Photomatix

You can download a free trial version of Photomatix from www.hdrsoft.com

Get 15% off the Photomatix program (reg. $99) just by entering “beforethecoffee” in the coupon code box of the Photomatix purchase page.

 

PHOTOMATIX PRO TUTORIAL

Creating an HDR image is a two step process. Step one is creating a 32-bit HDR file and step two is Tone mapping the 32-bit HDR file.

 

This is the final image HDR image which was taken in Bermuda. These huts are made of canvas, when you sleep at night you can hear the waves crash under your bed. Pretty cool place!

 

 

 

Step 1: HDR CREATION

There are two methods to bring images in Photomatix for HDR creation. You can directly load an image set and create the 32-bit file or you can use Batch Processing to process a bunch of image sets from an entire day of shooting. HDR creation of a single image set is easiest and is covered here.

 

note: An image set is the group of pictures from a particular scene taken at different exposures. An image set could be 2,3, 5, 7, even 9 images.

 

Begin your HDR fun by opening the program and going to HDR>Generate:

 

 

This window will open so you can load the source images, click Browse. Notice here I’ve loaded 5 Nikon RAW files. This image set consists of 5 images taken at 1EV spacing.

 

Tip: You can also load JPEG’s or TIFF’s.

 

 

 

 

Align source images - If your camera and tripod were darn steady for the entire image set, then you can UNcheck this option. I often uncheck it when I use my tripod, the images processes faster.

 

Ghost Removal - it’s best in all cases to UNcheck this box for the first HDR image. Then create another image with the box CHECKED and compare the two. Random artifacts can be created when ghosting is checked and it’s good to have the first image to blend with in Photoshop using layers and masks.

 

“Ripples” is an option that handles the problem of reflections in moving water. The problem is “moving” reflections can cause artifacts when a shiny reflection suddenly appears in one of the source images.

 

Click OK and things start to happen, then a window opens showing the 32-bit image. The image will look pretty bad because your monitor is unable to display the full dynamic range. The only solution, tone map it.

 

Note: Before you tone map you may want to save the 32-bit file. This allows you to redo your tone mapping in the future without having to go through the HDR creation process again. Just go File>Save and the default is .hdr format but you can choose .exr or .tiff (floating point). I go with the default .hdr, but if you research HDR you will find .exr has a little more precision when it creates the file.

 

Go to HDR>Tone Mapping

 

 

 

Step 2: TONE MAPPING

A new window will open and now the fun begins…..

 

The 32-bit HDR tone mapping portion of Photomatix can be considered the goose that laid the golden egg. The program has two tone mapping operators, Details Enhancer and Tone Compressor. Images that are tone mapped using Details Enhancer can be surreal and painterly, or realistic and natural. The nice thing about Photomatix tone mapping is the wide variety of looks that can be achieved in answer to one’s artistic expression.

 

If Details Enhancer is too much for your taste, then tone Compressor is an excellent choice for maintaining a natural look. If shadows are your preference, tone compressor can generate dark foreboding shadows with subtle noise free details.

 

Workflow

The default tone mapping operator is Details Enhancer and all the settings are in place from the previous session. Start by clicking Default to get the sliders in a good starting position.

TIPS and TRICKS

 

 

HALOS - A halo is a fringe of brightness around an object that extends into a region of uniform tonality. Halos make you look like a rookie tone mapper and you don’t want that. You have two choices for controlling halos. First, control them while tone mapping or second, fix them in post processing.

 

A building that extends into a blue sky is a good example where halos often develop. Lowering Strength is usually sufficient for controlling halos. However, the Highlights Smoothing slider on the S/H tab is very useful for controlling halos in the bright regions of the image. If the bright region has halos eg. blue sky, then raising Highlights Smoothing will control them and even allow you to push to the Strength slider to higher values, Yippeee.

 

Here is a shot of the Lincoln Memorial with a blue sky. You can see the effects of Strength (S) and Light-Smoothing (LS) in action and how blue skies are problematic. Watch how the halo around the tree increases when Strength is increased and notice how Light-Smoothing opens the shadows where the leaves are.

