mattcosta7
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I recently posted a thread
http://www.600riders.com/forum/fz6-streetfighter/6550-mountain-run-today-pics.html
with some HDR photos I had taken during a ride, and a few members asked me to throw up a small how to, about the HDR process.
First What Is HDR - It stands for High Dynamic Range. This is the process of capturing a higher range of light and dark contrast, than a single photograph can capture, by combining portions of different photos.
How to
The basic process is actually fairly simple, provided you have the right equipment (hardware and software).
Camera Setup:
If your camera shoots in a RAW mode, that is prefered. If not, a jpg or tiff will work, but JPEG typically works out least decent in the end. The bigger the image, the bigger the file sizes, typically the better this works. I usually shoot in raw, then convert to PSD (In photoshop) for HDR.
If your camera has an "Auto Exposure Bracketing" or "Bracketing" function, put it on a tripod, and set that feature to capture 3-5 (or more) images, as well as setting the exposure settings. I usually take exposures of -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 wen possible, to increase my range of images from which to select from later, IF I have a bracketing camera.
Usually, however, I do NOT, as I shoot a Nikon D60 (my tripod, at the moment is broken as well, so I'm shooting handheld only).
If you have a tripod, setup the image, and then manually set the exposure to the settings needed (you can do -4 to 4 in increments of one, as i do, or you can take fewer shots...as many or few as are needed to properly expose a shot.).
Without a tripod, you can always alter the exposure value in Photoshop. If it's a raw image, when you import, move te exposure slider, open the image, and save it as a psd. then repeat the process with a different setting on the slider.
The goal is to expose the image for every possible plane. In single exposure shots, you tend to take the medium between properly exposing the planes in the image. for instanc, the sky in many shots will wash out, if you properly expose for a motorcycle.
I quickly and sloppily pointed out properly exposed areas of images, where the majority is either washed out, or too dark. Regular adjustments of overall brightness/contrast won't help to fix all areas.
Now that we've got the same image, at different exposure settings, it's time to merge them into a single image. This CAN be done in photoshop, or it can be done in Photomatix Pro (My choice).
In photomatix, press "Generate HDR" then select the exposures, and press generate. In the next screen, make sure the proper Exposure spacing is selected, or manually change the values and click ok. Make sure to alight the source images if you're using different clicks of the shutter.
I usually leave ghosting artifacts, as any movement tends to add to the look of an hdr in my opinion, but if there's some movement you want to try and delete, select that. Take the tone curve of the color profile should be selected. Click ok:
you'll be at a screen now, that looks like this (AND YES, the image WILL look like crap at this point)
The Image looks disgusting. Agreed. The reason being, computer monitors are incapable of displaying the dynamic range created by merging images in this way.
In order to bring the dynamic range of the now "32bit" image you've created (monitors can only effectively show 16bits...unless you're the lucky one with an HDR display), you have to "Tone Map" the image. Before that, save the file. THis way you can easily use different tone mapping settings to make the image completely different
Click TONE MAPPING
just play around with the sliders in the "Details Enhancing Tab" I avoid the Tone Compressing tab, almost religiously. THese are two different methods of HDR, rather than 2 parts of one method, and tone compressing almost always looks more like the original image, which, if you wanted, you wouldn't be going HDR anyway.
CLick Process, and then Save. That's it!
Photoshop HDR
In photoshops CS CS2 CS3 File-->Merge-->Merge to HDR, then select all of the exposures and merge them. I don't know the tone mapping procedures for photoshop, as I have never used it to create an HDR
Any questions are welcome, and I'll get more images of the full process next time I have the opportunity to!
http://www.600riders.com/forum/fz6-streetfighter/6550-mountain-run-today-pics.html
with some HDR photos I had taken during a ride, and a few members asked me to throw up a small how to, about the HDR process.
First What Is HDR - It stands for High Dynamic Range. This is the process of capturing a higher range of light and dark contrast, than a single photograph can capture, by combining portions of different photos.
How to
The basic process is actually fairly simple, provided you have the right equipment (hardware and software).
Camera Setup:
If your camera shoots in a RAW mode, that is prefered. If not, a jpg or tiff will work, but JPEG typically works out least decent in the end. The bigger the image, the bigger the file sizes, typically the better this works. I usually shoot in raw, then convert to PSD (In photoshop) for HDR.
If your camera has an "Auto Exposure Bracketing" or "Bracketing" function, put it on a tripod, and set that feature to capture 3-5 (or more) images, as well as setting the exposure settings. I usually take exposures of -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 wen possible, to increase my range of images from which to select from later, IF I have a bracketing camera.
Usually, however, I do NOT, as I shoot a Nikon D60 (my tripod, at the moment is broken as well, so I'm shooting handheld only).
If you have a tripod, setup the image, and then manually set the exposure to the settings needed (you can do -4 to 4 in increments of one, as i do, or you can take fewer shots...as many or few as are needed to properly expose a shot.).
Without a tripod, you can always alter the exposure value in Photoshop. If it's a raw image, when you import, move te exposure slider, open the image, and save it as a psd. then repeat the process with a different setting on the slider.
The goal is to expose the image for every possible plane. In single exposure shots, you tend to take the medium between properly exposing the planes in the image. for instanc, the sky in many shots will wash out, if you properly expose for a motorcycle.
I quickly and sloppily pointed out properly exposed areas of images, where the majority is either washed out, or too dark. Regular adjustments of overall brightness/contrast won't help to fix all areas.
Now that we've got the same image, at different exposure settings, it's time to merge them into a single image. This CAN be done in photoshop, or it can be done in Photomatix Pro (My choice).
In photomatix, press "Generate HDR" then select the exposures, and press generate. In the next screen, make sure the proper Exposure spacing is selected, or manually change the values and click ok. Make sure to alight the source images if you're using different clicks of the shutter.
I usually leave ghosting artifacts, as any movement tends to add to the look of an hdr in my opinion, but if there's some movement you want to try and delete, select that. Take the tone curve of the color profile should be selected. Click ok:
you'll be at a screen now, that looks like this (AND YES, the image WILL look like crap at this point)
The Image looks disgusting. Agreed. The reason being, computer monitors are incapable of displaying the dynamic range created by merging images in this way.
In order to bring the dynamic range of the now "32bit" image you've created (monitors can only effectively show 16bits...unless you're the lucky one with an HDR display), you have to "Tone Map" the image. Before that, save the file. THis way you can easily use different tone mapping settings to make the image completely different
Click TONE MAPPING
just play around with the sliders in the "Details Enhancing Tab" I avoid the Tone Compressing tab, almost religiously. THese are two different methods of HDR, rather than 2 parts of one method, and tone compressing almost always looks more like the original image, which, if you wanted, you wouldn't be going HDR anyway.
CLick Process, and then Save. That's it!
Photoshop HDR
In photoshops CS CS2 CS3 File-->Merge-->Merge to HDR, then select all of the exposures and merge them. I don't know the tone mapping procedures for photoshop, as I have never used it to create an HDR
Any questions are welcome, and I'll get more images of the full process next time I have the opportunity to!
