Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: ErikKaffehr on October 06, 2012, 02:33:57 am
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Hi
I would just recommend this link (by leuallen) : https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8ETvhCd81aFMTUyMTU4OTctZGQxZS00NTBmLWE5MDgtMDIwNWM1ODA3M2I4
Best regards
Erik
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Erik,
I'm confused. Looks to me like that set of instructions is carried out in LR. What is SNS? Where does one get it? What makes it different and better than LR or PS for masking? How does one actually use it in comparison with how one uses brushes in LR and PS for the same purpose? Grateful if you could explain the context a bit.
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In my limited knowledge of image processing it is perfectly possible to get maximum information from a single exposure - especially with LR4 - that will satisfy most photographers without going down the HDR route. Over exposure of three stops and underexposure of three can be rescued to provide a very good image that should mean the use of HR is only for the more zealous of processing stalwarts. Saves the expense of buying HDR programs
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Hi,
Sorry for the confusion, mea culpa.
SNS HDR is a a program intended for processing HDR images. Normally you would blend several exposures. What we did here was to make a few different developments of a raw image and tone blend in SNS HDR. So it is a straightforward image from a single exposure that is processed with HDR tools.
The article that started the discussion is this one: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/61-hdr-tone-mapping-on-ordinary-image
Larry took my original image and processed it using SNS HDR:s set of tools instead and he described the process in the PDF.
The new 1012 processing pipeline in Lightroom can do similar things, if extensive highlight compression is used.
So the whole idea was to demonstrate that a single exposure can have a lot of DR, but it needs some kind of tone mapping to turn it into a dramatic image.
Best regards
Erik
Erik,
I'm confused. Looks to me like that set of instructions is carried out in LR. What is SNS? Where does one get it? What makes it different and better than LR or PS for masking? How does one actually use it in comparison with how one uses brushes in LR and PS for the same purpose? Grateful if you could explain the context a bit.
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Hi,
This is not about rescuing images but about mapping a wide dynamic range into what can be shown on screen, a process called "tone mapping".
When this article was written we still had LR3. LR4 has some tone mapping capability built in.
The enclosed images are:
- "Straight" image processed in Lr4
- Extensively processed image in LR4 followed by darkening sky in Photoshop CS5 using multiply and a luminousity mask.
Best regards
Erik
In my limited knowledge of image processing it is perfectly possible to get maximum information from a single exposure - especially with LR4 - that will satisfy most photographers without going down the HDR route. Over exposure of three stops and underexposure of three can be rescued to provide a very good image that should mean the use of HR is only for the more zealous of processing stalwarts. Saves the expense of buying HDR programs
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Erik,
I'm confused. Looks to me like that set of instructions is carried out in LR. What is SNS? Where does one get it? What makes it different and better than LR or PS for masking? How does one actually use it in comparison with how one uses brushes in LR and PS for the same purpose? Grateful if you could explain the context a bit.
Hi Mark,
In addition to Erik's response, SNS-HDR (http://www.sns-hdr.com/index.html) is (arguably) the best (HDR) tonemapping application available (for Windows, although it apparently runs fine under Parallels and the like on a Mac). Even though the LR/ACR's PV2012 tonemapping has closed some of the gap, SNS-HDR still offers a feature set that's hard to find anywhere else. It also reads .EXR files, the most universal HDR fileformat for photography related scenes.
Especially when dealing with 'impossible' scenarios, like shooting straight into the sun or when shooting interiors with a brightly lit outside view, the only solution is to shoot multiple exposures, which SNS-HDR handles gracefully. LR would require a roundtrip to Photoshop to create a huge HDR TIFF, where SNS-HDR just takes the individual exposures and interactively or in batch produces very natural looking output.
What Erik wanted to highlight is that the application also can work miracles on a single file, although it's limited by what the image has to offer (e.g. noisy shadows or blown highlights). There the difference with e.g. LR's PV2012 becomes smaller, although SNS-HDR offers special tonemapping features not found in LR and its realtime updating preview makes for a very creative and interactive use of the controls.
