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Creating impressionistic is something I find very satisfying and enjoyable about photography. There are several ways to create these types of images to generate a painterly, artistic result.

The making of impressionistic photos can be done with multiple exposures or with a single exposure and with either a film or digital camera. The guideline that follows will show how to do it both with film and digital as well as with both multiple and single exposures.

Film

If you’re using an automatic film camera, it has to have a multiple exposure feature built into it. All of Canon’s EOS SLRs have this feature. Other camera manufacturers included it in some of their models but not all. In some models you can only make 2 shots on the same film frame but in other models you can do up to 9. Canon’s EOS SLRs allow up to 9 – but you can do more and I’ll explain how below.

I use Canon cameras so I’m going to explain the technique as it would be done with an EOS SLR.

The first thing you need to do is compensate for the build up of exposure on the film frame. If you put 9 shots on a frame of film and don’t make any exposure adjustment, you’re going to end up with a very overexposed photo – not what we want. Assuming 100 ISO film, the easiest way to compensate is to adjust the ISO setting in the camera to equal the number of shots you want to make. So if you’re going to take 9, you’d set your film ISO to either 800 or 1000. You’ll need to take the camera out of auto-ISO mode to do this.

Once you’ve got the exposure compensation set, you go into the Multiple Exposure feature (how you access it through the menus is different depending on the camera but the manual will show you) and set the number of shots you want to take. The camera won’t advance the film until the last shot in the sequence has been taken. With the exposure compensation and number of frames set, you’re ready to make your multiple exposure, impressionistic photo. Compose as you would normally. Take the first shot then move the camera slightly in any direction – not much, just a small amount. Make your next exposure and move the camera again. Continue this until the last shot has been taken. It does take practice to figure out how to move the camera and how much to get the result you want. You can also with with a zoom lens and zoom the lens between shots. If you try this, start at the wider end of the zoom and work toward the narrower end. Starting at the wider end allows you to make sure there’s nothing unwanted to distracting in the frame because you’re only going to go narrower from there. With time, you’ll soon get a good feeling for how to go about it.

Remember I said you could do more than 9 shots on a frame with a Canon SLR? The way to do it is to set the number of exposures to 9 like we did above. After you take 8 shots, you can reset the counter and the exposures will continue on the same frame. So, if you set it to 9, take 8 then reset it to 9 you can get 17 shots on a frame. You can do this as many times as you want (within the limits of the ISO setting of the camera, of course). You need to make the appropriate exposure compensation before you start too. If you wanted 17 shots, you’d set your ISO to 1600.

The shot below left is a 17 shot multiple of a small maple tree that had turned colour for autumn. The shot on the right is a 26 exposure multiple of a plot of lupines.

If you’re using a manual film SLR you can still do multiple exposures, it’s just a little more work.

You still need to make the same exposure compensation as with an automatic SLR.

Getting the camera set to make the multiple exposures is where the little extra work comes in.  After each exposure, you’ll need to press the film rewind release button.  This disengages the internal clutch for the film advance mechanism.  While holding the rewind release button, cock the film advance lever.  This will reset the shutter but won’t advance the film.  After the shutter is reset, let go of the rewind release button and you’re ready to take your next shot.  It’s a good idea to cock the film advance lever after letting go of the rewind release button.  This ensures the film is properly tensioned in the camera and that it stays flat.

Digital

The process, with most digital cameras, is a fair bit different.  With the exception of a couple Pentaxes and Nikons, digital SLRs don’t have a multiple exposure feature.  It’s interesting that while Canon was known for including the feature on all of its EOS film SLRs, it has yet to include the capability into any of its DSLRs.

Since, for the most part, you can’t do it in camera, you have to do it with editing software – the Digital Darkroom.  Using a digital camera to generate your working originals is simple.  Shooting in RAW is best because it gives you the most flexibility when editing.  You can either make as many exposures as  you want in camera or you can take one in camera and make multiple copies after the fact.  I prefer to make as many as I want in camera because it takes less time than making copies later.  You don’t even have to move the camera between exposures necessarily because you can position the layers manually later in the Digital Darkroom.

The one thing you will need to make digital impressionistic images is computing power.  RAW files from my 5D, for example, are about 73MB when converted to 16 bit TIFF files.  Layering 16 or 17 of those on top of each other makes for some pretty big working files.  A good computer with at least 2GB of RAM and a sizable amount of free hard drive space to use as a scratch disk will make the work easier and faster.

I’ll show you two ways of creating multiple exposure, impressionistic images digitally.  I encourage you to take these ideas, play with them, change them and see what you come up with.  Please feel free to write me with your methods and results if you feel like sharing them.

The shot on the left is the original.  I made 15 in camera exposures.  The middle photo is done in Photoshop CS3 using layers.  The one on the right is done using HDR software.

To create the effect in Photoshop using layers, open all the images in Adobe Camera RAW (or your RAW editor of choice).  If you make changes to any of the RAW files before converting, you should synchronise the changes to all of the images so you’ve got consistency in your starting exposures.  Convert the RAW files to 16 bit TIFFs and open them in Photoshop.  Other image editing programs may be able to be used as well.

Choose one of the exposures as the base layer – it doesn’t matter which (they’re all the same, remember).  Copy each of the others and paste them onto the base layer (Select>All, Edit>Copy, Edit>Paste or CTRL+A, CTRL+C, CTRL+V – the equivalent to the CRTL key on a Mac is the Option key).  Change the Blend Mode of each layer above the Background to Lighten.  This is the equivalent of a 1/2 stop increase in exposure and it allows the layers below to show through.  You can try changing the Blend Mode of one of the layers (again it doesn’t matter which one) to Soft Light.  This will darken the overall result slightly and give some additional shadow contrast.

Once all the layers have been copied, select the Move tool (keyboard shortcut V) and begin moving each layer where you want it in relation to the others.  You can do this with your mouse or using the arrow keys on your keyboard.  When all the layers are where you want them, either Merge or Flatten all the layers.  You need to do this step in order to do any Cloning or Healing.  If you don’t, then these edits won’t apply properly.  With the layers merged or flattened, make whatever adjustments or edits you feel are necessary to come up with a result you’re happy with.

Another way to do this with layers is by adjusting the layer Opacity.  I don’t personally like this method as well, but have a go with it because you may like what it does for you.

The general rule of thumb is that each layer above the Background should have the Opacity set to 100% divided by the layer number.  So the first layer above the Background (2nd total layer) would be set to 50%, the second layer above the Background to 33% and so on.  When you get 15 or 16 layers stacked on top of each other the opacities of the layers at the top of the stack are pretty low but that’s OK.
A third way to create these digitally is with HDR software.  HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.  The software is typically used to automatically blend images with different exposure settings to create a result that has a greater brightness range than the sensor can capture naturally.

I decided to try using the software to create impressionistic images because these programs are purpose-built to merge a number of exposures together.  For my own purposes, I like a software called Dynamic Photo HDR from a company called MediaChance (they’re a Canadian company too so supporting a ‘local’ business is an added bonus).  The reason I prefer it is that it allows you to manually adjust the placement of each layer before the merge is done.  Other HDR software doesn’t give you this option.  Photoshop CS2 and CS3 have HDR capabilities built into them but the functionality isn’t useful for non-aligned image layers.

Using DPHDR, I load my camera exposures into the software.  The software will take the exposure settings from the EXIF data.  Because the software is designed to work with images at different exposure settings, you have to set the exposure for each image manually.  I typically set each at .01.  With that done, the next step is alignment.  The software will attempt to aling the layers automatically and after doing so you have the opportunity to adjust the alignment manually.  This is where I move each layer around to place all of them where I want them.  The software only allows you to see one layer in relation to the base layer at a time so it takes some trial and error to get the alignment of all the layers where you want it.  After doing a few, you’ll get a sense of where the layers are in relation to each other.  Once that’s complete, you can let the software do the merge and output the HDR file.

HDR files are 32 bit.  To make these useable for other purposes they have to go through a process called tonemapping which redistributes and compresses the 32 bit brightness and colour information into a 16 or 8 bit space (whichever you choose).  DPHDR has tonemapping capabilities.  What I normally do is save the generated HDR file, open it in Photoshop and do the tonemapping there.  I just like the result I get doing it this way but there’s nothing wrong with the tonemapping functions of DPHDR, so try both and see what you like best.

