I thought you would reply that HDR might not have been required and I have to
admit that I didn't try manipulating one of the middle exposures. I'll have to
try that when I get back.
I do like the rework on the HDR images. They are prettier. But I'm not sure
they look like the original scene which was fairly dark. I've come down in
definite favor of the rework on #2 but I'm still mulling #1 although it's
slowly sinking in. I deliberately didn't even do LCE on these and that was
probably a mistake.
The rework on the tree was a revelation. We'll have to discuss what you did.
I applied LCE but that's all. I want to be able to repro that before printing.
Chuck Norcutt
> -------Original Message-------
> From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [OM] Re: What are you using for HDR images?
> Sent: Sep 06 '08 00:29
>
> Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> > The first two images here are HDR images of "my type".
> <http://www.chucknorcutt.com/Barnstable_2008/>
> >
> > They're built from about 8 exposures 1 stop apart. I think they're pretty
> close to what I could see with my eye but the camera couldn't.
> I'm not entirely convinced - see below.
> > On exposures where the sky showed a modest amount of color the foreground
> was almost completely black. When the foreground had some detail the sky was
> completely blown.
> >
> That sounds right.
> > I like the way PhotoShop HDR works now that I understand it. The
> resultant 32 bit image has so much range that you can only view it in
> brightness "slices" since there's no way for the monitor to reproduce it let
> alone a print.
> >
> I believe that too. The theory all sounds fine, but the results don't
> convince me, so far.
>
> #1. On my monitor, there are areas of shadow where I can discern no
> detail. Pretty normal in a non HDR image, where bringing up shadow
> detail will often just bring up noise. Perfectly lovely image, but I'm
> not seeing much, if any, more DR than I imagine I would with a well
> exposed 5D RAW file.
>
> Also, brightness seems to me to be the Achilles heel of monitor
> calibration. Color balance is fairly absolute, but brightness is not, so
> a brighter monitor will result in a different looking image than a
> darker one. In this case, if I raise brightness, there's lots of nice
> detail in the shadows, and with no noise issues, so the HDR worked in
> that sense. But if I do, highlight details disappear. So it seems to me
> that further adjustment is needed to take advantage of the greater
> available DR in a limited display environment.
>
> I've done a couple of alternates where I spread shadows up a bit,
> highlights down a bit, add contrast to the center and use a mask to
> bring the tree trunks up a bit more. On my monitor, tree detail just
> almost completely disappears in the upper corners.There's more that
> could be revealed, but that doesn't seem natural looking to me.
> <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/CNorcutt/hdr-58-65_std.htm>
>
> #2. This one bothers me more. Of course, it's possible that the air was
> really hazy, in which case, ignore my comments. It feels tonally
> ungrounded to me. The metaphor that pops to mind is a symphony where all
> the bass instruments are silent, with their parts played an octave
> higher by other instruments in the same family. There is also invisible,
> to me, sky detail, but it's the missing deep tones that bother me.
>
> I invited the tympani, string basses, bassoons and tubas back to try
> some alternative versions.
> <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/CNorcutt/hdr_7052-57_std.htm>
>
> #3. I know, it's not HDR. Still there it is to look at ... It seems to
> me to suffer to a lesser extent to the lack of grounding, gravitas,
> whatever I mean, as #2. Bring in the darker tones to balance the
> tonality and bring out the texture of the trunks, and it just sings for
> me. <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/CNorcutt/img_7146_std.htm>
>
> No HDRs Yet Moose
>
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