HDR Infra-Red with PhotoAcute

[tomcat]

These were taken with a modded Canon G9 using auto exposure bracketing and processed through PhotoAcute to reduce the noise, increase the dynamic range and details.

#1


#2


#3


#4

[u2nofear]

all IR + HDR process flow done by PhotoAcute ?

[night86mare]

hrm.

prefer hdr ir to be used on sky with extreme detail, rather than a scene like this, for example i can see why you need hdr in #2 and #3, but seeing the sky color (rather than blown out) does not really add much to the picture, in my opinion.

looks like a good programme for ir hdr though!

[tomcat]

I don't really fancy the kind of 'overcooked' HDR images like those that many users of Photomatix create where the details in the sky are exaggerated by overly increasing the contrast. Don't look natural at all to me. Nice HDR images could also be produced by Photomatix if a lighter touch was applied during tone-mapping though.

HDR should produce more tonal gradation and details in all parts of the image and should not just be restricted to exaggerating the clouds in the sky.

The beauty of PhotoAcute is that it produces a more natural looking kind of HDR, at the same time reducing the image noise (something very unavoidable in IR images especially when viewed at 100%) while putting back details that are not existent in the individual images.

This might not be very obvious looking at #2 & #3 which had been scaled down from 12M to 0.5M for posting. However, take a look at these 2 100% crops from the full sized version of #2. One is the image before PhotoAcute and the other after PhotoAcute.

Before PhotoAcute:


After PhotoAcute:


Can see any differences?

[night86mare]

yes, of course, but note that photoacute seems to REDUCE detail as well.

in the first place, ir is already surreal, which is why i advocate going no-holds-barred when you ir-hdr, that's just a view. still, stuff like haloes should be avoided at all costs.

most people just whack photomatix up to strength 100.. that's asking for it.. but oh well, a lot of people fancy that sort of image.

one way of overcoming the problems you have mentioned is simple - layering. one layer with exaggerated sky, one without.

[tomcat]

Look at the details in the shadowed areas in the fern bush in the cropped image after PhotoAcute and compare to the same area in cropped image before PhotoAcute. That is what a HDR software is supposed to do - recover details in the highlights and shadows. It would not be possible to get those details back in the unprocessed image just by using Shadow/Highlight and/or layering. More noise would also be produced by such post-processing techniques as well. And if you try to apply noise reduction software like Noise Ninja or Neat Image to match the noise level of the PhotoAcute-processed image, even more details would be smeared and lost after that.