With the HDR file converted to a 16 bit TIFF, I can then do whatever other editing and adjusting necessary to create the final result.

Single Exposures

Impressionistic photos can also be created with film or digital using single exposures.

With a single exposure you’ll need longish shutter speeds.  The longer shutter speeds allow you to move the camera while the shutter is open to create the impressionistic effect.  A number of the shots in the Galleries have been created using this effect.

Shutter speeds in the 1/3 second to 1.5 second range work well.  There are any number of ways you can move the camera.  Longer, smoother, more sweeping movements create softer, more flowing images.  Shorter, more compact movements create a more staggered, less smooth look.  Moving the camera in longer, vertical motions with trees, for example, has the effect of elongating the scene elements.  If you’re using a zoom lens, try rotating the camera while holding the zoom ring during the exposure.  This can create some very pleasing swirl effects.  Also try rotating the camera and lens.  This creates a different type of swirl effect that also can create some interesting photos.

As I experiment with this technique more, I’m really beginning to like it.  It’s the closest I’ve been able to come so far to replicating what I could do on film with multiple exposures.

New Life for Old Film Scans

Several years ago, I was commissioned to do a series of still life images of Calla Lilies.  I still have the film scans on my hard drive and recently decided to see what I could come up with using HDR software and multiple copies of the scan files.  Two of the originals are below.  The impressionistic images are further down.

I made 15 copies of each original (16 in all), loaded the copies into DPHDR, set the exposures, manually moved the layers and then created the HDR file.  Next I opened the HDR file in Photoshop and tonemapped it to a 16 bit TIFF.  After doing this, the edges of the various misaligned layers were visble as you can see in the intermediate shot below.

I created a Gaussian Blur layer mask set to Hide All then painted the blur layer back in along the edges of the flowers.  The two photos below re the end results of the two originals above.

I like the effect of the result.  It’s a softer, more painterly look.  The softness and added volume around the edges gives an enhanced sense of dimensionality and there seems to be a greater sense of flow than in the originals.

The typical last step in editing a photo is to apply sharpening. Sharpening is necessary because photos straight out of a digital camera or scanned film images tend to be a bit ‘soft’. That is, they don’t have the crispness that we may want.

The most common method of sharpening is to use the Unsharp Mask (Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask). The USM filter will be familiar to those who’ve worked in a wet darkroom because it works the same way the unsharp mask worked in making wet prints. USM isn’t necessarily the best way to sharpen a digital photo; however. First, it’s a destructive method of sharpening. That is, it alters pixel values in the image file. This can be worked around if sharpening is applied on a separate layer but even then it’s less than perfect. Second, it can be a bit finicky to use at times. Getting just the right amount of sharpening can be difficult. It’s also easy to overdue the effect. Overcook the sharpening and you’ll end up with unpleasant bright halos around the edges of elements in the photo.

A more subtle, non-destructive and better overall method of sharpening is to use a High Pass Filter. The High Pass Filter works by detecting edges in a photo (in that respect, it’s not unlike the USM). Once you’ve applied the filter, you adjust the layer Blend Mode to give you the sharpening effect.
Here’s how it’s done.

Duplicate your Background layer (Layer>Duplicate). Then go to Filter>Other>High Pass. A dialogue box will come up on screen. You want to adjust the radius of the filter to a value of about 10. 10 is a good number for this effect. Anything lower and there isn’t enough edge detection for the sharpening to be evident. Higher than 10 and the area selected by the filter will be too wide which can give unpleasant results.

Click OK to apply the High Pass Filter. You’ll see a grey mask appear over your image file and the edges will be shown with less of a mask. This is normal. Now go to the Blending Options on the Layer Palette for the High Pass layer and select Soft Light. You should see the effect immediately. If you want to reduce the effect, lower the Opacity of the layer. If you want to enhance the effect, select Hard Light or Overlay from the Blending Options and then adjust the layer Opacity to suit.

Because you’re applying the sharpening on a separate layer, the effect is non-destructive. Saving the image file with the layers intact allows you to go back and adjust or cancel the sharpening altogether with your original image file untouched. Even applying USM on a separate layer, it can’t be undone or adjusted without deleting the layer and redoing the sharpening. High Pass is much easier to adjust if needed.

The shot on the left is a 100% crop of a photo with no sharpening applied. The shot on the right is after a High Pass sharpening with the Blend Mode set to Soft Light and the layer Opacity set to 75%.

This is a follow up to the previous intro to timelapse photography and will discuss using HDR images as the input. I started a group on Vimeo for HDR timelapse and there’s some absolutely stunning work in the collection from some truly talented artists. I’d suggest checking out if you’re looking for some creative inspiration.  HDR timelapse is a very cool sub-genre of timelapse that I was first introduced to a little over a year ago by Walter Arnold of The Digital Mirage.  I haven’t decided yet whether to thank him or curse him for it.    I would really like to see him do some more of this kind of thing though because the clips I saw that got me interested in the technique were very good.

HDR timelapse isn’t any different from regular timelapse once the shooting and HDR merging/tonemapping is done. Where it ups the complexity level is in the shooting. In addition the regular intervalometer, you need an interval timer that will combine with bracketing to get your input images for HDR merging. Shooting Nikon, I’m fortunate that some Nikons have that functionality built in. Other camera makers don’t and getting it can be a bit tricky. The Promote Control mentioned in the previous tutorial will allow you to combine the two. If you’re a Nikon or Canon shooter, Chris Breeze of Breezebrowser fame has developed some software for shooting tethered to a laptop that allows you to combine interval timing and bracketing. The downside is, of course, that you have to be tethered which limits the usefulness of the application in some situations. Canon’s EOS Utility doesn’t offer the combined functionality, nor does shooting tethered via Lightroom v3.x. It’d be very cool if a smartphone app could be developed that would allow you to control the camera via an iPhone or Blackberry (or other smartphone) but still capture to the onboard memory card (sometimes I really do wish I could do programming…… well, no, not really).  When I used to shoot Canon I tried a couple third party intervalometers and while I could get them to combine with in camera AEB, it was kludgy at best.  Some of them top out at 99 shots before having to be reset so if you’re doing a 3 shot bracket, you only get 33 brackets before having to stop to reset the intervalometer.  I don’t believe something like the Canon TC 80N3 can be used to combined interval timing and AEB.

What mode do I shoot in? This is a matter of a fair bit of debate in timelapse circles.  It’s also a bone of contention in non-HDR timelapse but seems to come more into play when HDR is added to the mix.  There are those who believe full manual is the only way to shoot timelapse and particular HDR timelapse.  Their reasoning is that they don’t trust the ‘automatic’ part of modes like Av and feel there’s too much inconsistency in shutter speeds to be reliable.  Personally, I don’t put a lot of stock in that.  I recognise there can be variations but don’t feel they’re significant enough to cause problems.  In addition, I want the shutter speed to be variable to account for changing light conditions.  If I start shooting in cloudy conditions and over time the sun comes out, if I’m shooting in manual I’m going to be overexposing in the brighter conditions.  Shooting in Av, the shutter speed will adjust automatically and help keep my exposures consistent.  The unwanted side effect of shooting in anything but manual, according to some is a thing called ‘flicker’.  Flicker is a visible variation in light levels in the video clip that, in extreme cases can have an almost stroboscopic effect.  While I recognise flicker can and does happen, I’m not convinced the major cause is shooting in a programmed mode like Av.  Light levels change naturally over time.  In timelapse those changes in light level are sped up and can appear as flicker.  In addition, I think the added post-capture processing of merging and tonemapping HDR sequences can have an impact on flicker.  Tonemapping algorithms, even if the settings are the same from set to set, are going to process each set differently.  There are reasons for this.  Again, changing light levels from set to set will cause the tonemapping operators to be applied differently.  In addition, HDR is still a relatively new technology in photography and tonemapping operators are still being improved and refined.  The newness of the technology I think helps contribute to some of the inconsistencies in tonemapping from set to set.  So while I don’t completely dismiss the concept that shooting in manual will help minimise flicker, I’m not convinced that it’s the major contributor some feel it is.  Bottom line, shoot manual or Av, whichever you’re comfortable with.  In addition, if you want to try to capture what the hardcore timelapsers call the ‘Holy Grail’ – the transition from sunrise to daytime or daytime to sunset – you really have to shoot Av because the light levels are changing so much and so quickly.