Cheers,
Bart
P.S. I've added an example of tonemapping of an HDR scene detail, where I've tried to match the look of the LR tonemapping (but without the posterization artifacts)
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Quote Erik
This is not about rescuing images but about mapping a wide dynamic range into what can be shown on screen, a process called "tone mapping"
Unquote
In reality tone mapping is about rescuing images. ;D
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In my limited knowledge of image processing it is perfectly possible to get maximum information from a single exposure - especially with LR4 - that will satisfy most photographers without going down the HDR route. Over exposure of three stops and underexposure of three can be rescued to provide a very good image that should mean the use of HR is only for the more zealous of processing stalwarts. Saves the expense of buying HDR programs
Hi,
One would be tempted to think so, untill offered the power SNS-HDR has to offer for exercising much better control over the tonemapping process. While it already does magic on a single file, making multiple conversions from a single Raw does offer advantages. One can for example use more agressive noise reduction on the shadow optimized version of the file, and even do that with a different Whitebalance, should there be a benefit to doing so (e.g. remove noise and overly blue shadows).
In addition to offering the capability to massage the tonecurve in detail, SNS-HDR does so in a very photorealistic way (e.g. shadows do not get oversaturated, although one could make them so), and virtually halo free.
Seeing is believing, that's why everybody who has tried it seriously is so enthusiastic.
Cheers,
Bart
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Hi,
I don't agree. Let's take a typical example. So you are shooting in a mediaeval church with small windows and mosaic. The interior is dark and the church is surrounded by well illuminated landscape. Such an image could easily hold a contrast ratio of 1:30000. You can shoot several exposures and combine, but without tone mapping the image would be very flat an boring. A correct tone mapping would have a good gradient in the highlights, in the darks and in the mid tones.
Best regards
Erik
Quote Erik
This is not about rescuing images but about mapping a wide dynamic range into what can be shown on screen, a process called "tone mapping"
Unquote
In reality tone mapping is about rescuing images. ;D
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SNS is a very nice piece of software. I reviewed it for my series on HDR applications a couple of years ago. I would expect it to be even better now. Unless things have changes, it's more like Enfuse as it didn't take things into a 32 bit floating point space. I should take a look at the newest version to see the improvements.
Bart, the issue of the huge 32 bit TIFF files may be dealt with in the new DNG spec which allow it to use 32 bit float precision. Now all we need are ways to create 32 bit DNGs to see how file sizes compare. But Adobe has nothing to say about that yet.
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SNS is a very nice piece of software. I reviewed it for my series on HDR applications a couple of years ago. I would expect it to be even better now. Unless things have changes, it's more like Enfuse as it didn't take things into a 32 bit floating point space. I should take a look at the newest version to see the improvements.
Hi Bob,
I don't know which version you tried, but the program has indeed improved since. Masking layers were added, and the overall quality has improved in specific areas. Expected in a month, or two, are additional manual control of ghosting artifacts, and Chromatic aberration reduction (for those who do the Raw conversion directly in SNS-HDR). The upgrade to version 2.0 is apparently free for current users. SNS-HDR indeed uses an Exposure blending approach which often delivers more natural tonemapped results, rather than pure HDR creation, camera response curve determination, and subsequent tonemapping.
Bart, the issue of the huge 32 bit TIFF files may be dealt with in the new DNG spec which allow it to use 32 bit float precision. Now all we need are ways to create 32 bit DNGs to see how file sizes compare. But Adobe has nothing to say about that yet.
I know they have added that to the DNG specification, but it would be much more useful to allow importing of .EXR files, the open industry standard for photographical HDR images (which also offers various compression modes, both lossless and lossy). 32-b/ch TIFFs, or a DNG wrapper for them, will still produce huge files, due to an inefficient (for specifically HDR photography) choice of universal floating point numbers. 32-b/ch TIFF has to be flexible because it will also be used for other purposes than specifically photographic images (e.g. CGI, or numerical data layers), but that also makes it less efficient as a basis for our specific photographic needs.
Cheers,
Bart
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I completely agree, Bart about LR being able to handle .exr and .hdr files and have been ststing so for some time. Sadly, Adobe doesn't really seem to listen except whenit suits them so I'm not overly optimistic.
It was an early versionof SNS that I reviewed. The creator of the program incorporated a couple ideasI suggested in my review and through email exchanges. I should take another look at it. I agree that it could render very natural results. Back then it wasn't up to the task of higher volume, quick turnaround commercial work but was a really good option for personal work.
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Well, I really like SNS. A woman purchased an HDR image of a sunrise and it needed to be printed at a larger size. It was originally processed in another program and looked OK, that is, until I reprocessed in SNS. There was quite a difference: the original had a funky color banding around the sun. That was fixed in SNS to give a natural looking result. Overall, much better. The result was a natural looking image, not the overprocessed stuff you often see.
