L08 – HDR Photography

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Lecture Notes for Lecture 8: HDR Photography

HDR Photography

High Dynamic Range

A set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminances between the lightest and darkest areas of an image
Image: http://www.oreillynet.com/

High Dynamic Range

A set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminances between the lightest and darkest areas of an image
Image: www.studioshadowlight.com

Why?

To more accurately represent the wide range of light intensity levels found in real scenes
To mimic how the human eye sees a scene (which cannot be captured in traditional photographs)
Image: www.jamie-katz.com

Tone Mapping

Reduces overall contrast to facilitate display of HDR images on devices with lower dynamic range
Can be applied to produce images with preserved or exaggerated local contrast for artistic effect.
Image: www.illiteratewithdrawal.com

Tone Mapping (continued)

Reduces the dynamic range, or contrast ratio, of the entire image, while retaining localized contrast (between neighboring pixels)
Image: www.hdrsoft.com

Software Choices

Photoshop
- Merge to HDR automated action
- Post processing necessary to get desired results (curves, levels, masking,etc.)
- No built in tone mapping Available on lab computers PC/Mac
Photomatix
- Considered to be gold standard in HDR tone mapping
- Plugins for Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture or Standalone Application
- $100-$200 (depending on version, but academic pricing (60% off) for students)
- PC/Mac
- Image: prolineimagery.blogspot.com
Essential HDR (community edition)
- Great tone mapping Free to use
- Limited size (resolution) of output unless you pay
- PC only
- Image: imagingluminary.com

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