What format do I shoot in? The same concepts apply here as with regular timelapse.  RAW gives you more flexibilty but takes up more card space.  JPEG takes up less card space but gives you less flexibility in editing so you need to be more careful in setting up the shoot to be sure you’re not cooking in something like a wonky white balance that will affect the rest of the processing later on.  Keep in mind that HDR merging will exaggerate colours and colour casts in source images so if you’re going to shoot JPEG you want to take extra care in setting WB and in setting up the camera processing settings to give you JPEGs that are tamer in terms of saturation and contrast than if you were doing single shots.

What should the spacing between shots be? This can get a little tricky with HDR timelapse.  Because you’re capturing a bracketed set, you need to make sure that the time between sequences is long enough that you can capture the full bracketed sequence before the counter gets to zero for beginning the next sequence.  The reason for this is that most interval timers start counting down automatically when the shutter is opened the first time; not when the shutter closes the last time.  There are some that don’t start counting till the single shot is done or the seqence of shots is done but most don’t.  You need to build your total shutter speed for the sequence into your spacing between sequences as a result.  So, if the total shutter speed for a 5 shot sequence is 8 seconds, you can’t have the interval timer set for 6 seconds.  It needs to be 9 or longer.  The other thing to consider is if you are going for the Holy Grail and going from light to dark (daylight to sunset) your shutter speeds are going to get longer over time.  You want to build some slack into your timing so that you’re not having to reset the timer all the time.  Use an aperture that’s a stop or two wider than you might normally or an ISO setting that’s higher than you normally would to give you that working time.  Depending on how dark you’re going to go, you may need to stop the camera and reset the sequence but you just don’t want to be doing it all the time.  When you touch the camera to reset the sequence (not a problem if you’re using a remote), there will be some jostling and pronounced shake.  You can use this to your advantage.  You can use it to adjust the focal length or camera position include a transition or two in the sequence which can add visual interest.  That’s what I did in this particular sunset clip.

How long to I need to shoot for? Same methodology applies as in regular timelapse.

How many shots do I need to take? The same math applies as in regular timelapse with one exception.  You need to multiply the number of shots by the number you’re capturing in your bracket.  So if I need 240 shots for a 10 second clip and I’m taking a 5 shot bracket, I need to actually shoot 1200 images.  Card space becomes vital when doing HDR timelapse because of the huge numbers of shots being captured.

OK, I’ve got my shots, now what do I do? The first step, obviously, is to process and tonemap your HDR images.  Ideally you’ll want to use an HDR software application with batching capability.  Also ideally you want to use an application that will allow you to save a preset and apply that preset to tonemap the images in batch mode.  Take one sequence, merge and tonemap it manually.  When you’ve got the settings where you want them for the look you want in the resulting video clip, save those settings as a preset.  In batch mode, have the software save the intermediate 32 bit images – this way if you don’t like the tonemapping results you can come back and reprocess them with different settings – and have it apply your tonemapping preset and save the tonemapped images.  Some HDR apps will let you choose a custom name followed by a numerical suffix.  This will let you get your sequencing done at the same time as you process your HDR images.

From there, the steps are the same as with regular timelapse.  Import the sequence into your software of choice and export the video clip.

In the next instalment, I’ll work through a sequence from start to finish in a free piece of software called Virtualdub (Windows only).  Vdub has some nice plugins that can help you deal with flicker as well as camera movement such as wind buffeting.

This is the last instalment in the series of HDR software reviews. If a new application comes along in the future, I may add it to the set and I’m in the process of looking at some new beta versions of a couple previous applications so will likely update those reviews in the future with new information; but for all intents and purposes this is it. What started out as a list of about 5 applications has grown to a 10 part series. From a purely personal standpoint, if I never see the images that have been used in all these reviews again it’ll be too soon. I hope the thoughts I’ve laid out have been useful for some people and perhaps given some insight from the standpoint of a casual user.

This last instalment will look at Picturenaut. I was initially reluctant to include it because unlike all the other applications in the series, Picturenaut isn’t a commercial product. My feeling is that if someone’s offering a piece of software for sale, it’s open to be reviewed and critiqued but if someone’s offering up a piece of software for free it’s a different matter.

Picturenaut can be downloaded from the HDRLabs website which, as many of you probably know, is owned and maintained by Christian Bloch. Christian is well known in HDR circles and is the author of The HDRI Handbook which is highly recommended as one of the two seminal reads for users of HDR both new and advanced along with Practical HDRI.

In a comment to another one of the reviews in the series, it was mentioned that I should include Picturenaut. I contacted Christian to see if he’d mind (essentially get his permission). He had no problem with it with one caveat. He asked that I relate the story behind Picturenaut. So here goes.

Picturenaut ‘fell out of’ The HDRI Handbook. The book is essentially Christian’s diploma thesis. In the early stages of trying to find a publisher, he was turned down so put the thesis onto the web for anyone to download (it was downloaded over 20,000 times). This is back in 2003 when HDRI wasn’t being used anywhere in photography really but only in the motion picture industry (it’s been used there for several years in CGI). A programmer named Marc Mehl contacted Christian with an interest in trying to develop a program for HDRI. Working together, with Christian helping Marc find and refine the process and the ‘under the hood’ algorithms, Picturenaut was produced. Marc continues to update Picturenaut today. Donations for maintenance and development of the program can be made through the HDRLabs website and all donations go to Marc for continued development. Download it, give it a try and if you like it (you probably will), make a donation (and yes, I have). The other thing that’s important to note about Picturenaut is that it’s got an Open SDK which means that anyone with a knowledge of C++ can develop plugins for it. If you know C++ and you want to help improve the software, have at it.  An Open SDK is what allows users to create their own actions and scripts in Photoshop.

Now, with the story behind the software known to all who read, let’s take a look at the application itself. I have to say I’m more than a little nervous about this one because I know Christian’s going to be reading it at some point and no doubt my mistakes will be pointed out when he comments (go easy on my Christian, I’m just a dumb photographer).

The GUI for Picturenaut is about as clean as they come.  A menu bar at the top with both dropdowns and icons to launch actions.

There are no preferences that can be set up so you can pretty much start using the program straight away.  It will open RAW files, it also supports Radiance, TIFF and OpenEXR 32 bit files.  You load TIFF or JPEG images as your source images as well.  There is no batch functionality; which would be a nice future development to see.

To load a bracketed set of images, either click on the icon of the images with the + sign or go to File>Generate HDRI.  A dialogue box opens to select the images.

You’ve got a few options here to consider.  There are the usual Align and Deghost.  Exposure correction is an option that will allow the software to adjust the exposure of the image from the camera as may be necessary to properly compute a gamma curve before averaging the pixel values together.  For example, sometimes you’ll look at the EXIF of your images and your -3 shot might show as -2.97.  Picturenaut will make the necessary correction to properly average the pixel values together if the Exposure Correction option is checked.  The result should be more accurate blending of the source images.  Color Balancing is another option to consider.  Based on the information from the EXIF data, slight differences in colour can occur due to an inexactness in the exposure information as noted above.  Color Balancing will try to correct those errors and match colours in the 32 bit image to the colours in the source files (i.e., prevent false colour or dramatic colour shifts).  If Exposure Compensation is left checked, Color Balancing shouldn’t be necessary.  Next you have a dropdown for Weighting.  This determines how the pixel values in the source images will be used.  Standard uses all the pixel values in each image.  If particular areas of a source image are noisy (i.e., underexposed shadows), noise in the final image could be enhanced.  Mid Emphasis uses primarily the middle-toned values in each image.  This can work well if you’ve fully exposed a bracketed series and have your darkest shadows brought up to a middle tone and your brightest highlights brought down to a middle tone.  If your shadows are darker or highlights brighter, using Mid Emphasis may sacrifice some shadow or highlight detail in the merged image.  The last choice is for Curve.  This is the gamma curve of the source images.  If you’re using RAW files, selecting Linear from the dropdown should be the way to go.  If you’re using TIFF or JPEG images as your source, selecting Computed would be best which will allow the software to reverse engineer the gamma curve and properly correct for it to linearize the data for merging.  Selecting Standard Curve or User Defined should only be used if you know exactly what gamma encoding is used in the source images.

