HDR freeware... some suggestions for me to tinker with?
HDR freeware... some suggestions for me to tinker with?
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Discussion

Fezant Pluckah

Original Poster:

1,711 posts

240 months

Wednesday 13th October 2010
quotequote all
Seeing as the PH search engine is defunct (and wasn't much use to start with), can anyone suggest a bit of HDR freeware I can play with to see if I likes it or not?

Ta!

Simpo Two

92,767 posts

294 months

Wednesday 13th October 2010
quotequote all
Photomatix springs to mind.

Here's a chap who likes his HDR: www.flickr.com/photos/bayphotographic/sets/7215762...

Fezant Pluckah

Original Poster:

1,711 posts

240 months

Wednesday 13th October 2010
quotequote all
Oooo... I say!

Az woz:



Az iz:



Noice! thumbup

Simpo Two

92,767 posts

294 months

Wednesday 13th October 2010
quotequote all
Yes, now you have to pay hehe




Did you shoot RAW?


Fezant Pluckah

Original Poster:

1,711 posts

240 months

Wednesday 13th October 2010
quotequote all
Actually, I cheated Simpo. I had shot in raw but only one shot, not multiple exposures, so I made 7 seperate images with -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 exposures from one raw image (simply to see what it would do!) and merged em togevver!

R&J

906 posts

285 months

Wednesday 13th October 2010
quotequote all
with pic like these the watermark is also easy to "clone out"

clonmult

10,529 posts

238 months

Wednesday 13th October 2010
quotequote all
Apparently its possible to do HDR with Gimp. It wound me up something rotten though ... will have to try Photomatix now. Shame its such a lousy cloudy day, I haven't got any suitably bracketed images available frown

R&J

906 posts

285 months

Wednesday 13th October 2010
quotequote all
clonmult said:
Apparently its possible to do HDR with Gimp. It wound me up something rotten though ... will have to try Photomatix now. Shame its such a lousy cloudy day, I haven't got any suitably bracketed images available frown
the great thing with photomatix is that you only need one original photo, copy it say...6 times (so you have 7 identical photos)load all 7 into photomatix, it will recognize that they are the same and give you an option to change the exposures before playing with HDR

this is great if you have a moving image and cant bracket the shot

if you opt to vary the identical photos by one stop it will blend

+3
+2
+1
correct exposure
-1
-2
-3

hope that makes sence

markmullen

15,877 posts

263 months

Wednesday 13th October 2010
quotequote all
RandJ said:
clonmult said:
Apparently its possible to do HDR with Gimp. It wound me up something rotten though ... will have to try Photomatix now. Shame its such a lousy cloudy day, I haven't got any suitably bracketed images available frown
the great thing with photomatix is that you only need one original photo, copy it say...6 times (so you have 7 identical photos)load all 7 into photomatix, it will recognize that they are the same and give you an option to change the exposures before playing with HDR

this is great if you have a moving image and cant bracket the shot

if you opt to vary the identical photos by one stop it will blend

+3
+2
+1
correct exposure
-1
-2
-3

hope that makes sence
Will that work? AIUI HDR works by combining the different areas of detail recorded by having different exposures to get a bigger dynamic range, eg more than the camera could capture in one frame. So if you're basing it on one frame would you not miss out on lots of dynamic range that couldn't be captured in that one frame?

Edited by markmullen on Wednesday 13th October 17:55

GetCarter

31,256 posts

308 months

Wednesday 13th October 2010
quotequote all
Depends if the photo was taken in RAW or not.

Edited by GetCarter on Wednesday 13th October 18:06

Fezant Pluckah

Original Poster:

1,711 posts

240 months

Thursday 14th October 2010
quotequote all
Is what I have done OK in principal, Steve? Take one raw file and make multiple copies of it as a jpg with a range of exposures and merge them? Or does it only work REALLY well if you have a range of different raw files? Obvisouly some things just can;t be done in multiple exposures (I'm thinking particularly of me underwater piccies)


GetCarter

31,256 posts

308 months

Thursday 14th October 2010
quotequote all
Well yes and no. The most important thing if you are trying to HDR from a single RAW file is thast none of the highlights can be blown. This is why it's much better to work from multiple shots. But if you create over and under exposed shots from a single raw file and then combine to tone map, you are doing post production just what the camera was doing when it was bracketing.


Simpo Two

92,767 posts

294 months

Thursday 14th October 2010
quotequote all
GetCarter said:
But if you create over and under exposed shots from a single raw file and then combine to tone map, you are doing post production just what the camera was doing when it was bracketing.
Which is how I do many of my wedding photographs, but blend them by hand. They don't look 'HDR', but all the tonal range is there yet amusingly the histogram disappears off both ends!

Fezant Pluckah

Original Poster:

1,711 posts

240 months

Thursday 14th October 2010
quotequote all
Highlights blown? I thought this was photography, not hairdressing? hehe

How do I do that, then?


Simpo Two

92,767 posts

294 months

Thursday 14th October 2010
quotequote all
Fezant Pluckah said:
Highlights blown? I thought this was photography, not hairdressing? hehe

How do I do that, then?
Expose for the highlights. Exceptions are 'specular' highlights such as sun glinting on water, lights on wineglasses etc - because if you exposed for those the rest would be black!

Fezant Pluckah

Original Poster:

1,711 posts

240 months

Thursday 14th October 2010
quotequote all
Roger that! (I think hehe )

GetCarter

31,256 posts

308 months

Thursday 14th October 2010
quotequote all
If you zoom into the sun on your pic above... 'tis a perfect example of a blown highlight. Zoom in far enough and you will see only white... no detail at all on the image at that point.

If you had taken multiple images and then used an HDR prog, there would have been much more detail available for the prog to work with.

The other approcah is to use grad ND filters (which I prefer to HDR), but that ain't going to work underwater!


Edited by GetCarter on Thursday 14th October 14:01

Fezant Pluckah

Original Poster:

1,711 posts

240 months

Thursday 14th October 2010
quotequote all
Gotcher Steve!

And yes, you're right, a grad filter ain't gonna work underwater!

Anyway, I've purchased it! $99 turns out to be £77 by the time you've added VAT but it's hardly going to break the bank. I'll have a little play and see what happens!

clonmult

10,529 posts

238 months

Thursday 14th October 2010
quotequote all
Well, gotta say thanks for the heads up on Photomatix.

Had a short wander round yesterday evening. A tad awkward in that I was attempting to look after my 2 year old at the same time. Got some great shots of him ....

But managed to get a few bracketed exposures (in raw) out of the A200. Despite it only going +/- .7 I managed to get one that worked out rather nicely, doubly so as it was held in my hand and the light was gettting a little low.

Definitely one happy bunny. Wish I'd known about the app back when I was out in orlando, would have been a little more creative.

Fezant Pluckah

Original Poster:

1,711 posts

240 months

Thursday 14th October 2010
quotequote all
Well I had a play with an underwater piccie, doing what I did with the zebra/sunset shot...

Original with a little bit of tweaking in PS:


And after I've HDRificatified it...


The blues looks a little odd, don't they, especially at the bottom?

Edited by Fezant Pluckah on Thursday 14th October 15:15