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Author Topic: Are there any HDR books worth reading?  (Read 7126 times)

jenea

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Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« on: March 09, 2012, 04:25:31 pm »

I wanna start exploring HDR and was hoping for some suggestions on books to read. also if there are any to avoid, letting me know what to not waste my time with would be just as helpful

thanks
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Tony Jay

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2012, 06:59:08 pm »

Not sure of your experience generally so...

Best advice I can give is that you thoroughly inform yourself about all aspects of digital imaging as a primer.
Start with understanding sensors then move on to what happens in post-processing and finally printing.
The idea is to understand properly both the potential and limitations of digital capture in general.

Frankly, there are many books on HDR - a trip to Amazon readily confirms this - so there are plently of options.
Recommending specific texts is difficult however certain names will stand out.

Again, I am not sure what software you are planning to use, or even whether you have given it much thought yet.
If you own PS use that for now.

The way to really learn is to experiment as soon as you have any sort of idea of how to shoot. Meter your scene with emphasis on the brightest and darkest parts. Work out the dynamic range of the scene. Shoot the first shot as per the usual principles of ETTR and then increase exposure by 1-2 stop intervals until the entire dynamic range is covered. You are finished when the darkest part of the scene has been rendered middle grey.


The fun starts when one combines the images in HDR software. Be prepared to experiment over and over again with the same image set to see what looks good. There is no generic one fit curve. Each scene needs its own tweaking. PS does a fair job but there are other packages out there. Once one is fully familiar with PS HDR consider then buying another software package. At this stage your research will be much more focussed and what you trying to do much clearer.

Print the results and compare them. Do not be shy of round-tripping several times. The learning curve is well worth it. Once one has done this several times referring back to books and clarifying particular issues will be valuable.

Apologies if I have been trying to sell snow to eskimos but your post was a little short on background information.

Kind Regards

Tony Jay
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jenea

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2012, 01:28:59 pm »

I've played around with HDR in PS5 a little. clearly its gonna take a while to master all the tone mapping stuff. but I want to stay closer to the natural look rather then the over the top look. I downloaded the trial of SNS-HDR to play with last night and it seems like a great little program.

I guess I'm really looking for more of a concept guide rather than a step by step process. if you want this then try this kinda thing. But in the end it all comes down to just spending time and moving sliders and checking boxes to get what you like right? 
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KeithR

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2012, 02:21:09 pm »

I have found that most of the books on HDR out today are a how to rather than this is what it is.
A good book to start with is "The HDR Handbook" by Christian Bloch. A lot of good background info.
http://www.amazon.com/The-HDRI-Handbook-Dynamic-Photographers/dp/1933952059/ref=sr_1_28?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331406572&sr=1-28
There is a version 2 of the book coming out in June:
http://rockynook.com/book/0/125/the-hdri-handbook-2.0.html
Unfortunately, by the time it is released, Photoshop will have released CS6 and somethings may have changed, hopefully for the better.
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tived

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2012, 01:45:56 am »

I have the original The HDR Handbook and its still a good read, the basic haven't changed

good luck - let us know if you run into something interesting

Thanks

Henrik
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milt

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2012, 12:35:42 pm »

I've read several HDR books.  Christian Bloch's book is good and maybe the best.  Michael Freeman's book is short and good for a quick intro.

I used Photomatix a lot for awhile, but not at all now.  I tried the HDR in CS5 and think it is poor.  My current favorite is Oloneo.  In any case, don't try to do a lot in the HDR program.  Get your merge done and spread out across the histogram and get into Photoshop with 16-bit Prophoto.

--Milt--
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leuallen

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #6 on: March 12, 2012, 08:59:26 pm »

I have Oloneo and a bunch of others. SNS-HDR Pro is the best in my opinion - going for a more natural look which it delivers.

Lsrry
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jenea

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #7 on: March 13, 2012, 12:36:59 pm »

I have Oloneo and a bunch of others. SNS-HDR Pro is the best in my opinion - going for a more natural look which it delivers.

Lsrry

I downloaded the trial of SNS and I am impressed with it so far. comparing it to photoshop it is much more natural. Plus it is a little more user friendly
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Michael H. Cothran

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #8 on: March 13, 2012, 02:36:11 pm »

SNS looked good from what eveyone is saying, but according to their website, once I translated it to English, is a Windows-only appl. Too bad, if true.
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digitaldog

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #9 on: March 13, 2012, 02:40:32 pm »

A good book to start with is "The HDR Handbook" by Christian Bloch. A lot of good background info.

I agree too. A very good primer, well explained.
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Walter Schulz

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #10 on: March 13, 2012, 02:47:23 pm »

SNS looked good from what eveyone is saying, but according to their website, once I translated it to English, is a Windows-only appl. Too bad, if true.

Might work with WINE. SNS-HDR will require .NET framework 3.0 to work. Newest WINE version is 1.4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_%28software%29


Ciao, Walter
« Last Edit: March 13, 2012, 02:50:27 pm by Walter Schulz »
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jenea

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Re: Are there any HDR books worth reading?
« Reply #11 on: March 13, 2012, 08:36:41 pm »

Christian Bloch's book is good and maybe the best. 
--Milt--

OK, its on its way from Amazon.

thanks  :)
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