Once you load the source images, you don’t have to wait long to get your merged image on screen.  This is the fastest application of all those tested thus far without question.  To get into the tonemapping, either click the icon at the top with the little sliders on it or go to Image>Tonemapping.  The tonemapping screen is fairly simply laid out as well.

You can make the preview image full screen and drag the tonemap operators to a second display if you have one.  Moving to a second display is not ‘sticky’ so has to be done each time.  More fulsome dual monitor support would be nice.  In the preview window, scrolling with the mouse wheel will zoom in and out within the image.

There are 4 tonemap operators to choose from.  The one that will likely get used the most is Adaptive Logarithmic.  The other that may get used some is Photoreceptor.  The other two won’t be of use to most folks.  Adaptive Logarithmic preserves colour well and applies a soft shoulder and foot to the contrast curve (film photographers will understand the concept).  For more digitally based photographers, think of the PS Curves adjustment with a short, soft curve at the top and bottom with a long straight section in the middle, or with a very shallow S-shape in the middle.  That top and bottom curve are the shoulder and foot.  Photoreceptor applies a more dramatic straight cut off at the top and bottom which will give more contrast and ‘punch’ to shadows and highlights but doesn’t do anything for the midtones which will tend to be flatter.  Colour preservation isn’t as good and I found I’d get a fairly pronounced green/cyan colour cast to images using Photoreceptor.

Sliders for the various adjustments are live (big thumbs up).  In addition to the adjustment sliders, there are options for adjusting the histogram via a Levels type adjustment and the gamma.  Unchecking Automatic Luminance gives you control of the highlight and shadow points on the histogram.  You can adjust overall Luminance or each channel individually.  I’d recomment leaving Automatic Contrast unchecked.  In the Gamma tab, you can adjust the gamma curve of the tonemap function to better suit your needs, your desired look or your source images.  To do this, you can adjust the sliders, select from the dropdown menu or, if you have gamma curves loaded on your system, use one of those (not many users are going to have gamma curve files of their own).  Generally you’ll start with the default 2.2 and adjust from there or stick with the Computed option in the dropdown.  You don’t really want to use Linear here because your output image is no longer longer comprised of linear luminance values like your RAW input files would be.  You want to apply a gamma correction to your output LDR file.  The Rec 709 checkbox is a setting you won’t find in other HDR software.  This one was a mystery to me so I did a little digging.  As far as I can find, it’s a gamma correction function for HDTV that is different from the still image gamma curves we’re used to using.  In general, checking it darkens the image overall, increases colour saturatoin and boots local contrast.  Check it and uncheck it, see if you like what it gives you.  You can choose the bit depth of your output image as 8, 16 or 32.  You can save tonemapping settings as presets so they can be recalled in the future (nice!).  If you switch between tonemap operators, the last settings you used are retained when you return to a previous operator.  The big thing I’d like to see added is the ability to tag the output files with a colour space.  If you use JPEG or TIFF images with a colour space embedded, Picturenaut will honour that colour space through the merging, tonemapping and saving stages.  If you use RAW files; however, your output LDR image will be untagged.  This can result in fairly dramatic differences in colour from what you see in the tonemap preview when the image is opened in an image editor for further post-tonemap tweaking.

How’s it all work?  Let’s take a look.  The first thing to note is that you’re not going to get the really whacked out, hyper-real results with Picturenaut that you can get with other HDR software.  Picturenaut is intended for real world use where realistic results are expected and desired.  Given that, there won’t be any of the surreal looks shown with previous parts in the series.

The image below is the result of tonemapping the default existing 32 bit file.  Overall contrast is good.  Highlights are very well controlled and there’s good shadow contrast.  Picturenaut crunches dynamic range as well as or better than the other applications reviewed previously.  What should be noted is the blue in the water.  This wasn’t present in the tonemapping preview in Picturenaut and is a result of not being able to tag the output LDR with a colour space.  The blue can certainly be removed with further editing and if TIFF files are used as the inputs, the water retains the white colour it had in the tonemapping preview.  It would take very little additional work to get this to where I wanted it.

Let’s take a look at the merge within Picturenaut.

It’s a tad dark but I could have produced a bit lighter version during tonemapping if I’d wanted.  The blue in the windows on the right isn’t as strong as with some other software but that can be enhanced with further editing.  The colour in the floor and walls is good.  The brightness in the windows on the left is well controlled.  Again, the software has crunched the dynamic range very well.  With a little more work in PS and/or LR, a very useable result could be achieved.

Picturenaut also has a deghosting function.  Turning it on doesn’t slow down processing very much at all.  As can be seen from the image below, it works fairly well.  Not as well as CS5 HDR Pro; which at this point has the best deghosting of anything out there, but probably pretty close to Photomatix.

Overall, Picturenaut is a terrific program.  That much better considering the cost.  It’s fast, it compresses dynamic range well, it can generate extremely good, realistic output.  On a commercial interior gig I had earlier this summer, Picturenaut saved my bacon.  I wasn’t getting results I liked with any of the other software at my disposal so decided to try Picturenaut.  Bingo!  Images I could make use of and the client was happy.

Picturenaut definitely goes into the recommended column.  There are a few things that could make it that much better but it’s pretty damn good as it is right now.  As I noted above, if you download it, use it and like it then make a donation which will help keep development going.  We all know there are plenty of photo-related software programs out there that are being sold commercially that are buggy, crash prone and difficult to use that should still be in Alpha development, never mind even Beta.  Picturenaut is the opposite.  It’s a well thought out, well developed piece of software that’s free and should be offered commercially.

As with the others, if you see any glaring or non-glaring errors, let me know and I’ll make the necessary corrections.

I’m likely to slowly migrate most of what’s on my main website to the WordPress format and figured I’d start with this tutorial rather than putting it over there.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of timelapse shooting of late and have had some questions about the process so thought I’d put together a short tutorial. This isn’t going to go into extensive depth on video editing as that’s really beyond the scope of what I’m wanting to outline here.

Timelapse is the opposite of high speed photography. In high speed photography, you capture images at a very fast frame rate and when played back at a normal frame rate, the action appears slowed down. In timelapse, you’re effectively lapsing time or skipping time. You capture at a slower frame rate and when played back at a normal rate, action appears sped up. If you’ve seen, for example, a video of the progression of a flower bud coming into bloom, that’s timelapse.

Let’s get the concept of a ‘normal’ frame rate taken care of first. Many of today’s digital video cameras capture video at 30 fps or 60 fps. Some also capture at 24 fps which is, historically, the rate at which cinema films are captured. When I talk about a ‘normal’ frame rate, I’m talking about 24 fps (also seen as 23.976 fps). This is the rate I use when creating timelapse video clips.

What equipment do you need for timelapse? Well, a camera is a good idea. Pretty much any camera that will allow for full manual or semi-manual (e.g., Av, Tv) operation will work. Fully automated cameras can be used but as with other types of photography, you lose some creative control of the final output. What else? An interval timer is also a useful tool. In an absolute technical sense you could manually release the shutter (with a cable release) and manually count between frames but that gets tedious. An interval timer (intervalometer) allows you to set up the parameters of the shoot in advance, set the timer to start then simply wait till the sequence is complete – no fuss, no muss.  Some cameras have good interval timers built in.  For those that don’t, you’re going to need something external.  Most camera makers offer a cable release/interval timer combination so check available accessories for your particular camera.  There are some third party options as well.  Phottix is a supplier of a variety of third party accessories, including interval timer/cable releases at reasonable prices.  If you’re a Canon or Nikon shooter and want a really slick tool, you can check out the Promote Control from Promote Systems.  It’s not inexpensive but the flexibility it offers is terrific.  For cameras that have minimal bracketing capability, the Promote Control allows you to override the in camera AEB.  It even allows you to combine AEB and interval timing for doing HDR timelapse work.  It’s a very cool piece of kit.  Another important thing for timelapse is memory space. You’re going to be shooting a lot of frames. You want to have enough memory to be able to capture the required number of shots for the clip you want to create. A tripod (or some other form of solid camera support) is also vital. You really can’t handhold for this kind of work, unless you’re doing some sort of moving sequence (i.e., shooting through a subway window or in a moving car). Of course you want enough battery power to keep the camera running for the number of shots and length of time you’ll be shooting.

