Combining exposures to increase range
Lensman
like it will be most useful.
I am an amatuer photographer. Have done a few paying engagements
(product, wedding assist) but nothing major. Photography is fun for me
and I'm afraid if I start making money with it, the fun will diminish
:-). In real life I'm an IT consultant which is somewhat less fun but
pays the bills.
I'm taking interior pictures of my home for my real estate agent and
want to combine exposures to increase the detail in the final picture.
I have a series of pictures taken at 2/3 stop increments (used an eval
version of DSLR Pro connected to my Canon 20D). I'm looking for
guidance or a tutorial on using Photoshop CS2 to combine these. I'm
sure some trial and error will be required to get the best result but
I'd like to review a basic process that has worked for others.
I appreciate any constructive advice or pointers you can provide.
TIA,
Frank
Lensman
does what I'm looking for. Takes any number of images and produces a
HDR image from them It will also automatically do tone mapping and
several other adjustments. The results are pretty impressive (at least
to me). Would be interested in other opinions.
Have a look at http://www.pitapeople.com/pauletta/kitchencloseup.jpg.
This was created using 9 exposures and some minor adjustments in PS CS2
(exposure and lens correction for wide-angle distortion). The image is
1.5 MB so download may take a couple seconds.
Richard H.
> Have a look at http://www.pitapeople.com/pauletta/kitchencloseup.jpg.
> This was created using 9 exposures and some minor adjustments in PS CS2
> (exposure and lens correction for wide-angle distortion).
It's hard to appreciate the end result without seeing the problem you're
trying to solve - is it balancing the details in the shadows / darker
countertops vs. the direct sunlight in areas of the image? Do you have
a "before" image to offer?
The "grain" in the photo looks like higher ISO, or is this an artifact
of the software? Clearly you're using a tripod for this and the
subjects are stationary, so have you tried a) lowering the ISO and b)
increasing the sharpness in your camera? This would also let you use a
small aperture for deeper field of focus.
Richard
Beach Bum
news:1140975715.1...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
These are both good blending tutorials to help increase dynamic range...
http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml
http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/blended_exposures.shtml
This one wouldn't hurt..
http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/hdr.shtml
And here's one by Ken Rockwell on photos for real estate and home sales
(very good IMO and he links to his own case study)..
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/interiors.htm
HTH,
--
Mark
Photos, Ideas & Opinions
http://www.marklauter.com/gallery
Beach Bum
--
Mark
Photos, Ideas & Opinions
http://www.marklauter.com/gallery
"Lensman" <fra...@dca.net> wrote in message
news:1140975715.1...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
Marvin
Combining a set of pictures that are made this way can
improve the color depth, but slowly. Combining two images
will only give a 40% improvement, and only if you increase
the number of bits per pixel. You can increase the
resolution by taking pictures of smaller areas at the
highest number of pixels your camera will allow, and then
combining them into a montage.
Paul Furman
Doesn't CS2 have HDR?
Those results look good and that's really tough to do a blown window
like that manually though I agree it seems to have gone a bit soft. I do
lots of contrast merging with 2 versions of the raw conversion and
manually mask areas with a broad brush eraser in CS but that's for
landscapes where a soft dodge & burn approach works fine. The little bit
of HDR I've seen with landscapes looks unnatural, so I prefer manual but
your example looks great.
Lensman
Addressing some of the questions:
The 'before' in this case (which I dumped because it wasn't useable)
had an ok exposure on the interior in the mid-range but the window and
some of the bright sun on the surfaces were completely blown out and
there was less detail in the shadows.
The grain is probably a combination of ISO and artifacts from
conversion. This was shot at ISO 400, f/11 and shutter ranging from
1/4 to 1/160 but I could certainly have shot at a lower ISO and even
smaller aperture given how it was done. That would help with the soft
through-the-window view as well. It is for use in a real estate web
posting (and possible low-res printing) so may not matter for those
media. I'd still like to see how good I can get it though.
I tend to not use any sharpening in camera and do that in post
production. I had read in several places that sharpening should be
introduced as late as possible because it tends to create artifacts if
done repeatedly or to too great a degree. If your experiences are
different, I am certainly interested in hearing that.
I did not have good luck using the PS CS2 HDR merge. It resulted in a
picture only slightly better than the one with blown out highlights.
I'll read through these tutorials and try it again and see if I have
better results. I'm sure it will take lots of passes to develop a
workflow with good results. Photomatix made it a push button operation
and the results, while not perfect, were way better than what I'd
achieved before and since I had a deadline :-)
Thanks again for all the helpful hints. I'll post back if I get a
better result.
Ken Ellis
Hi Frank. Katerina Eismann discusses this in her book "Masking and
compositing". You can get a copy used on amazon pretty reasonable.
Very well worth the read. There is alot tothis.
rgds
Ken