HDR and Tone Mapping

[davee78]

Hi all,

Juz joined the forum...my first post

I have been reading about HDR...how does one actually does it?:sweat:
Sorry for asking a silly question btw...read about tone mapping and all..but dun quite get it..anyone can offer a simple explanation??:embrass:

Wants to make my night shots more "drama" ..not sure if HDR is the way to go but saw some HDR photos here and found them quite akin to what I want to do..

 

[night86mare]

you shoot a number of shots with different exposure, keeping iso, aperture and wb constant, and vary exposure with shutter speed change

then you merge them using software

aftery ou merge them right, the amount of dynamic range that results is far too wide to be displayed on computer display

dyanmic range = brightest spot to darkest spot, how far

so you need to tone map to make it displayable on computer display, this is the output result that you often see

hope this helps, please feel free to enquire further.

 

[Bulldog988]

hi,

so we use a big f-stop to shoot then step down 1-2 stop and shoot for 3-6 shoots?

 

[Daneal79]

if you have photoshop cs3, the help guide is very useful in explaining how to take photos and merging them using hdr.

its mostly automated. all you got to do is click on hdr and they'll ask you to select the photos you want to merge.

Keep the following tips in mind when you take photos to be combined with the Merge To HDR command:

Secure the camera to a tripod.

Take enough photos to cover the full dynamic range of the scene. You can try taking at least five to seven photos, but you might need to take more exposures depending on the dynamic range of the scene. The minimum number of photos should be three.

Vary the shutter speed to create different exposures. Changing the aperture changes the depth of field in each exposure and can produce lower-quality results. Changing the ISO or aperture may also cause noise or vignetting in the image.

In general, don’t use your camera’s auto-bracket feature, because the exposure changes are usually too small.

The exposure differences between the photos should be one or two EV (exposure value) steps apart (equivalent to about one or two f‑stops apart).

Don’t vary the lighting; for instance, don’t use a flash in one exposure but not the next.

Make sure that nothing is moving in the scene. Exposure Merge works only with differently exposed images of the identical scene.

 

[pat33]

Try this it might be helpful

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/hdr.shtml

Hope it helps.

 

[davee78]

Wow....I am impressed with all the replies... Thanks all

Ok, will go try it out :sweat:

 

[davee78]

haiz...realise mine's photoshop CS...not even CS2...hahaha:embrass:

 

[night86mare]

haiz...realise mine's photoshop CS...not even CS2...hahaha:embrass:

google for photomatix or dynamic photo hdr, these have trial versions where you can see if you like hdr.. i think the only problem si that they watermark your output images

 

[davee78]

My first try at HDR:sweat:

The first and second are HDR while the 3rd is one of the original shots...still exploring on the various controls as I am uploading these 2, still got lots to improve.. Thanks for explaining to me wat HDR is all about...and thanks night86mare for pointing out "photomatrix" to me