What format should you shoot it? It’s really up to you. The larger the image size, the more card space is going to be taken up and the more card space you’ll need. Some will suggest shooting anything but RAW is foolish. While I’d agree for general photography, for timelapse it’s probably not as crucial. More important than format, I think, is image size. Full HD is 1920×1080. Shooting at larger file sizes – even JPEG – allows you to add some pan and/or zoom effects after the fact in editing and still be able to fill the screen. This can be desirable particularly if you’re a fan of the ‘Ken Burns Effect‘.  The other reason I’m less fussed about shooting RAW for timelapse work is that due to the nature of the intent – creating a video – when each individual frame is on screen for a split second and the dynamic movement of the video and the small size of the images, the benefits of RAW to still photography aren’t as crucial to timelapse video work.  You do have to be more careful with getting the white balance right and ensuring you take a more measured approach to editing if you shoot JPEG but shooting JPEG for timelapse you can create very high quality results.  If you’ve got the card space and like the enhanced flexibility then by all means shoot RAW.

What should be the spacing between shots? This will depend on a few things.  It’ll depend on how fluid you want the end video to be.  It’ll depend on how fast the action you’re shooting is.  It’ll depend on how long you want your video clip to be.  It’ll depend on how much card space you have.  It’ll depend on how much flexibility your interval timer gives you.  In general for more fluid motion in the video and if there’s a fair bit of action in the scene you’re shooting, a faster frame rate (narrower spacing) between shots is advisable.  If the scene is fairly static and/or you’re not as concerned about fluid motion, a slower frame rate (longer spacing) can be used.  Typically I’ll use anywhere from 1 fps to about 1 frame every 12 seconds.  More often than not, I’ll shoot at 1 frame every 3 or 6 seconds.

How many frames do I need to shoot? That’ll depend on the frame rate you shoot at, the playback frame rate (e.g., 24 fps) and how long you want the clip to be.  The simple math is clip length x playback rate = number of images.  So if I wanted a clip of 10 seconds playing back at 24 fps, I need 240 images.  The shoot duration math is # images/shots per minute = duration.  If I capture at a rate of 1 frame every 6 seconds that’s 10 frames/minute so I need to shoot for 24 minutes.  That assumes you import the images at the same frame rate you’re going to use as your playback rate.  For simplicity sake, that’s the basis we’ll work on.  If you want to get creative and use different import and playback rates, the math will change.  It also assumes you don’t do any stretching or compression of the clips in your video editing software.

OK, so you’ve gone out to shoot, now what do you do? Once you’ve got the images from the shoot onto your computer, you do whatever normal editing you’d do for any other image.  I use Lightroom for the bulk of my editing so making a change to one then syncing that change across all the others in the sequence is easy.  I’m not a Bridge user but I believe something similar can be done in Bridge.  If you’re working with another image editor, you’ll have to check the documentation for it specifically to see if you can sync edit changes across a series of images.  It certainly makes the work simpler and quicker.  The one place where you’ll need to work on a frame by frame basis is if you have to heal/clone any dust spots or other unwanted items.  This is particularly true in something like a sky where there can be light/cloud movement.  Doing a clone/heal on the first image and carrying it across all the others isn’t always going to work too well.  Keeping your lenses, any filters used and your camera sensor scrupulously clean is key to being able to avoid this time consuming and tedious chore (ask me how I know how tedious and time consuming it is ).  Once you’ve made all your edits the last step is to create a set of images in numerical seqence.  If you’ve shot RAW, you’ll need to export them to JPEG.  Using Lightroom makes this task very simple.  In Bridge, I think the Tools>Batch Rename utility will do this for you.  If your images are still in numbered sequence as they came off the memory card and you’ve shot JPEG, you can use the camera numbering as your sequence.  If you’ve deleted any images in the sequence, you’ll either have to import multiple sequences or do a batch export/rename to create a new sequence.

Photoshop, since CS2 or Cs3 has included some video editing functionality.  To import your image sequence in PS, you go to File>Open, select the first file in the sequence, make sure Image Sequence is checked at the bottom and click Open.  See the screen capture below.  Note:  The video editing features are available in the Extended version of Photoshop, not the standard version.

Once you click Open, you’ll be presented with a dialogue box to select your frame rate.  Choose 23.976, 24 or 30 (whatever you’ve determined will be your default frame rate and what you used to calculate your shooting duration and number of frames required) from the dropdown menu and click OK.

The image sequence will then open and it’ll look like any other image  you open in PS.  The indication that it’s a video sequence will be on the image thumbnail which will show a small set of film frames in the lower right corner as in the screen capture below.

In the screen shot below, you’ll see I’ve turned on the Animation timeline via Window>Animation.  This allows you to see the timeline of your clip in the bottom of the screen.

With the sequence open in PS, you can make global edits via layers or directly on the video sequence just as you would with any other image.  These global edits will be applied to the entire video clip.  There are some more advanced editing capabilities for video in PS but those are beyond the scope of this introductory tutorial.  I may do future tutorials to cover some of those functionalities.  The last step in editing is to crop to your desired aspect ratio.  For HD that will be either 1920×1080 or 1280×720.  For SD it could be 640×480 for normal screen or 720×480 for widescreen.  If you lose too much real estate because your file size is too large, you can rez down the sequence the same as you would for a still image using Image>Image Size.  To save this step at the end of the editing process, you can batch crop/resize to the desired size in the batch export/rename step noted above.  Either one works.

I’ve done my edits, what next? Now you need to render out your video.  To do this, go to File>Export>Render Video.  You’ll be presented with a dialogue box that looks like the one below.

At the top you’ll select the destination for saving your video file.  In the File Options section, select MPEG-4 from the Quick Time Export dropdown menu.  MP4 is a good general purpose file type.  MP4 renders quickly and produces high quality clips at reasonably small file sizes compared to, for example, AVI.  It’s a preferred file type for video sharings sites like Vimeo and YouTube.  If you’re looking to make a DVD of your video, that’s a different issue and not within the scope of this introductory tutorial.  Click on the Settings button to bring up the screen below where you’ll configure your video.

Choose the settings as they’re done in the screen capture above.  Lastly click on Video Options to bring up the screen below.

In this screen, change Faster Encode to Best Quality.  This will slow down the render process somewhat but the resulting video will be of higher quality.  Click OK to get back to the main render screen.  Click Render and wait for the clip to complete.  Once that’s done you’re ready to upload it to a video sharing site like Vimeo or YouTube.  If you want to view your video on your computer, you may need to download a video player that’s capable of decoding mp4 video.  The free VLC Media Player will allow you to view your mp4 videos.

That’s it.  You’ve shot, edited and complied your timelapse video.  There are numerous other editing packages out there for video such as Sony Vegas, iMovie, Final Cut, Pinnacle, Adobe Premier and others.  Cost of these packages varies from about $100 for a very basic, bare bones option to well into 4 figures for a high end, very robust, professional video editor.  You can also do basic compiling and global correction with the free (Windows only) Virtualdub software.  The biggest downside of Virtualdub is that you can only save out files in AVI format.

I’ll do another part on timelapse video to encompass a cool sub-genre of timelapse known as HDR timelapse where HDR stills are used as the input files.  On the homepage of my main site, you can see a sample timelapse clip that also includes HDR in the last 5 seconds.

HDRSoft have announced that the beta of Photomatix v4.0 is now available to the public. If you’re interested, it can be downloaded here.

I received an email from a representative of the New York State Museum about an upcoming exhibit they’re hosting of landscape photos of New York State asking if I’d help spread the word.  The text of the presser is copied below.  My only caveat would be; if you want to, to verify what rights you may be signing away by submitting images.  There’s a Terms of Use on the submission link but you may want to check that there is nothing additional that you may be granting them.

