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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
HDR from raw-converting files
Erik Markov, Photographer
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Kokomo | IN | | Posted: 5:13 PM on 09.12.09 |
->> I'm wondering if anyone knows if there is a program for creating individual exposure files from a RAW file, where the program will automatically create the files, i.e. set it to create 7 files half stop apart then save the files into a new folder. Like setting up an action in PS.
I just d/l Lightroom and only played around in it a little bit. So maybe it can be done with that. I just haven't investigated enough to find out yet. If anyone has a suggestion for another program I would also be interested. |
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Jack Howard, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Central Jersey | NJ | USA | Posted: 5:49 PM on 09.12.09 |
->> Erik, can I ask why?
If it's for merging into an HDR file and then tonemapping, you're creating more work for yourself than is necessary. There is no meaningful difference between a psuedo-hdr 32 bit file from a single RAW file and a psuedo-hdr 32 bit file from a pseudo-bracket sequence from a single RAW. You gain ZERO 32 bit headroom in dynamic range from the cheesed-bracket workflow.
If you want that tone mapped effect, just go and throw your single RAW into a tone mapper like Photomatix, FDRTools, Dynamic Photo HDR or CS4's Local Adaption bit-depth dropper and tweak away. |
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Erik Markov, Photographer
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Kokomo | IN | | Posted: 3:00 AM on 09.13.09 |
->> Jack,
I'll be the first to say I might be banging my head against the wall spending time creating a bracketed workflow. I've only been playing with hdr over the summer and I'm far from knowing all there is to know about it. All of this is based on the stuff I've done in Photomatix thus far.
My reasons for wanting to create the bracketed exposures are:
-pseudo hdr just seems the cheap way out. It does a decent job sometimes, but it just seems like from my limited experience some images don't always work the best in it.
-unless I've missed a setting where this option can be chosen, when you go to generate HDR Image, you can choose: take tone curve of color profile/attempt to reverse-engineer tone curve/no tone curve applied. I've looked for a pre-set to choose one of options to do automatically while processing the raw file and I haven't found it. My guess from doing some pseudo raw images is that the default is to take the tone curve of the color profile, a basic sort of starting point. From using bracketed exposures, sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. After creating the hdr image, sometimes I scrap it and go back to having Photomatix attempt to reverse-engineer the curve and it works better for me.
-exposure fusion in the newest version of Photomatix (3.2) only works with bracketed exposures. I tried it in a previous version and wasn't too impressed. It used to be called exposure blending, same thing they just changed the name. I don't know if changing the name made it work better or maybe they have some new math running behind it but it seems to work better than previously. I've found the highlights and shadows-adjust feature works pretty well to create a nice, quick hdr image while still allowing for some adjustments.
I've uploaded a gallery www.sportsshooter.com/erik/hdr/ where I ran the same shot, different ways. Tonemapped straight from the raw image, hdr image generated with 5 images and tonemapped and the same thing except with 9 images. I used some basic settings for the tonemapping that recreated the image as I saw it that morning when I shot it.
The final image tonemapped from raw and the 5 images merged then tonemapped seem very similar, the colors are a little different maybe, but it's pretty close. The image created from 9 files is a little too much I think. It's got that funky bloom of yellow down in the corner that certainly doesn't do it any favors. I could have used highlight smoothing to take care of it, but I wanted to use the same settings for all the images.
What I've found I like the best is using 7 images for my hdr image that I then tonemap. Sometimes I make the exposures a half stop apart, sometimes a full stop. I play around with it til I find something I like.
Even Photomatix says after opening the raw image to create a pseudo hdr file "please note that more than one exposure is needed to properly capture the dynamic range of most scenes. Good quality HDR image requires taking several exposures and combining them using generate hdr."
This is simply my workflow, if I'm banging my head against the wall and making more headaches for myself, so be it. It's not the first time, certainly won't be the last. It seems to work for me so I'm going to continue. I just am looking for a way to speed up that initial step of the bracketed exposures. |
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Curtis Clegg, Photographer
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Sycamore | IL | USA | Posted: 8:37 AM on 09.13.09 |
->> I just started playing around with HDR too and to be honest I'm still not sure what to think of it. I like HDR in theory but I haven't found the magic formula to make the images look less "cartoony".
So far I have only been using Bridge in CS2 but I found this software the other day:
http://www.imagingluminary.com/Default.aspx
that claims it will "Create HDR image from one single camera raw file or linear TIFF file (16 bit per channel, 48 bit per pixel, integer RGB)"
They have a trial version that I will probably give a try. |
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