why do overdone HDR photos look like paintings?
bucky3
HDR. All I want to understand is the technical reason that overdone
HDR/tone-mapped photos look like paintings or cartoon drawings.
I can't grasp why changing the tone of a photo would make it look like
a painting. I found some clues at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_mapping#Visual_effect
:
"Local tone mapping produces a number of characteristic effects in
images. These include halos around dark objects, a painting-like or
cartoon-like appearance due to a lack of large global contrasts, and
highly saturated colours."
But if I take a regular photo, increase saturation and decrease
contrast, it'll just look oversaturated and poor contrast. No tonal
adjustment will make that photo look like a painting.
On the other hand, look at this HDR photo: http://preview.tinyurl.com/yd5thqh
It doesn't seem oversaturated to me, and I see plenty of contrast, yet
it looks like a drawing. Can someone help explain the technical
reasons?
rwalker
wrote:
I think the reason that they look like paintings is because your eye
accommodates to the light directly where you are looking, and so if
there is differential illumination of a scene, your eye accommodates
directly to what you are looking at, and so areas with lower
illumination will appear darker with less detail. With an HDR photo,
all areas start to appear as they would if your eyes were accommodated
to all areas simultaneously, thus creating an artificial appearance.
Well, that's my story anyway.
Nervous Nick
> On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:05:30 -0800 (PST), bucky3 <buc...@mail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> >Let me start by saying this is not to debate the merits or demerits of
> >HDR. All I want to understand is the technical reason that overdone
> >HDR/tone-mapped photos look like paintings or cartoon drawings.
>
> >I can't grasp why changing the tone of a photo would make it look like
> >:
>
> >"Local tone mapping produces a number of characteristic effects in
> >images. These include halos around dark objects, a painting-like or
> >cartoon-like appearance due to a lack of large global contrasts, and
> >highly saturated colours."
>
> >But if I take a regular photo, increase saturation and decrease
> >contrast, it'll just look oversaturated and poor contrast. No tonal
> >adjustment will make that photo look like a painting.
>
> >On the other hand, look at this HDR photo:http://preview.tinyurl.com/yd5thqh
> >It doesn't seem oversaturated to me, and I see plenty of contrast, yet
> >it looks like a drawing. Can someone help explain the technical
> >reasons?
>
> I think the reason that they look like paintings is because your eye
> accommodates to the light directly where you are looking, and so if
> there is differential illumination of a scene, your eye accommodates
> directly to what you are looking at, and so areas with lower
> illumination will appear darker with less detail. With an HDR photo,
> all areas start to appear as they would if your eyes were accommodated
> to all areas simultaneously, thus creating an artificial appearance.
>
> Well, that's my story anyway.
I agree. If an HDR photo was printed or projected so that it would
completely surround your field of vision, so that your eyes had to
adjust to each area you looked at, then it might seem more realistic.
My two cents, fwiw.
--
YOP...
Rich
properly, and yet we see so few examples of this.
HDR is to digital imaging what Velvia is to film-only worse.
Savageduck
Since these are individual opinions until a definitive answer arrives,
here is mine;
With extreme HDR which results in an artificial look, I believe there
are several contributing factors:
1. In order to provide definition in the opened up shadows, edge
contrast is emphasized beyond the soft edges usually found in shadows
and shadow/light boundary areas. This is not what the eye & brain
expects with reality.
2. Saturation is off balance, with saturation applied to the newly
revealed shadows, contrasted with desaturation in the light areas. To
make things worse, many HDR artists then boost the saturation, and we
end up with Kinkaide nightmares.
3. The eye/brain combo does not make dynamic range adjustments to the
entire field of view at once. The eye/brain combo adjusts as it pans
and scans, making dynamic range adjustments on the fly. So a fully
adjusted HDR is not what the brain expects from reality, but is fully
prepared to tolerate (to some degree) in a one dimensional painting.
Given that works of art are single dimension illusions of
dimensionality and dynamic range.
So it seems the key to the "grungy" HDR is hard edges and desaturation
after multi-exposure processing. Then to get the over the top cartoon,
up the saturation beyond a level the brain understands, or is able to
tolerate.
That is my silly opinion.
