HDR

[Fine_Art]

This may come as a shock, but I don't answer to you.

I think what is telling is Schewe's need to jump on a new guy at the forum. When I first got Photoshop I posted a question as a new member on their help forum. He jumped on me as a representative of that forum as well. Not surprisingly I have never bough another one of their products.

Maybe a real name is important to someone who tries to make a living off the industry, who therefore tries to cultivate an 'image' no pun intended. For many people photography, along with any associated forums, are for enjoyment during downtime. Projecting your desires for personal recognition onto others is misguided.

[marvpelkey]

Thanks everyone for the added comments, information and links to some good reading. Am currently going through some of the articles.

Marv

[popnfresh]

I think what is telling is Schewe's need to jump on a new guy at the forum. When I first got Photoshop I posted a question as a new member on their help forum. He jumped on me as a representative of that forum as well. Not surprisingly I have never bough another one of their products.

Maybe a real name is important to someone who tries to make a living off the industry, who therefore tries to cultivate an 'image' no pun intended. For many people photography, along with any associated forums, are for enjoyment during downtime. Projecting your desires for personal recognition onto others is misguided.

Hopefully, we can all move on and focus on the kinds of discussions that make this forum worth visiting.

[Peterretep]

HDR can be either real good or real bad. It's all subjective.
Here's a link to an architectual photographer that uses HDR and gets great results without going over the top. I have no connection to him but saw his work and comments about his use of HDR on another forum.
http://www.larryandersonphotography.com/

Of course what we consider great looking photography is subjective and I'll agree with you only to a small degree Keith regarding the photographer you linked to. The small degree that I agree with is that his use of HDR is not over the top. However, to me many of his images are still very noticeable as relying on HDR technology for their creation in post processing. It's most noticeable to me in attention drawing over saturation in parts of an image that shouldn't be so vibrant and overall flatness tending to make his interiors, more so than his exteriors, unreal looking. Relying on software in post rather than lighting on location is a shortcut that largely determines the quality of the final image. Though his photos are not over the top HDRwise I think his use of HDR doesn't make for a better image which would be better achieved through more time and work on location. His is more of a quantity over quality formula. On the other end of the spectrum are photographers who will spend a day or longer lighting one interior, I'm somewhere in between the two approaches. I'll use HDR occasionally but you would be very hard pressed to identify those images as I do my best to eliminate any HDR look.

Peter

[BobFisher]

If you can find clients who are prepared to pay for an entire day to shoot one interior, that's great.  With an increasing number of potential clients using the 'it's good enough' concept and doing it themselves with a mid-level DSLR, finding ways to reduce costs and survive is what many photographers have to do now.

[Peterretep]

Bob, what you say is true. It's a situation which has been exacerbated by the economy we have been in for a few years. It is more difficult to survive in today's market and HDR is a tool used by many seasoned pros and amateurs with a DSLR attempting to achieve that survival. But you also have to consider that reliance on HDR software is not going to put much distance between your photography and the competition's. How will that affect your long term survival? To what degree are you willing to compromise the quality of your photography?
Keep in mind the quote you have by Connolly.

 

[BobFisher]

I guess it depends on how much of a compromise it's considered to be or whether it's considered a compromise at all.  You do.  Others don't.  Or at least, others don't to the extent you do.  If being able to save time and produce an end result that the client is happy with, or more than just happy with, means getting a job or not then the decision isn't overly difficult.  If one is in the enviable position of being able to turn down work, then it's a different matter.  As before; however, many aren't.  For many it's adapt or die.  Some would consider overexposed, blown out windows a compromise.  Others wouldn't.  Horses for courses.

[bwana]

Sry to revive a dying thread but I like the analogy of DR to a ruler. I always envisioned increasing dr as increasing the divisions between white and black. I do not see how increasing dr in the captured image 'makes the ruler longer'. Black is 0 and white is at the maximum (determined by the number of bits we are using to represent each shade. ) I have used a more traditional numerical representation using decimals to understand dr (wrongly?). a single digit to the right of a decimal would indicate 10 shades, two decimals - 100 shades, etc. 'Out of gamut warnings' can be understood in this context as a color with more decimal places than a monitor or printer was using. Rendering intent can also be understood in this context as truncating the extra decimal places so that the number representing the shade has the same decimal places as the display (Perceptual rendering intent rounds the number representing the shade towards the middle. colorimetric intent doesnt do any rounding - it just omits the shades which have more decimal places than the display.)

however when we speak of the dr of a display, we are discussing both- the number of shades it can display as well as how red is the red, how green is the green and how blue is the is the blue. When we are using a colored filter over a white light sources as in LCD displays, do we have pure red green and blue pixels? or is the red pixel when looked at under a spectroscope actually a bunch of close frequencies? When plotted in colorspace ( a triangle whose vertices are pure red blue and green) the colors of 'impure' pixels lie inside the triangle. Soon though, our displays may consist of precisely tuned laser diodes that emit a pure single frequency of red blue and green. Then the 'length of the dr ruler' for that display will be the maximum. Increasing dr will then consist of finer gradations only?

[Guillermo Luijk]

Sry to revive a dying thread but I like the analogy of DR to a ruler. I always envisioned increasing dr as increasing the divisions between white and black. I do not see how increasing dr in the captured image 'makes the ruler longer'.

You don't see it because you fail to understand why several captures are needed. It is not a matter of number of divisions, it is a matter of noise.

In a single capture divisions run from 0 to the end of the ruler, but all those levels close to 0 (which correspond to deep shadows in the real world scene) are ruined because of noise. Making extra shots with higher exposure levels will blow highlights but will shift those dark areas to noisefree areas of the sensor. Finally your favourite HDR program blends all together, taking each part of the scene from the appropiate captured RAW files (highlights from the lowest exposure, dark shadows from the most exposed files).

Number of levels is not the reason for multiexposure in the HDR process, they are just a consequence. Noise is the reason. Once DR of sensors reach high enough performance, multiexposure will be unnecesary and HDR photographers will shoot just once. But the tone mapping process and techniques will still be necessary to accomodate in a natural looking way captured information (now from a single input file) into the limited DR output devices (print, screen, projector).

[David Eichler]

Bob, what you say is true. It's a situation which has been exacerbated by the economy we have been in for a few years. It is more difficult to survive in today's market and HDR is a tool used by many seasoned pros and amateurs with a DSLR attempting to achieve that survival. But you also have to consider that reliance on HDR software is not going to put much distance between your photography and the competition's. How will that affect your long term survival? To what degree are you willing to compromise the quality of your photography?
Keep in mind the quote you have by Connolly.

 

Exactly.  And, by the way, I think a lot of people use HDR for interior photography especially because they don't have any real lighting or Photoshop skills and they are looking for a process that seems easy. So, it is not necessarily always because people are making a choice to compromise. They simply don't have the skills to achieve high quality results.