Anyone mess around with HDR (high dynamic range) images?

[Blazer88]

I came across a few website that give tutorials how to do HDR with CS2. Has anyone messed around with this yet for aquariums? Here are the links so you can see what I am talking about. Seems like a really cool thing and I am wondering if anyone has ventured into that technique.

http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/photoshop-cs2-hdr-32bit.html
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/hdr.shtml

 

[newhere]

Is that something that comes with CS2 or do you have to buy it? I might have to upgrade to CS2.

 

[Blazer88]

I know that CS2 includes an "HDR Merge" function but I think there are other ways with other programs to accomplish this. Seems like a cool idea and I'm still trying to mess around with it and figure it out. I was guessing there are other people that are much more experienced than myself that have tried it.

 

[newhere]

I have to get CS2 lol. Someone else has to have used it.

 

[spline9]

Woah, thats friggin awesome. Although I dont think it would apply to aquarium photography as much since most of what we shoot is very well lit. It seems that its main use is for merging the best parts of several shots of the same subject in different light. Since digital cameras have limited dynamic range (as opposed to film) you can simulate a wider range with this technique.

I need to look more into this.

 

[r00onmac]

also any corals like LPS or softies that move or fish would ruin the merge...

 

[louist]

It's an old trick, this plugin/software just automates the process.

ND grads does the same thing really.

 

[James Yeung]

Yes, I have a few times. I'm using photomatrix. You can d/l their fully functional demo (watermarks) to test it out. I'll upload an HDR mushroom pic when I get home tonight.

 

[Blazer88]

I'm going to try a few images myself and see how they turn out. I'm going to try it from multiple exposures as well as from a single RAW (so you can caputure fish, etc). I know a single RAW isn't really a true HDR, but some people are getting good results using that method.

 

[James Yeung]

Alright, here it is.

one of three different exposure levels I used:

HDR:

Camera and lens (RIP - both got stolen) - Digital Rebel 300D and 100mm/f2.8 macro.

 

[Blazer88]

I would say you did a pretty good job at it as the image does look better. I tried and it didn't turn out well by any means. It seems this technique is best for landscapes and such. If I can get anything decent I'll post up.

 

[Blazer88]

Here are a few that I did this evening. I was hoping to get some sun breaks but it stayed cloudy. I am still happy with the results. I just may have to buy this program now You can tone down the "artsy" effect to get something that is a bit more believable, but I like how they look like a painting or something. I posted the middle exposure to give you an idea of what the original picture looked like. I used 5 exposures from individual RAW files, processed into .tiff, and then into Photomatix. Pretty damn cool program if you ask me.

Original:

Processed: (if it wasn't obvious)

Next one:

Next:

And my favorite:

Not much use for an aquarium but still fun!!!!

 

[newhere]

I was trying to get it to work for the moon but the colors didn't have enough variance in color but I did get these. The first pic is a raw and the 2nd is the jpg.

 

[newhere]

Blazer88
Looks like you got it down. Pics are amazing. Did you have to convert the raw image to tiff and then merge them. Also did you do any adjustments to the raw images first? I am going to try a few pics this weekend.

 

[newhere]

Oh, How long did it take you to get each pic done?

 

[Frisco]

I think HDR would potentially work well for full tank shots with halides that have overexposed areas at the top of the tank and heavy shadows at the bottom. You'll need a tripod and the ability to shoot in manual mode, and you'll want to definitely turn off all pumps and take the images as fast as possible in succession. Since the pics get merged, any movement would just show up as softness/blur. It's very easy to do.

 

[Blazer88]

Frisco, I'll play around with a FT shot and see how it comes out. And each image only took a few minutes to make. I just opened them up in the RAW convertor and saved each one as a .tiff and then merged. Make sure you do the tone mapping step or they don't come out well. I didn't adjust anything in RAW and only resized in photoshop, nothing more. I should also mention that I used a tripod and remote to shoot. I used the AEB fuction on the camera and set it to and used five images from -2 to +2. I'm going to redo the courthouse one since I think that one looks too fake. The others seem much more believable.