State Education Department/University of the State of New York/Office of Cultural Education

New York State Museum   News

MADISON AVENUE, ALBANY, NY  12230

FAX:  518/486-3696

Contact:

Joanne Guilmette

518/474-8730

Jguilmet@mail.nysed.gov

NYS MUSEUM INVITES PHOTO SUBMISSIONS FOR UPCOMING EXHIBIT

ALBANY, NY — The New York State Museum is inviting the public to submit their digital photographs of scenic New York State landscapes, the best of which will be showcased in an upcoming Museum exhibition and displayed on the Museum website and Flickr page.

Scenic landscapes exist in every corner of New York State and are often found on picture perfect postcards that read “wish you were here.” The State Museum’s exhibition, Wish You Were Here! New York State Photographed by You will open in the State Museum’s West Hall Corridor on September 3, featuring a selection of the best landscape photographs submitted by the public. These can be photographs of a beloved vacation spot or even the backyard, neighborhood street or other favorite place. Images chosen for the exhibition, as well as others that are submitted, will also appear on the Museum’s website. Photographs will still be accepted after September 3, since new ones will continually be added to both the gallery and website.

Wish You Were Here will complement another exhibition in the Museum’s adjacent West

Gallery –   Not Just Another Pretty Place: The Landscape of New York. Also opening on September 3, this will be the first exhibition of landscape art to be culled from the Museum’s vast collections.

Those wishing to submit photos for Wish You Were Here will find further information at

www.nysm.nysed.gov/wishyouwerehere.

The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Founded in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

UPDATE:  August 19/10

HDR Expose won’t be reviewed as a part of this series.  I’ve asked for, and the folks at Unified Color have granted, a refund of my purchase price.

I received an email from the folks behind Photo Engine a few weeks ago telling me they were going to be launching a new software package that did HDR and a whole lot more and asking if I’d be interested in being part of the beta group. Sure, I said.

I’ve been playing with the software now for a couple weeks. What follows is essentially a review like others in the series but keep in mind that things could change since this is only the first beta of the program.

I’ll say upfront that Photo Engine is a very complex piece of software. It takes a bit of time to get a feel for it. There’s some terrifically complex coding in the background related to the HDR Relight feature to be sure. In general, while what I’ve seen so far is looking like it’s going to be a very good program, there some complexities and features that are superfluous and attention could have been paid elsewhere. More on that as we progress.  I also think that some of what’s in this software is geared toward CG artists and may not be a lot of use to photographers.

There’s a particular feature of Photo Engine that I haven’t tried yet and that won’t be covered in this preview.  It’s the HDR Relight feature.  I’ll state upfront that I’m a bit skeptical as to the applicability of this for photographers – it may be one of those aspects of the software that CG artists will use more – but will keep an open mind and reserve final judgement till I’ve had the chance to try it out.

On opening the software, you’ll see a GUI that has a screen with a lot going on.  There are three basic components of the app. as shows in the upper right corner – Browse, Edit and Help.  Browse is the default window.  This is where you select your files to work on.  A screenshot is below.

For file types the application can make use of, you’ll see a picture thumbnail.  For others, you’ll get a text thumbnail.  Down in the bottom section are a list of recent Photo Engine projects (using the proprietary .rcd file type) which have been worked on.

You’ll see in the screenshot above that .hdr files don’t have a picture thumbnail.  While the program can read Radiance file types, it can’t display the thumbnail.  OpenEXR files won’t be listed at all because the program can’t work with those.  32 bit TIFF will have a thumbnail with an exclamation point because while it can read and open ‘normal’ 8 or 16 bit TIFFs, it can’t work with 32 bit TIFFs.  Nor can it work with PSD files at all.  I’d suggest the lack of support for a wider range of 32 bit files is a negative for Photo Engine.  While we’re at it, while Photo Engine can read 32 bit Radiance files, it can only write 32 bit files in its proprietary .rcd format.  This makes Photo Engine essentially incompatible with other HDR or image editing applications on the market.  While I understand that the folks at Oloneo are trying to produce a ‘one stop shop’ software application, not building in cross-platform functionality is a big negative.

Opening a single file to work on is as simple as double clicking.  Opening a bracketed series to merge and tonemap is a bit different.  First you select the respective files in the browser using Shift + click or CTRL + click.  Next, in the window on the upper right titled Project Image Selection you click Add.  This moves all the selected files into the project window where you can work with them further.  To begin creating a high dynamic range document, move down into the HDR Tonemap window, select Auto Align or not, then click Create HDR Tonemap Project.  If you’ve added only the images you need for a single merge, there’s no need to highlight the images in the Project window.  If you’ve added images for more than one merge, you’ll need to highlight the ones you want to include before clicking the Create HDR Tonemap Project button otherwise all the images in the Project window will be used.

You’ll notice in the top of the Browse screen in the middle is the typical … icon to open a location and select files.  You can also use the dropdown menu and select by file or by folder.  As you open and work with various folder locations, these will be stored in this dropdown menu and you can select from a recent location quickly without having to go through the folder hierarchy again.  If you’re working with RAW files, the program will give you thumbnail previews, but these do take a bit of time to appear.

Once the files begin to merge, you’re taken to the Edit window.  You can switch back and forth between Edit and Browse without affecting the current merge.  In the Edit window, your tonemapping controls are on the right and your edit history is on the left as seen in the screenshot below.

There is no multiple monitor support.  While the image on screen is fairly large if you’re using a larger monitor, it would become relatively smaller on a smaller monitor.  Adding multiple monitor support so that the edit and history windows could be moved to a second screen would be beneficial.  Similarly, in the Browse screen, having all the supporting windows on a second monitor would be a good idea.

Based on my work thus far with Photo Engine, I’d suggest the Advanced Local Tonemapper is the way to go.  The difference between it and the regular Local Tonemapper is the addition of the Detail controls which can prove useful.  There are also Auto Tonemapper and Globabl Tonemapper options but these provide little user control and less than pleasing results generally.

The variety of controls available in the Edit window is quite extensive.  At the top are the usual tonemapping controls.  Moving down there are LDR adjustments, a white balance panel, print toning and below that very fulsom colour controls.

In addition to the white balance panel on the right, at the top there is an eyedropper which can also be used to select white balance.  I find the eyedropper to be quick and effective.  Activate it then click in the image on a white, black or neutral tone to set your WB.

The Photographic Print Toning panel is one of those aspects of the software that, to me, seems superfluous.  While I understand Oloneo is trying to give users a one-stop shop for image editing, I think it highly unlikely that advanced users are going to do print toning in this application.  Particularly when there’s no print module in the app.  If I want to tone an image for printing, I’m going to do it in Photoshop where I have significantly more control over the final outcome.

Below the print toning, there’s an Advanced section.  Here are where the colour controls are.  Two curve adjustments are available – Brightness and Saturation.  If you right click on the curve in either panel you’ll be presented with 3 options.  Bezier Spline, Catmull-Rom Spline and Linear.  What the ……?!?!  Here again, is where the developers may have gone a bit overboard.  None of these, on first blush, looks like the curve adjustment we’re used to in PS.  Ignore Linear.  It produces a non-smooth curve that is nothing like what we’re used to.  Catmull-Rom looks more like the standard PS curve adjustment but the interpolation between points is different.  That leaves us with Bezier Spline.  And this is the one that will work like the PS curve photographers are used to.  You can add points by clicking on the line and dragging.  What about the tangents on the curve?  These will adjust the slope of the curve locally.  Might be useful from time to time.  If all you want to do is get the ‘standard’ S-curve, click on the tangent arrow of the top point and drag it up.  Next click on the tangent arrow of the lower point and drag it down.  Voila, your standard S-curve contrast adjustment.  If you click to add points on the upper and lower sections of the curve and drag these, you’ll get something similar to the standard PS curve but not quite the same.  In this case you’ll probably want to move the upper and lower tangent points as well to make the curve smoother.  Lengthening or shortening the tangent lines will change the inflection point of the curve.

As noted above, this level of adjustability is more than most photographers are going to want.  Keeping in mind my earlier thought that this software is meant for both photographers and CG artists and doing some research into these various curve types, it does seem that these curves will be more familiar to those working in the CG world.

