© N. David King

High Dynamic Range Imaging For Digital Photography © N. David King

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  Photography versus Perception: A Long Standing Problem  Human eye/brain coordination and local brightness adaptation.  Photography’s Limited Dynamic Range  Why Painting looks different tonally Continued… Continued… © N. David King ( A Little Background Information

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  The Problem Illustrated…  The problem based on EV increments. © N. David King ( A Little Background Information

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  Photography’s Traditional and Historical Attempts to Solve the Problem  “Expose for The Shadows… …Develop for the Highlights”  The Zone System  Compensating Developers  Water Bath Development  Contrast Masking  Variable Contrast Paper  Toning for D-Max © N. David King ( A Little Background Information And the results…?

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  The Problem Illustrated…  The problem based on EV increments. © N. David King ( A Little Background Information Now lets see what Digital has to offer…

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  The Problem Illustrated…  The problem based on EV increments. © N. David King ( A Little Background Information

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  Digital Photography’s Answer to the Problem…  High Dynamic Range Imaging via multiple exposures  Tone Mapping  What can be achieved? Here’s our chart again… © N. David King ( A Little Background Information

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  The HDR Solution Illustrated… © N. David King ( A Little Background Information

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  1. Capture Enough Exposures to Include Scene’s Entire Tonal Range.  Usually 3 to 5 exposures at 2 EV increments when shooting in RAW (Using shutter speeds not aperture changes)  Exposure Readings for extreme highlights and shadows  Exposure Readings for extreme highlights and shadows  Setting Camera: Manual vs. Auto Bracketing  Simulating Exposure Variances in RAW Continued Continued © N. David King ( How HDR is Done (Workflow)

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  2. (Optional) Convert to 16-bit TIFF files but without any mods or with identical mods.  Some software can work with RAW files.  3. Launch HDRI Software  Applications such as PhotoMatix™ compared to Photoshop™  Software creates 32 bit HDR file.  Resulting HDR File can be saved but not displayed or printed properly. Continued Continued © N. David King ( How HDR is Done (Workflow)

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  4. Tone Map HDR Image  This “maps” the tones from the 32-bit image onto a 16 bit image that can be displayed and edited  Better HDR generators allow a lot of image editing at this point.  Save as 16 Bit TIFF  5. Edit the Tone Mapped Image in Photoshop ™  Treat this file as if it were right out of the converter and ready to edit.  Use Standard Editing Workflow to edit this file. Continued Continued © N. David King ( How HDR is Done (Workflow)

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography © N. David King ( Does it Really Work? Here’s a shot of a stream with sunlit snow in the background and deep shade

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography © N. David King ( Does it Really Work? Here are 3 shots at 2 EV increments (Middle is incident metered normally) Normal Exposed for Bright SNOW Exposed for Deep Shadows

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography © N. David King ( Does it Really Work? Here is the final tonemapped shot

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography © N. David King ( Does it Really Work? Example 2 Here’s a non-landscape example based on an incident meter reading. Note the blown highlights and blocked shadows.

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography © N. David King ( Here are the six exposures taken 2 EVs apart (using shutter speeds) Does it Really Work?

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography © N. David King ( Does it Really Work? Here’s the HDR/Tonemapped version made from the 6 frames.

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography © N. David King ( Here are the five exposures taken 2 EVs apart (using shutter speeds) Does it Really Work?

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography © N. David King ( Does it Really Work? Here’s the HDR/Tonemapped version made from the 5 frames.

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  Though initially conceived of as sort of a digital ‘Zone System’ on steroids, Tone Mapping can also be a creative tool.  Here are two examples of how Tone Mapping settings allow a wide variety of results  Both of these shots are made from the same 5- exposure HDR file using PhotoMatix Pro. The only difference is in the settings of the sliders. © N. David King ( Addendum/Errata

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography © N. David King ( Addendum/Errata Version #1 is a ‘normal’ tone map designed to extend the dynamic range…Version #2 uses extreme settings for minimal light smoothing, etc.

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography  The HDR/Tonemapping approach can capture dynamic ranges far beyond that of normal film or sensors  Good software does the heavy lifting for HDR and Tone Mapping phases. The high end software can even handle movement such as ripples, etc.  You can get PhotoMatix ™ discounted using my name: “ndavidking” in the code box on the invoice at the web site:  You can download this Powerpoint Presentation on my web site ( © N. David King ( Conclusions

HDRI Photography HDRI Photography © N. David King ( QUESTIONS?QUESTIONS?