in the original RAW file.

looking at those shots Jonathan CS does a pretty poor job, although i have to say i was impressed with the shot straight from the camera, thats not half bad at all

Alan Ingham:

I mention this as the author of the pdf was using a previous version of Photomatix and there was mention (can't remember whether it was a 'wish' or 'possibility') that future upgrades of Photomatix might be able to take in the original RAW file.

Photomatix 1.0 couldnt handle RAW files so you had to convert to TIFF before hand, but the newest version (1.5 I believe and onwards) can handle RAW's, and also contain settings for adjusting the white balance.

Matt.

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Alan Ingham:

One question: did you shoot in RAW using Lightroom to process the images before saving as 16 bit TIFFS for the HDR work?

You think I have time to shoot raw on an S5???

These are jpegs - only way I like my Fuji colours

David - yeah - Fuji gets you halfway to HDR anyway

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Kidography. It's like photography. But more fun.