--
Regards,
Savageduck
rwalker
<savageduck1@{REMOVESPAM}me.com> wrote:
snip
>
>With extreme HDR which results in an artificial look, I believe there
>are several contributing factors:
>
>1. In order to provide definition in the opened up shadows, edge
>contrast is emphasized beyond the soft edges usually found in shadows
>and shadow/light boundary areas. This is not what the eye & brain
>expects with reality.
>
>2. Saturation is off balance, with saturation applied to the newly
>revealed shadows, contrasted with desaturation in the light areas. To
>make things worse, many HDR artists then boost the saturation, and we
>end up with Kinkaide nightmares.
>
>3. The eye/brain combo does not make dynamic range adjustments to the
>entire field of view at once. The eye/brain combo adjusts as it pans
>and scans, making dynamic range adjustments on the fly. So a fully
>adjusted HDR is not what the brain expects from reality, but is fully
>prepared to tolerate (to some degree) in a one dimensional painting.
>Given that works of art are single dimension illusions of
>dimensionality and dynamic range.
>
>So it seems the key to the "grungy" HDR is hard edges and desaturation
>after multi-exposure processing. Then to get the over the top cartoon,
>up the saturation beyond a level the brain understands, or is able to
>tolerate.
>
>That is my silly opinion.
I like it. Mine seems to be a subset of yours.
As Misinformation Keeps Spewing Along -- sung to Over Hill Over Dale
<savageduck1@{REMOVESPAM}me.com> wrote:
Incorrect. Those halo edges are due to the tone mapping trying to fit
puzzle-pieces together from different images. It's not intentionally
"emphasized" for any reason. It's just an artifact of the process. Since
the software is not "smart" enough to mask to fine edge details, only
averaged regions of similar tones are grouped from one photo and merged
with another. To make it semi-plausible those edges have to be blended
together. One darker region that's been lightened merged next to a lighter
region that's been darkened.
Since you have the most crucial information wrong due to your amateur's
ignorant assumptions, the rest of your numbered points are also wrong.
If you don't have a clue of what you are talking about, please refrain from
posting your inane assumptions and guesses. This is how all the net BS
starts. Someone trust your troll's "sounds about right" explanation,
because they are dumber than you are, and then they re-spew it to the rest
of the world. Then the rest of the trolls eventually post on Wiki pages,
blogs, and their "professional websites" and we are left with a net full of
ignorant guesses. All popularized on Google because your stupidity happened
to get the most hits on someone's eye-catching or controversial web page.
Eventually your stupidity and ignorance now gets touted as "facts". When
the only thing that's truly factual is your ignorance and stupidity.
As Misinformation Keeps Spewing Along -- sung to Over Hill Over Dale
See? Just like I told you, SavageCluck. Someone dumber than you are. Now
you're all going to believe your own misinformed guesses borne of
ignorance.
bucky3
Maybe if HDR is done properly, you don't realize it's HDR. I found
these examples that showed HDR results with different settings
(natural and surreal):
http://www.vanilladays.com/hdr-guide/#examples
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/HDR_ps/compare.jpg
I compare HDR to AutoTune. When AutoTune's done subtly, you won't
notice it. But people love to use AutoTune on its extreme settings for
the effect (which get old really fast).
bugbear
> On Nov 18, 7:09 pm, Rich <rander3...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> We keep hearing as responses that HDR "should" look good if it's done
>> properly, and yet we see so few examples of this.
>> HDR is to digital imaging what Velvia is to film-only worse.
>
> Maybe if HDR is done properly, you don't realize it's HDR.
Like breast implants.
Many people think they can spot them, because "they're obvious".
BugBear
Rich
> On Nov 18, 7:09 pm, Rich <rander3...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > We keep hearing as responses that HDR "should" look good if it's done
> > properly, and yet we see so few examples of this.
> > HDR is to digital imaging what Velvia is to film-only worse.
>
> Maybe if HDR is done properly, you don't realize it's HDR. I found
> these examples that showed HDR results with different settings
> (natural and surreal):
>
>
> I compare HDR to AutoTune. When AutoTune's done subtly, you won't
> notice it. But people love to use AutoTune on its extreme settings for
> the effect (which get old really fast).
What you say is true! But few are achieving it! I'm pretty sure
buildings aren't surrounded by glows (looks like a bad film print
dodge job) and clouds except at sunset and dawn aren't pink!!