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| jonH |
HDR from Yorkshire Sculpture ParkSeeing as the shot I posted in the h's thread of the alphabet challenge resulted in some very positive comments (thanks!!) I thought I'd show you what went on with that pic in a separate thread
I took the shot in December 2005, long before I'd heard of Photomatix and Tone Mapped HDR. I had read about blending exposures but didn't really know much about it - the idea seemed a bit too complex for my very basic pp skills so never tried it out. I did however, bracket the shot at -0.3ev and +0.3ev as I could tell that getting the right exposure was going to be extremely hard due to the wide range of light levels on the day. These are the original 3 exposures, no pp, check out my rampant collection of dustbunnies (I'd love to go back and shoot this with a wider range of exposures!)
0ev 
-0.3ev 
+0.3ev 
At the time, I really didn't know what to do.. I liked the scene but it just wasn't right light-wise. In the end, I tried out the Merge to HDR option in Photoshop and then spent _hours_ fiddling with curves to try and balance the exposure. This is what I ended up with: 
Definitely an improvement, but far from perfect. I decided to call it quits at that point and decided that if I ever got good enough with photoshop to warrant a return, I would do. I then stumbled across Photomatix via a forum post on dpreview.com. I was amazed with the other-worldy look of a heavily tone-mapped image so downloaded the standalone and plugin demos to see what was what. There was no confusion about which image to try out with photomatix, and I'm so glad I hadn't deleted the bracketed exposures like i used to do at that point - being tardy does have its benefits now and then!! These are the original results. The photoshop version was merged using photoshop's merge to hdr then tone mapped with the demo plugin, the photomatix one merged and tone mapped in the standalone app. Photoshop Merge to HDR: 
Photomatix Standalone Generate HDR: 
Photoshop (Photomatix PS Plugin) Tone Mapped: 
Photomatix Standalone Tone Mapped: 
Needless to say after seeing a silk purse being made out of a sow's ear, I stumped up the readies and bought the full license I ended up buying both the standalone and the plugin, mainly because I found after a few more tests that I preferred the hdr files photomatix was producing, but liked the tone mapping in photoshop.
After getting the full product, I of course re-did the photo and ended up with what you've already seen: 
..and there-in started my love affair with HDR and Tone Mapping I did re-do a few others from the day too:
  
 
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| Simonzphotoz |
how much was the plugin and the licience, this is something that interests me a lot but, don't have huge some's of money. |
| jonH |
Plugin = 69USD (~35GBP)
Standalone = 99USD (~50GBP) Bundle deal = 109USD (~55GBP) http://www.hdrsoft.com/ You can get free demos of either, they put the 'photomatix' water mark on the tone mapped image as shown in a couple of the examples above. |
| hil26 |
Jon
lovely walk through of the image and what went on, so glad I stumped up for photomatix, although am not using it as much as I would like, my walks around these days involve taking a 3 year boisterous lad with me, so no way of taking tripod, its even a problem getting camera out with him about, as its that eyes in the back of the head syndrome, anyway I ramble and go off subject Thanks again |
| Venom |
Thats great John, much appreciated. A shot like that to be honest i wouldn't know where to start but that as helped alot thanks 
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| Simonzphotoz |
hmmm, need to go begging again I think, thats not bad for the quality you get. Do they process RAW and TIFF, or is it JPEG only? |
| hil26 |
can do all three |
| jonH |
yes photomatix processes raw and tiff it likes raw a lot!
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| creators |
Thanks for the whole walk through Jon, it's great to see someone else's process, and it's a really valuable walk through. |