hdr/tone mapping...have you played with them?

jtk · May 13, 2018

Have you played with hdr OR tone mapping? Successes? Do you see potential?

Tone mapping can be done with one exposure..its a subset of HDR..I'm playing with tone mapping using NIK, mostly leaning toward B&W with just a mild taste of color... may not even be obvious. Prints the right sort of image nicely.

Not seeking opinion/windbaggery about other peoples explorations or crapola in magazines.

What about your personal efforts?

for curiosity purposes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging

Eric Rose · May 13, 2018

If you go to my website http://ericrose.com click on color and then Utah/Arizona, most of those photos have some degree of HDR. The canyon photos were made with a Nikon D70s which really needed the help of HDR.

When I was in Turkey with my Nikon D700 I used HDR techniques inside mosques. To me successful HDR utilization should not be noticeable.

jtk · May 14, 2018

Eric Rose said:
If you go to my website http://ericrose.com click on color and then Utah/Arizona, most of those photos have some degree of HDR. The canyon photos were made with a Nikon D70s which really needed the help of HDR.

When I was in Turkey with my Nikon D700 I used HDR techniques inside mosques. To me successful HDR utilization should not be noticeable.

Thanks, have visited your website. Did you use HDR on the rocks? Beautiful. At this point, and to my general taste, I'm mostly interested in Tone Mapping (Vs complete multi-file HDR) to produce a somewhat exaggerated duotone.

Eric Rose · May 14, 2018

Many of the images were 5 shots combined. Good luck with your duotones. Let me know how you do it.

nmp · May 14, 2018

I do it (tone mapping) routinely combining 3 or more bracketed shots in the simplest way in Photoshop - no fancy apps or plug-ins. It not only takes care of clipping on either side of the histogram but also reduces the noise, particularly in the shadows.

:Niranjan.

jtk · May 14, 2018

Niranjan's wonderful zenfolio work includes several images that seem to lean toward "tone-map" (as opposed to over-the-top "HDR"). I mean to distinguish the two concepts the way Wikipedia does ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging ) but that distinction isn't important. I don't go directly to Photoshop but rather use NIK hoping to simplify it. I doubt NIK would be helpful to someone as Photoshop-skilled as Niranjan.

slackercrurster · May 14, 2018

OP, didn't know what tone mapping was...but I've done some work in that area. I got some HDR software and fooled around with it.

I liked hyper-real / painterly HDR and invisible HDR.

Faces of Gentrification

That is about it for freaked out HDR. I generally don like the grudge. But I've used it before.

nmp · May 14, 2018

jtk said:
Niranjan's wonderful zenfolio work includes several images that seem to lean toward "tone-map" (as opposed to over-the-top "HDR"). I mean to distinguish the two concepts the way Wikipedia does ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging ) but that distinction isn't important. I don't go directly to Photoshop but rather use NIK hoping to simplify it. I doubt NIK would be helpful to someone as Photoshop-skilled as Niranjan.

Thanks jtk for the kind words. I am not that skilled in Photoshop as you allude. I make do with the same few things I repeat for all my images. All my tone-mapped images are made very simply (as you will see below) with a process I distilled out after trying other options, commercial or otherwise.

Here are the steps:

Take a sequence of generously bracketed raw photos of the scene on either side of the center.
In Camera Raw, make global corrections to all of them together like color, lens aberrations etc but no histogram related changes or others like saturation, sharpening, clarity etc.
Open them all in Photoshop. Load them as a stack in a new file with alignment option checked.
Now what needs to be done is take an equal percent of the data from each image and blend them together. Let's say you took 5 bracketed shots. So each image gets to add 20% to the overall image. You might think that would be simple as changing the opacity of each layer to 20%. But that does not result in equal participation. It turns out, if you do the math, the sequence will be this:

Layer 1 Opacity = 100
Layer 2 Opacity = 50
Layer 3 Opacity = 33
Layer 4 Opacity = 25
Layer 5 Opacity = 20

Flatten

What you will have is an image that has a smooth histogram with no clipping on either side.

:Niranjan.

nmp · May 14, 2018

slackercrurster said:
OP, didn't know what tone mapping was...but I've done some work in that area. I got some HDR software and fooled around with it.

I liked hyper-real / painterly HDR and invisible HDR.

That is about it for freaked out HDR. I generally don like the grudge. But I've used it before.

Your images work very well with the treatment...suited to the subject matter.

:Niranjan.

slackercrurster · May 16, 2018

Here is another one I did...single image (invisible) HDR.

I remember on one forum a guy was arguing that single image HDR was not 'real' HDR. Back then it was called pseudo HDR. Maybe that was what they called tone mapping?

Well there is single image HDR that is the 'lazy man's way' of doing it and there is single image HDR that uses multiple exposures of the same image that is done with software to produce individual images to process.

The lazy man's way of using the software to do it all produced an image that was not as good as doing it the more elaborate way of making individual exposures of the same image and processing them. I will go with the pseudo term for just using the software, but from my tests I've seen true single image HDR goes beyond the lazy man's way. (Note: I have not tested the latest HDR software for this statement.)

I even use single image HDR for old film negs. Got a fantastic example, but it is nude and don't know if the forum goes for nudes.

