Photomatix HDR software

HDR or high dynamic range has been popular for sometime, Its where you take an image at a variety of different shutter speeds and blend them together to make an image that would be impossible in camera due to the huge difference in the tonal range, A scene where the sky is bright but the foreground is dark for instance, When i was in Colorado in June i took some scenic shots with HDR in mind but have only recently purchased the software to do it, I have tried HDR in Photoshop but the images never really came out the way i had hoped, Photomatix name comes up time and time again and seems to be 'the' HDR software so that's what i purchased, The software is very easy to use
1.Take the images that you want to process under generate HDR, In the image below i shot 5 images with the camera bracketing shots at -2,-1,0,+1 and +2 so i had a well exposed image and then under and over exposed images giving me a good range of tones
2.Once you have clicked ok you get a menu where you can tick boxes for aligning image,reduce CA,reduce noise and ghosting and change white balance etc if needed
3,Once you click OK it will blend all the images together and come up with an image which looks truly awful-full of blocked shadows and blown highlights, but if you place the cursor over the image it will show you what the image will look like in the small window
4,Click on the Tone Mapping button
5, Now the image has been transformed,There are 2 tabs at the top 1 says Details Enhancer and the other Tone compressor, The detail enhancer gives a Paintery effect and the Tone compressor is more like a photograph, For the landscapes i took i quite liked the paintery effect as long as you don't over do it
6,The screen on the left gives a list of things to play around with so you can customise the image as you like, Once you have moved a slider you can either click on the 'show original' tab above the image to see what the image was like or just click on the go back button at the bottom to go to the previous setting,
7, Keep an eye on the histogram top left when making adjustments
8,You can click on the image and a loup screen comes up so you can take a closer look
9, Once you are happy press the Process button the image is ready to be saved
10, Open up in photoshop and finish levels,sat etc
The software is very intuitive and not expensive at $99
Its still early days for me using this but the results so far are OK

Here are 3 images
The first is normal processing in PS-No HRD
The second is HDR using Detail Enhancer (paintery effect)
The third is HDR using Tone Compressor





3 very different looking images from the same RAW files,HDR images can look very over done if you are not careful but like all processing if you are subtle with the changes it can really enhance your images

And here is an example of where HDR software comes into its own, Again in Colorado, I shot this scene but to stop the snowy mountain tops blowing out i had to under expose the foreground and the tree area was dark, If i had used the traditional ND Grad filter to even the sky and foreground out i would have ended up with the tops of the near mountains and the top of the trees darker than the rest which would have looked unnatural, By blending the images in Photomatix HDR software i now have detail in the sky/mountains and the tree/foreground area


Dave

Tips and Techniques-To Flash or not to Flash

When i was in Colorado i had an opportunity to shoot the lovely Stellas Jay, Its a bird i have seen in California but one that i have never managed to get a good image of, In Colorado we found a very willing subject,Obviously used to people and landed in front of us seconds after getting out of the car, Stellas Jays can be very difficult to shoot as have a very dark head and a black eye,Unless you can get the light right the eye disappears into the dark head and the image is useless, So i decided that flash would be the way to bring the eye 'out' the other difficult part was that the blue feathers reflected the light but the dark head absorbed the light, If i used enough flash to bring the eye out the feathers on the body looked 'overflashed' I decided to shoot with the flash but have the camera in continuous high mode so if i took a couple of quick shots the first would have flash and the second shot wouldn't,That way i could choose which to use, Here both are usable but many i shot only the flashed image worked, The flash was used with a better beamer as i was shooting with the 600F4,The images are unprocessed except for a small amount of sharpening-The first image has the flash and the second doesn't

Trip Report-Colorado

Sorry for the late post-out at dawn and its now gone 6pm here and i have just returned-Knackered doesn't even come near-we were shooting past 14000 feet-yes that's right and the air was extremely thin-making each breathe a struggle and giving me a blinding headache-all part of altitude photography-we worked hard and walked as far as i could go without passing out-all in all a success, We managed to shoot a mountain goat along with Pica and Marmot of which there were a few-hoping to have some good stuff after i have downloaded them and will post some next time, the weather was great this morning but clouded over in the afternoon and we had some snow fall just to make life a little harder-i should certainly loose some weight this week-no comments please-its been a couple of years since i seriously did some mountain work and today it really showed

Dave

Getting ready for a week away

Just a quick note today to say that tomorrow i am flying off to Colorado and will meet up with brit photographer Phil Shaw, We will be spending the week shooting Mountain goats and Bighorn sheep at Mount Evans and then some time in Rocky Mountain NP-Cant believe how much gear we take with us and i am in the process of getting everything together-batteries charged/sensors cleaned etc-Must get a tick list sorted,Lots to get sorted so just keep an eye out from Sunday for the trip reports and keep your fingers crossed for the weather, I know its been rough there lately and last month they had 4 feet of snow

Dave