As to my original article. I found that it is not really necessary to use two exposures, just take the image into SNS. All of the goodness is still there. At least that is what I remember from subsequent experiments. I have been out of the loop for the last year due to family illness and have not done much work so things may have changed. We have a tendency to overcomplicate things at times when a simpler approach is just as effective. The P2012 process will probably give similar results for highlights and shadows but it was not available then. What the P2012 process is missing is the control that is available by the use of masks. The sliders in SNS do pretty much as you would expect in plain understandable terms. Many of the other programs that I tried used arcane terms so you did not know what they did without lots of experimentation.
Larry
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Hi Eric and Bart,
Thanks very much for the clarifications. Probably worth checking out. I'm on Mac now but have Parallels on one of my computers.
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I'm a bit confused. Don't other HDR programs like Nik's allow you to tone map single exposures? I guess the question is how does SNS compare?
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The P2012 process will probably give similar results for highlights and shadows but it was not available then. What the P2012 process is missing is the control that is available by the use of masks.
Hi Larry,
While I agree that PV2012 has reduced the gap, SNS-HDR still allows considerably finer control over the tonemapping process (yet with understandable control terms, as you said).
The main issue with SNS-HDR is that it make it too easy to get good results! I often wonder, is that all it takes (sometimes just two or three slider adjustments) to improve my image to what I wanted to achieve? It can be an underwhelming experience. Achieving quality is really that easy (although SNS-HDR allows to tweak to much more than good enough, at diminishing returns of the time invested).
One of the great things for advanced tweaking is that it allows to separate the overall processing from the highlights processing, even before applying masks which can specifically target anything that's required. Also the possibility to +/- adjust microdetail per color range, which e.g. allows to spare blue skies from the boost given to other ranges, is very useful.
Cheers,
Bart
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I'm a bit confused. Don't other HDR programs like Nik's allow you to tone map single exposures? I guess the question is how does SNS compare?
Hi,
Well, that's exactly how SNS-HDR differs from the rest. Even a seasoned HDR photographer and acclaimed Visual Effects Artist as Christian Bloch was almost gobsmacked at what SNS-HDR had to offer when he reviewed it (http://www.hdrlabs.com/news/index.php?id=8523427427292113719) for his upcoming (December 2012) book update.
Cheers,
Bart
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Hi,
Well, that's exactly how SNS-HDR differs from the rest. Even a seasoned HDR photographer and acclaimed Visual Effects Artist as Christian Bloch was almost gobsmacked at what SNS-HDR had to offer when he reviewed it (http://www.hdrlabs.com/news/index.php?id=8523427427292113719) for his upcoming (December 2012) book update.
Cheers,
Bart
I think you missed my point. My point was that I failed to see how SNS differed from other HDR programs and the review you linked doesn't answer my question. Obviously there are going to be things that one program/plugin does better than the other, but isn't SNS just another HDR program (i.e. an alternative to say Photomatrix and Nik's HDR Efex Pro 2)? What makes it special?
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What makes it special?
The quality of the tonemapping, and the quick way of getting there (once the files are loaded). Just look at the example crop I posted a few messages earlier, Lightroom (4.1 at that time) was not able to render the highlights without posterization and introduction of strange colors. With SNS-HDR the most time I needed was to approximate the Lightroom look for easier comparison. Otherwise, not having to fight artifacts, I could have produced many different looks which might have suited my vision even better.
SNS-HDR does allow to spend more time and get even more tweaks in, just like with other programs (although more of a need with some of those), but how useful (or even necessary) that is depends more on the artistic vision of the user than the shortcomings of the tonemapping. It also allows to tweak things that are much harder to achieve, if at all possible, in other applications (and I have tried almost all of them since the early days of HDR).
Cheers,
Bart
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It is a competitor to those others. Keep in mind that 'better' is subjetive. If you're into the really hyperprocessed 'HDR look' then SNS may not be your cup of tea, although it can take youin that direction if you want. It's different in that, as mentioned already, it doesn't take images into a 32 bit space. It also, for some who have difficulty doing so with other HDR programs, tends to be easier to get a more 'natural' looking result. In the vesion I worked with, it doesn't have the tendency of some othee programs to oversaturate colours nor to introduce colour casts as a result, as some others can do. Best bet would be to try it out and see for yourself how it's different and determine whether you think it's better or not.