Generally I like HDR to smooth out the tough exposures when doing street work. Since I seldom use a tripod, I generally only have 1 image to work with.

slackercrurster · May 16, 2018

nmp said:
Your images work very well with the treatment...suited to the subject matter.

:Niranjan.

Thanks.

When you start, you want to HDR everything. If it looks better in HDR I do it. If it is better with no HDR I do it. Whatever works.

slackercrurster · May 16, 2018

Here are a few single image HDR's...Amsterdam. (I'm pretty sure the BW is invisible HDR, but can't remember.)

The last one looks far away but she was just a few feet away from me.

slackercrurster · May 16, 2018

Well, I could fill up this thread with HDR...it is a very import tool for the street photog. But many of my photos are nsfw, so wont put them up.

When you shoot in the blink of an eye, you can't always get things right with street work. No luxury of siting around and fooling with exposure. HDR can make things acceptable.

Amsterdam

After I shot this the gals put their greasy hands right on my lens. I had to find a place to sit down to get out my cleaning kit.

slackercrurster · May 16, 2018

NYC single image HDR

This is a rare architectural shot of mine. It is rare because I don't shoot sunsets, buildings or flowers much. People are my landscape for the most part, preferably candid photos of people.

jtk · May 16, 2018

slackercrurster said:
NYC single image HDR

This is a rare architectural shot of mine. It is rare because I don't shoot sunsets, buildings or flowers much. People are my landscape for the most part, preferably candid photos of people.

Great example of how "single image hdr" (which is "tone mapping" according to wiki and NIK) can sometimes help the file and print more closely match what I've seen, rather than simply being goofy. ... sometimes there's more potential in a file than a simple rendition can accomplish. Also, and this isn't always goodd....but it can sure make blank skys interesting, as slackercrurster's above.

Eric Rose · May 16, 2018

A lot of what you are referring too seems to be just a skilled use of curves and maybe some layers if it gets really gnarly.

jtk · May 17, 2018

Eric Rose said:
A lot of what you are referring too seems to be just a skilled use of curves and maybe some layers if it gets really gnarly.

Yes, more or less. However, the big advantage of NIK is that using sliders it immediately portrays and allows choice of many possibilities...implements immediate visual adjustments (like test prints) ...which makes the process less Photoshop-intellectual and almost totally visual.

Eric Rose · May 17, 2018

I like NIK for quick and dirty adjustments.

jtk · May 17, 2018

Eric Rose said:
I like NIK for quick and dirty adjustments.

Me too. However NIK is automatically a portal to full fledged Photoshop (or similar). I usually start with NiK and go from there.

As well, "quick and dirty" can have certain charms.

GLS · May 19, 2018

I have dabbled with it to some extent, but was rarely completely satisfied with the results. IMO HDR/tone mapping is best utilised to more closely match what our eyes see, and no further. Even if you manage to avoid the hyper-real colours, glow and crazy contrast it's very, very easy to still go too far to the point where objects appear to have an unnatural inner luminosity. Having said that, there are photographers doing very nice, subtle work with those techniques.

Personally however, with the dynamic range of my DSLR (D810) being so huge I find it is so rarely necessary to bracket and blend multiple shots. Furthermore, in the cases where some taming of the contrast is necessary, I find using targeted adjustments with luminosity masking a superior technique to HDR/tone mapping, giving you much more control.

jtk · May 20, 2018

GLS said:

I have dabbled with it to some extent, but was rarely completely satisfied with the results. IMO HDR/tone mapping is best utilised to more closely match what our eyes see, and no further. Even if you manage to avoid the hyper-real colours, glow and crazy contrast it's very, very easy to still go too far to the point where objects appear to have an unnatural inner luminosity. Having said that, there are photographers doing very nice, subtle work with those techniques.

Personally however, with the dynamic range of my DSLR (D810) being so huge I find it is so rarely necessary to bracket and blend multiple shots. Furthermore, in the cases where some taming of the contrast is necessary, I find using targeted adjustments with luminosity masking a superior technique to HDR/tone mapping, giving you much more control.

Click to expand...

Most modern DSLRs and mirrorless equivalents record far more potentially visual info than the eye can see... occasionally it's amusing to explore. For example, photograph almost directly into the sun in order to depictl something you know is there but can't directly see because of glare..but may be found in a file by digging deeper via Tone Mapping.

slackercrurster · Mar 6, 2019

Well, any progress with the HDR??

RalphLambrecht · Mar 7, 2019

jtk said:
Have you played with hdr OR tone mapping? Successes? Do you see potential?

Tone mapping can be done with one exposure..its a subset of HDR..I'm playing with tone mapping using NIK, mostly leaning toward B&W with just a mild taste of color... may not even be obvious. Prints the right sort of image nicely.

Not seeking opinion/windbaggery about other peoples explorations or crapola in magazines.

What about your personal efforts?

for curiosity purposes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging

it was a fad and is long gone!

jtk · Jul 23, 2019

RalphLambrecht said:
it was a fad and is long gone!

It's now routine and usually not noticed. Much more potential than IR, for example.

hdr/tone mapping...have you played with them?

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