An Easier Path to HDR Photos
Just a few weeks ago, when I was doing my GAPW photo workshop out in Montana, Barney Streit (one of my students in the workshop—-a really great guy and accomplished photographer, who I’d met at a previous workshop), turned me on to an HDR program he uses that just might make an HDR believer out of me after all. The program is called Photomatix Pro, (available for Mac and Windows) and it makes the process of combining multiple exposures into a single HDR image much more simple and straightforward.
In the example shown above (photos by Barney Streit); the top photo is the regular correct exposure for the building, which was shot in flat overcast mid-day light. The bottom photo is the HDR image which displays a much broader dynamic range. That image was processed in Photomatix Pro, from nine separate photos (all shot on a tripod), each with a different exposure (bracketed in the camera) to capture the full range from the darkest possible shadows to the brightest highlights.
You can download a trial version from the Photomatix Pro Web site (click here), and here’s a link to Barney’s NAPP online portfolio, where you can see more of his HDR work. My thanks for Barney for the use of his images, and for turning me on to this very cool program.
This is a great program! I have been playing with the free demo, which adds a watermark to the images, and I can say that once you try this program you will most likely want to buy it. It’s that cool!
Hi Scott,
good to see you’ve discovered Photomatix Pro…it truly is a wonderful bit of software. I’ve been using it for a while now to create HDR images with a certain look to them. You can see what I mean by some of the images in my NAPP Portfolio here :http://www.photoshopuser.com/members/portfolios/members/manage or in my blog here: http://www.glyndewis.blogspot.com/
Basically by Tone Mapping your image twice or maybe even three times you can create some very interesting grungy / arty effects which are then obviously tweeked in Photoshop
)
Cheers, Glyn
I’ve been using this program for a while now… And it’s great, it makes HDR real easy, and one thing that was not mentioned is that it allows for lots of control of various parameters after the pictures are merged!
this is old news.
Hi Scott..
I just bought this program a few days ago after reading Dave Cross’ blog. Dave mentioned a photographer named Trey Ratcliff whose has some outstanding HDR photography on his site stuckincustoms.com. He also has a very thorough tutorial on how to use Photomatrix that I have been referring to since purchasing the program. Worth checking out….
Cheers,
Scotty
oops….correction, it was Jeff Revell’s website that featured Trey Ratcliff…
Scotty
You said: “the top photo is the regular correct exposure for the building, which was shot in direct harsh mid-day sun.”
It looks more like an overcast day to me, Scott; No shadows, gloomy sky, and dead colors.
Scott,
Ben, One of your NAPP collaborators uses this a lot and is offering an online course about it. See http://www.whereisben.com
Been using this program for over a year now. Amazing as ever to date. Here are some examples.
Honestly, I don’t get it. There are no blown highlights or blocked up shadows in the top picture, so what exactly is the purpose of extending the dynamic range of a capture that is already sufficient for the tonal range of the subject? This looks more like a toning effect than a tool for using more information, but I’m happy to be shown otherwise.
Kevin
If the top photo was shot in harsh, mid-day sun, that’s the strangest sunlight I’ve ever seen
Andy Frazer
Hi gang:
Sorry about the “direct harsh” thing. That’s what happens when I write at 2:45 am in the morning.
I fixed it.
Scott
Zzzzzzzzz
How does this program differ from HDR in Photoshop CS3?
Tom Crews,
While Photoshop will create the HDR from your images, it lacks in its ability to map tones back into the image when you take it from 32-bit down to 16 or 8-bit. Because your monitor lacks the ability to display a full 32-bits of color information you will need to remap those tones into a color gamut that your monitor can display. Photoshop offers a couple of options for rendering the image in a lower bit depth like Local Adaption but this just allows you to make adjustments to the tonal curve which is dealing with the luminoscity and is far less interactive than the Photomatix Pro adjustments. I do have to say that I think nine exposures was probably overkill for the image of the building. As others have said, the HDR process is usually used in a circumstance where you want to capture a wide range of exposure values and merge them into a single image. I think three stop would have been plenty for this particular scene.
video on how to create HDR photo effect in photoshop,..
http://denmuel.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-create-hdr-photos-with-photoshop.html
I am sorry, the file has been removed,..try this
http://denmuel.blogspot.com/2007/08/photoshop-hdr-effect.html
Welcome to the Dark Side, Scott! I’ve been using this program for two months and it is great — the look is very distinctive (which leads to almost instantaneous identification of Photomatix-processed photos when they are posted), but the results are dramatically head-and-shoulders above the same results when processed merely via PS.
I find it hard to believe that the bottom photo was anything near what a person was seeing, given the top photo that was not run through the software. I guess it is OK if you call your photos ‘art’ but if you call them documentary, I would have a problem with that. what does anyone else think?
please can i get the downloaedable video tutorial? please coz i need to learn this…it’s kind of my profession…plsssssssssssssssssss….send it to my e mail—abbeyomoakin@live.com.plsssssssssssssss
Way Cool. Nothing better for HDR. Use restraint and you can create works of power and beauty.