If you do end up with a halo consider blending the tone mapped image with a single source image using layer/masks in Photoshop. Here is an image that has the blue sky from -2EV image blended with the tone mapped image. To review HDR post processing you can click the link under tutorials called Post-processing.

 

 

 

Tone Reversals

Give an image an unnatural appearance by creating strong tone reversals and halos and most people will say, “Wow!” for the first 10 images. After 20 images they’ll say “not so sure” and by 25 they’ll say “shoot me”

 

Tone Reversals - Tone reversal are the result of taking regions of an image that we would normally perceive as brighter than other areas and making them darker. Our visual perception that the sky is the brightest part of the scene is a strong one. That’s how retailers get away with selling sunglasses for $200 on rainy days, you have a strong recollection of the bright sky, and besides they look cool. Notice the effect of tone reversals in the Lincoln Memorial (above) as you move to higher strength or right in the image block. The answer to correct tone reversals is lower the Strength first and raise the Light Smoothing second.

 

 

Noise

Noise is that set of brightly-colored randomly-spaced pixels in your image that arrived when you took the image. It’s a by-product of the camera electronics and it destroys details that cannot be recovered. Noise is mostly in the shadow area and it’s important to know tone mapping can enhance it.

 

 

Noise - Try these controls

• Lower the Luminosity slider - possibly the biggest cause of enhanced noise. Be careful raising this slider above default, it’s cool because it raises shadow detail and add compression but it enhances noise.
• Lower Strength to render the shadow are darker - remember increasing Strength moves the image toward tone reversals ie. brighter shadows.
• Raise black point to render the noise-full area darker or black
• Under the Color tab - Lower Saturation of Shadows for color noise
• Under the S/H tab - Raise Shadows Smoothing and Shadows Clipping

Default values with added Luminosity (+3) Noise is enhanced. Why the noise anyway??? Well I merged images that didn’t capture the full dynamic range, tisk tisk.

Making the slider adjustments shown above I’ve suppressed the noise at the expense of local contrast. Notice how the smoothing functions lower the brick details but make the noise less obvious. Now there’s a good reason to capture the full dynamic range.

Grain
Grain is caused by excessive local compression in the tone mapping process. It can obliterate details, just like noise, but details are recoverable by making the key adjustments that lower compression. Grain is most common in the dark portions of cloudy skies. Click on the area for a look at the 100% preview after each adjustment. Don’t adjust while in 100% preview.

 

Grain - Try these controls and notice that they all effect compression.

• Lower the Strength - effects compression
• Lower the Luminostiy - effects compression (can counter darker tone with Gamma adjustment)
• Raise Micro-Smoothing - effects compression (default is 2 but even a small increment to 2 0r 3 can solve the problem).
• Lower microcontrast - effects compression

Grain high. Note - this is not noise.

Grain Low

 

 

So now we have Tommy Toner who has great intentions but doesn’t quite have the tone mapping touch. He gets some of the image looking real nice but that sky is full of grain. Most would say he increased the strength to much, others might say he didn’t take enough images.

 

• Lower Luminosity and counter by raising Gamma (Tommy has them backwards).
• Lower Microcontrast and raise Micro-smoothing.
• Raise Light Smoothing (not essential but changed)

 

 

 

 

Here is Tommy’s much improved image with the changes made. Wow, notice the noise is gone and the halos are barely visible but Tommy has given up some local contrast in the Memorial’s.

 

What can be done about the loss of local contrast? Can I have my cake and eat it too: local contrast with little grain in the sky or clouds? Yes you can if you use post processing. Tommy cleverly saves both images, opens them in Photoshop and blends the grain-free sky with the image with nice local-contrast and posts it to Flickr and everyone makes it their favorite and sends him lots of awards and he’s famous.

 

 

 

 

 

You can also download a free trial version of Photomatix from www.hdrsoft.com

Get 15% off the Photomatix program (reg. $99) just by entering “beforethecoffee” in the coupon code box of the Photomatix purchase page.