Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: MarkSe on August 24, 2011, 04:14:59 am
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For my architectural photographs I do a lot of hdr, mostly for interior shoots. I always prefer a very natural look.
At the moment I`m using photomatix (hdr & tone compressor) and I`m pretty happy with it.
But as I'm always trying to improve my work I`d like to know if there is something "better" than photomatix.
What do you use?
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I also use Photomatix primarily. HDR Pro in CS5 can generate very natural results but it has no batch function which saves a lot of time in the merge to 32 bit stage of the process so I'll sometimes batch merge in PM then tonemap in HDR Pro.
The other aspect to consider is speed. Turnaround time is important so that has to be considered in the feature set of the application. Pretty much nothing's faster than PM.
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For interiors - SNS Pro is fantastic. So is Enfuse.
But that's just me though...
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After considerable experimentation. I find LR/Enfuse capable of more natural looking results than Photomatix.
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All of the responders so far have links to their websites. The original poster provides no link in his profile or with his post here, nor any examples of his HDR work. I think it would be helpful if he could provide some examples of his work, to provide some idea of what he considers a natural look with this process.
I have mostly used Photomatix HDR/tonemapping and exposure fusion for this kind of processing, although I have recently been experimenting with Enfuse, since Kirk has said that he is getting better results with it than Photomatix fusion. I generally prefer the exposure fusion process to HDR/tonemapping, since I think it is much harder to produce realistic looking results with the latter, and exposure fusion has a tendency to minimize the appearance of noise, whereas HDR/tonemapping has a tendency to exaggerate it.
Since exposure fusion is less able to bridge very high contrast ranges than HDR/tonemapping, I will sometimes layer the darker exposure in with the "fused" image to hold more highlight detail.
That said, most of my contrast reduction processing is done solely with brackets and layering with Photoshop.
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Mark,
Photomatix is excellent, but if you want simplicity and varied looks including natural renditions for architectural work, you might take HDR Express (http://www.unifiedcolor.com/hdr-express) for a run. You can download their demo for a 30 day trial and see what you think for yourself.
Best Regards,
Ed
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thanx Ed, i try that!
Has anyone experience with "zero noise" software ( http://www.guillermoluijk.com/article/nonoise/index_en.htm )? I think it looks great, only drawback is that it doesn`t work on mac. @ david check out fig. 12 - thats what I consider as a natural look with hdr processing.
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Mark,
Photomatix is excellent, but if you want simplicity and varied looks including natural renditions for architectural work, you might take HDR Express (http://www.unifiedcolor.com/hdr-express) for a run. You can download their demo for a 30 day trial and see what you think for yourself.
Best Regards,
Ed
There are only a couple examples on the HDR site that look even vaguely natural, but its seems worth a try.
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Thanks for the mention of Enfuse. I had given up on HDR to blend brackets for "normal" looking prints, exposure blending looks much more promising.