The Brightness curve works like the PS curve in the Luminance blend mode; affecting brightness without colour.  The Saturation curve below that begins making colour adjustments.  The bottom section of the curve works on areas of lower saturation while the upper section of the curve works on areas of higher saturation.  Dragging down or up will reduce or increase relative saturation levels respectively.

Below that are individual adjustments for Hue, Saturation and Brightness (Luminance).  The spectrum for each is split with a line for each colour/hue.  Clicking and dragging the point on the line adjusts saturation, brightness or hue for that particular colour, isolated from the rest.  Right clicking on a point and selecting ‘Free Mode’ allows you to move the position of the colour line left or right along the spectrum, effectively changing the relative relationships between the various colours.  Perhaps another bit of superfluousness.  While an interesting adjustment to have available, I’m not sure how much photographers are going to use it.  The adjustments that these controls make are precise; however, so the controls are effective.

The last thing to mention is the history panel on the left.  Like the history panel in PS or LR, a record is kept of each adjustment you make.  You can undo one thing at a time or several.  Like in LR (unlike in PS), if you save the file in the proprietary .rcd format, the edit history is stored as well so when you open the file in the future, you have access to everything you did previously.  This is only true if you save in the .rcd file format; however. Right clicking on a history point will allow you to add a comment or edit an existing comment.  Perhaps useful if you want to recall why you used a certain setting in the past.  You can also create an edit version (similar to the LR Snapshot) which you can come back to in the future.  If you create an edit version, then back up in the history to change something, you lose your version.  This makes the version feature less useful.  Versions should be retained so they can be brought back at any time (like the LR Snapshot).  The Play button steps through all the edit history from start to finish automatically.  This would be useful for creating tutorials.  You can have the playback stop each time a comment is found as well so the comments can be used to explain certain steps or processes.

Photo Engine is a colour managed application.  When you save a file you’ll be presented with a dialogue to tag it with a colour space (sRGB, AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB), a bit depth (if saving as a TIFF), a compression type for TIFF and quality level for JPEG and a resolution.  If you want, you can also add copyright information into the file. The program defaults to the .rcd file type for saving.

There are no text help files installed with the program, nor are there any on the Oloneo website.  The help comes in the form of video tutorials.  While a nice supplementary form of help, a text help file where people could search and get quick assistance would be beneficial.

There are no preferences to be set in Photo Engine.  Rather than having to choose what file type, bit depth, colour profile, etc, each time a file is saved, it would be preferable to have these established as user defaults which can be overridden if desired.  This would speed the workflow process.  In addition, there is no possibility; that I can find, to save tonemap settings as presets.  Particularly given the varied and complex adjustments available, the ability to establish presets would be beneficial.

How’s it all work?  Examples are below but generally, pretty well.  Overall, speed is good and comparable with the other top programs on the market.

First the realistic result of the existing HDR image.

Colour and contrast are good.  The blue in the water is well controlled.  Overall, a very good result and one that wouldn’t need a lot of additional work.

Next the surreal result on the existing HDR image.

It’s clear that Photo Engine can go from mild to wild.  This is actually one of the more appealing results on this image of all the ones tried thus far.

Now, how does Photo Engine do with files merged inside the application?

The realistic version.

The blue colour in the windows on the right is good.  Overall colour is good.  The result is a bit dark overall but this can be corrected with some more work in PS post-tonemap.

Next the surreal result.

Once again, we’ve gone from mild to wild.  Unlike in some other applications, the blue in the right side windows has been retained to a large degree.  The windows on the left are blown out, as in other software but in a different way and a good deal of the dirt on the windows has been retained.

In both cases, Photo Engine has handled the dynamic range in the images very well.  The surreal/grunge results are different from others and in a lot of respects better.

Overall, Photo Engine shows a great deal of promise.  There are some user-functionality issues that would make it better and easier to use.  The fact that, I think, they’re targeting both photographers and CG artists means there are aspects of the software that aren’t as relevant to photographers but that can be dealth with.  There is no version, at this point, for the Mac OS; however, Oloneo states that the software works well with Parallels Desktop 5 (which I believe is the current version at the time of writing).  There’s no deghosting function which is why that wasn’t tested.  The one other thing that Photo Engine doesn’t have that would be nice to see is a batch function.

Once I try the HDR Relight functionality, I’ll come back and provide an update.  If  you’ve been trying out Photo Engine and find an area where I’ve made a mistake in my commentary, please let me know, I’ll take another look and upate as required.

HDR Darkroom is another relative newcomer to the HDR software scene. I say relative newcomer because it came to market after many of the well known apps like Photomatix, Dynamic Photo HDR and FDRTools.  I only became aware of it in the last couple months and decided to add it to the growing list of software apps in this series.

I should state upfront that after sending some questions to the folks who produce HDR Darkroom, they’ve provided me with a full version (sans watermark) and in return, I’m going to provide them with some samples to use on their web gallery at no cost.

Unlike many of the other applications coming out on the market, HDRDR is ‘just’ an HDR application.  It’s not trying to be all things to all people, which is a plus in my book.  They’re concentrating on one thing with HDRDR and concentrating on doing it well.  32 bit files can be saved either as Radiance (.hdr) or OpenEXR (.exr).  When saving JPEG files, there are no quality options.  The file is saved at full size and full quality.  Personally, I prefer this.

On opening the program, the GUI is clean and simple with a menu bar at the top and menu icons down the left.  This allows you to use whatever method you’re comfortable with to work.  Positioning your mouse over an icon brings up a description of what it is so you’re not working blind if you use the icons.

There are no preferences available to be set so you can simply start working.  There is a batch function (thumbs up) but no colour management implementation (thumbs down).  Under the Process menu is an interesting item labeled ‘Export to Photoshop’.  Upon further inspection, it’s not quite as interesting as first thought as it only will export a BMP version of the file you’re working on.  If it could be reprogrammed to export a JPEG or TIFF, that’d be cool.  As it is, the standard workflow of tonemapping, saving the tonemapped image out as a JPEG or TIFF then opening that file in PS for any further work is the way to go.  There is no deghosting function so that won’t be tested.

How’s it all work?  Opening an existing 32 bit file is pretty quick.  The program goes through an initial ‘tonemapping’ step in order to display the image on screen for a first visual representation.  If you like what you see, you can save out the file from here.  Additional work is probably going to be needed.  A screen capture of the intial preview of our default existing image is below.

It’s actually not too bad, but it does need more work.  Into the tonemapping functions we go.  Going into the tonemapping functions opens up a new screen, but it’s not a double screen so you can’t flip back and forth – there’s no need to really so it doesn’t matter than you can’t.  In the tonemap screen, the tonemapping controls are on the right side of the screen and the image in the middle.  You can adjust the size of the preview between Small, Medium and Large.  The default is Medium.  Even selecting Large, the entire image fits in screen so you can see everything that’s happeningn with the tonemapping.  There is no multiple monitor support so you can’t pull the tonemapping bar to a second screen and get a bigger image on the primary.  Unless you’re working with a very small screen this should be alright because the tonemap bar doesn’t take up a lot of screen real estate and the workspace is clean otherwise so there’s nothing else to keep you from getting a good idea of what’s happening as you adjust the tonemapping operators.  Multiple monitor support is always a nice thing, but in this case – unlike with some of the other apps we’ve looked at – it’s not vital.

There are three tonemapping operators:  Local Tone Balancer (LTB); Local Tone Enhancer (LTE); and Fast Tone Compressor (FTC).  The first two are local tonemappers, the last is a global operator.  Based on what I’ve experienced in using the software, LTE is going to be the operator of choice in most cases.  It has the most flexibility and produces the best results on a consistent basis.  Unless noted otherwise, LTE is the one I’m using in this commentary.  There is also the ability to save tonemapping presets via the dropdown menu at the top.  A screen shot of the tonemapping GUI is below.