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The reason I ask is that I have HDR Efex Pro 2 but I haven't played with it. I've had limited experience playing with HDR Efex Pro 1. I have quite a few bracketed photos that I intend to develop using HDR but I haven't gotten around to it. I'm not into the hyperprocessed HDR look, which was the primary reason I didn't end up buying the more popular photomatrix. From my limited experienced, it's pretty easy to achieve a non-hyperprocessed HDR look with HDR Efex.
With that said, I'm all for buying up software that adds another tool in my toolbox. How will SNS compliment HDR Efex Pro 2?
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That, again, is a subjective issue. Personally, I don't like HDR Efex Pro. But I'm not a fan of ny Nik products. When I reviwed it, it seemed more geared to the grunge/surreal look and I never was able to achieve a 'natural' result that I was happy with. Speed wasn't great either. I haven't tried v2, but from what I've seen, the tonemapping isn't really any better.
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That, again, is a subjective issue. Personally, I don't like HDR Efex Pro. But I'm not a fan of ny Nik products. When I reviwed it, it seemed more geared to the grunge/surreal look and I never was able to achieve a 'natural' result that I was happy with. Speed wasn't great either. I haven't tried v2, but from what I've seen, the tonemapping isn't really any better.
I agree with Bob's observations. From what I've seen from others, HDR Efex Pro is indeed more suited for producing the grungy look than natural looking tonemapping. Based on that I never tried it in depth myself, also because of its price. A photographer firiend of mine did test it in more depth, and didn't like the overprocessed look, and it also produced halo artifacts that were very hard to avoid. He also reached the same conclusion, and stayed with SNS-HDR.
Cheers,
Bart
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Hi,
I tested SNS-HDR (and bought a license) but I'm not really into HDR and find PV 2012 in Lightroom mostly good enough for my humble needs.
Best regards
Erik
I agree with Bob's observations. From what I've seen from others, HDR Efex Pro is indeed more suited for producing the grungy look than natural looking tonemapping. Based on that I never tried it in depth myself, also because of its price. A photographer firiend of mine did test it in more depth, and didn't like the overprocessed look, and it also produced halo artifacts that were very hard to avoid. He also reached the same conclusion, and stayed with SNS-HDR.
Cheers,
Bart
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That, again, is a subjective issue. Personally, I don't like HDR Efex Pro. But I'm not a fan of ny Nik products. When I reviwed it, it seemed more geared to the grunge/surreal look and I never was able to achieve a 'natural' result that I was happy with. Speed wasn't great either. I haven't tried v2, but from what I've seen, the tonemapping isn't really any better.
I guess that's where we differ. I'm a fan of Nik's products. I do agree with you that the first version seemed more geared to the grunge/surreal look and that's probably because they want to be an alternative to photomatrix. The newest version still retains that capability, but I find the tonemapping to be better and I'm basing it on the results I was able to achieve trying out HDR Efex Pro2 after I upgraded. I think you'll find that color and contrast is better processing your photos with the second version. Give it a try and tell me what you think. There are also plenty of samples online that I felt looks pretty natural. I thought achieving a natural look was pretty easy by simply going easy on the sliders to the point where one might not notice the added resolution and the opening up of shadows if not viewed side by side with the original.
I agree with Bob's observations. From what I've seen from others, HDR Efex Pro is indeed more suited for producing the grungy look than natural looking tonemapping. Based on that I never tried it in depth myself, also because of its price. A photographer firiend of mine did test it in more depth, and didn't like the overprocessed look, and it also produced halo artifacts that were very hard to avoid. He also reached the same conclusion, and stayed with SNS-HDR.
Cheers,
Bart
The newest version has new ghost reduction algorithms for what it's worth. As for the price, I guess it depends on the version you buy. I see that SNS' pro version is more expensive than HDR Efex, while the home version is cheaper.
Maybe I'll try out the SNS after testing the HDR Efex Pro2 more thoroughly to see if it fulfill my needs. Am I correct in saying that SNS doesn't offer a full trial version? The trial version is their free version without the graphical interface right?
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Am I correct in saying that SNS doesn't offer a full trial version? The trial version is their free version without the graphical interface right?
Hi,
No, the full version with the GUI you can download from the website is the trial version and it is fully functional (including batch mode), but its output size was limited (maybe that has changed) until you purchase a licence. With the licence key came a different download location (maybe that has changed, dunno).
Cheers,
Bart