The sliders don’t offer a live preview but the update speed is quick.  Switching from one tonemapping operator to another, then back brings you back to the last settings you used in that operator – nice.  Keeping the Strength setting in the range under 50 is generally where you’re going to want to be for a more naturalistic/realistic look.  Fill Light is one that’ll be used sparingly in most cases.  It does do a good job though of working on the darker/shadow areas yet not brightening the lighter/highlight areas.  The Brightness slider does a nice job of making adjustments to the overall exposure and helping retain/regain shadow/highlight contrast.  Below the Tonemapping Parameters is a section for Post Processing tools.  There are two tabs – Color Balance and B/W Point Clipping.  The Color Balance sliders act like the colour balance tool in Photoshop and can be useful for adjusting the white balance in the image.  The B/W Point Clipping sliders on the second tab are where you’re going to set your white and black points.  Both work well and the B/W sliders provide enough fine control that you can get the overall contrast where you want it.  Eyedroppers for setting white balance as well as white/black points would be nice additions to make adjusting those settings slightly quicker.  Once done, click OK to apply the settings and you’re taken back to the original screen after the settings are applied which is pretty quick.  Tonemapped files can be saved as 8 bit JPEGs, 8 bit TIFFs or 16 bit TIFFs (noted in the dropdown as 48 bit – 16 per channel).  It can also save as PNG and BMP but these will be less useful for photographers.  The realistic version of our default existing file is below.

This is pretty darn good as it stands right now.  The blue in the water is a little too intense but that’s easily fixed after tonemapping.  Without question this is on par with the best apps out there for generating a realistic result on this particular image.  Getting to this result took very little time and required not a lot of playing with the sliders.  There are Undo and Redo icons on the left side of the screen.

An interesting part of the way HDRDR works is that after you tonemap and go back to the main screen, you see the results of the tonemapping on screen but your 32 bit image is still there in the background.  When you save the file out as a JPEG or TIFF, it saves a copy so what you see on screen is still the 32 bit image.  If you then go back into the tonemapping operators, it opens the original 32 bit image back up with the previous tonemapping settings applied but clicking Reset takes you back to the original.  This is a nice workflow process if you want to try different tonemapping adjustments.

Now let’s look at the other end of the tonemapping spectrum.  Two files are below.  The first is a surreal/grunge look with the LTE operator, the second is a surreal/grunge look with the LTB operator.  They’re different.  In both cases the Strength slider is pushed well up past 50, which is where you’re going to want to go if you’re working for the less realistic look and in the LTB version, the Local Lighting slider is also pushed up toward the top end.  My only quibble with the LTB version is what it’s done to the waterfall pools.

HDRDR can swim in both ends of the tonemapping pool.  Getting from a realistic result to a less realistic is as simple as moving the Strength slider.  You’ll likely want to tweak some of the other settings as well but the Strength slider really does control a lot in this software.  Simple is good.  And the speed is very good througout.  As fast or faster than the other applications tested thus far.  Another important thing to note is that the program has handled the full drange of this scene very well.  Recall from the introductory article that I chose this particular scene because of the range of brightness it contained.  There are no presets other than the default settings but creating your own is easily done and with the simplicity of making adjustments to create different looks/versions, creating different presets takes little time.

We’ll move on to see how HDRDR does merging and tonemapping a set of files.  The screen for setting up the merge is very simple.  You can choose to align or not and you can choose to have the exposure information taken from the EXIF data or by guessing.  If you were using film scans or other images that didn’t have exposure information in the EXIF, you could use Guess as a starting point.  Once you choose your images and set the software to work the loading, aligning, merging and initial preview tonemapping happens in a pretty snappy fashion.  Perhaps not quite as fast in this case as Photomatix or CS5 HDR Pro but still quite quickly and faster than many of the other apps. tested thus far.

Once again, the intial preview is a very good starting point as seen in the image below.

The colour in the windows on the right is good.  The brightness in the windows on the left is well controlled.  Not quite the best we’ve seen so far but still very good.  Colours throughout are accurate, if a tad cool which is easily addressed.

Making the tonemapping adjustments and applying the tonemapping settings was a slightly slower with this 32 bit file than the existing one from above.  I’m not sure why that might be.  It could simply be a combination of the settings needed to get the result required more time to process than previously.  The Strength slider for this was a bit higher than on the first image so which would mean more processing behind the scenes so that could explain the slight time difference.  The difference was small enough that it could also have been due to other processes going on in my system at the same time.  More testing would be needed to know for sure.  Either way, it’s still quite quick.  Below is the natural/realistic version.

Here again, the colour in the windows on the right is good.  Brightness in the windows on the left is better than in the preview version.  Good shadow/highlight detail is retained throughout.  The colour from the dirt in the left windows shows up well.  It’s a very nice result and one that I’d only have to do a little extra tweaking to after the fact via a Curves/Levels type adjustment and/or perhaps a slight Shadow/Highlight adjustment.

The grunge/surrealistic version is below.

As with the realistic version, colour is good, detail is good in the highlights.  What’s interesting about this version compared to surrealistic versions from the other applications is the way HDRDR has rendered the highlight areas in the room itself.  The highlights areound the ticket windows, the old newsstand on the left and on the large pillar in the back corner add enhanced visual interest to this version that the others haven’t had to the same extent.  The mapping of the light in HDRDR, in this case anyway, has created a very appealing result.  As with the other images, the Strength slider is the one that largely controls the realistic or surrealistic look and in this case it was all the way at 100%.  In some other apps., moving the equivalent of the HDRDR Strength slider to 100% would cause the windows to become completely blown out but highlights are still well controlled here at the same time an interesting ‘grunge’ result has been generated.

After getting the fully unlocked version, I have to admit that I cheated and used it for more than just this review.  I wanted to see how it would handle some night scenes with wildly varying light levels and light colours.  I used it to shoot a timelapse segment in Toronto.  The last 5 seconds of this clip are images merged and tonemapped in HDRDR.  Tried the same files in Photomatix and liked the HDRDR results better so used them.

A Summer Night in Dundas Square from Robert Fisher on Vimeo.

Support for HDRDR is decent.  There are no Help files installed with the program.  There are some video tutorials on the HDR Darkroom website as well as some FAQ sections.  I emailed some questions to their general support email address and got responses within a business day.  The HDRDR offices are in Europe and I’m in North America so considering the time difference, that response turnaround is very good.  The responses I got were helpful.  My understanding from trading emails with them is that they’re working on revamping the website and I expect it’ll have enhanced information on it when the new site is brought onstream.

I did run into a few bugs when working with the software.  Two are minor and not worth going into detail on.  The third involves a difference in tonemapping when working in Batch mode vs. doing individual merge/tonemap operations.  Again, based on emails I’ve traded with their support group, they have a handle on the problem and expect to have a fix in the near future.

To discuss the Batch mode a bit more for a second, like everything else with HDRDR, the interface is simple and the process is quick.  Running the same set of files through both HDRDR and Photomatix, HDRDR completed the batch process slightly faster than PM.  You can choose to save either the 32 bit file, a tonemapped JPEG file or both.  The 32 bit file is saved in the Radiance format.  Since the software can save individually merged files in both Radiance and OpenEXR formats, giving that flexibility in Batch mode would be preferable.  Being able to save the tonemapped file as either an 8 or 16 bit TIFF file would also be preferable to just offering JPEG.  You have access to the same tonemapping operators in Batch as in standard mode.  You cannot; however, invoke a preset in Batch mode.  If you test out a merge to get your tonemap settings  figured out, you’ll have to write down the settings  and input them manually in Batch.  Being able to use presets here would also be a good enhancement.  You can merge up to 10 images in Batch mode which should be enough.  Nikon offers the widest bracketing at up to 9 in some of its models so unless you’re doing manual bracketing at 1/3 or 1/2 stops and capturing huge numbers of images per sequence (which really isn’t necessary), the ability to merge up to 10 images should suffice.

There is a noise reduction feature in the software which I didn’t try.

All in all, HDRDR is a very nice piece of software that does one thing and does it quite well.  The software is on sale right now for $79.  There are both Mac and Windows versions.  At that price it’s definitely a good deal.  Even at the full price of $99 it’s the same price as Photomatix Pro and in terms of the quality of the software and support, it’s pretty much on par with PM.

As with previous reviews, if you see any errors please let me know and I’ll work to make the corrections.  Thanks for reading and I’m happy to recieve your feedback.