HDR Photography - A practical guide by Crystal

HDR Photography A practical guide

Edited by

Matthias Gessler, Ruth Schmelzer & Richard Jack Authors: Annamaria Castellan Matthias Gessler Mary Gino Richard Jack Susana Jesus Irma Kañová Gabor Kohlrusz Dagmar Pokorná Marina Ramos Ruth Schmelzer Katalin Szalainé Szeili Luigi Tolotti

ERASMUS + STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP 2014 – 2016 EUROPEAN BLENDED LEARNING AND HDR –PHOTOGRAPHY THE VIR2COPE PROJECT

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Imprint Printed Version Printed in Germany 71522 Backnang, Mühlbachstrasse 7: “WIRmachenDRUCK” HRB 727418 / http://www.wir-machen-druck.de Layout

Ian Bennett

Cover

Ian Bennett

Editors

Matthias Gessler, Ruth Schmelzer & Richard Jack

Authors

Annamaria Castellan, Mary Gino, Luigi Tolotti (Acquamarina Associazione Culturale, Trieste, Italien)

Irma Kañová, Dagmar Pokorná (ALVIT - Innovation and Education Ltd., Ostrava, Tschechische Republik)

Richard Jack (CRYSTAL Presentations Ltd., Birmingham, UK)

Susana Jesus, Marina Ramos (Escola Técnica de Imagem e Comunicação Aplicada, Portugal)

Matthias Gessler, Ruth Schmelzer (Europäische Fotoakademie ArtWebDesign, Rastatt, Deutschland)

Gabor Kohlrusz, Katalin Szalainé Szeili (University of Pannonia, Veszprem, Ungarn)

Copyright@2016 All rights reserved Acquamarina Associazione Culturale, Trieste, Italy ALVIT - innovation and education Ltd., Ostrava, Czech Republic CRYSTAL Presentations Ltd., Birmingham, UK Escola Técnica de Imagem e Comunicação Aplicada, Lisboa, Portugal European Photoacademy ArtWebDesign, Rastatt, Germany University of Pannonia, Veszprem, Hungary

Co-financed by the European Commission Erasmus+ Programme Disclaimer The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

HDR Photography

A practical guide Contents Preface 5 The VIR2COPE - Project Introduction Chapter 1 HDR-Photography - Theory, History and state of the Art by Matthias Gessler & Ruth Schmelzer

Chapter 2 Equipment , bracketing and camera settings for HDR-Photography by Matthias Gessler

Chapter 3 Freeware for HDR-image processing by Gabor Kohlrusz

Chapter 4 Software for HDR-image processing by Matthias Gessler

Chapter 5 HDR Photography for practice by Dagmar Pokornรก

Chapter 6 Replication of Art with HDR Photography by Annamaria Castellan

Chapter 7 Black & White HDR Photography: Ansel Adams by Mary Gino

Chapter 8 Black & White HDR Photography by Mary Stamm

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

119

Contents Chapter 9 HDR-Photography: Fashion and Portrait by Irma Kanova

129

Chapter 10 HDR-Photography and Marketing by Katalin Szalainé Szeili

135

Chapter 11 HDR-Photography in Media and Journalism by Ruth Schmelzer

155

Chapter 12 167 HDR-Photography for scientific documentation by Ruth Schmelzer & Matthias Gessler 12.1.: HDR-Photography for Geography and Quarternary Geology 12.2.: HDR-Photography and Archeology 12.3.: HDR-Photography and Botany Chapter 13 HDR-Photography for “Lost Places“ by Matthias Gessler

191

Chapter 14 HDR-Panorama Matthias Gessler

201

Chapter 15 Pseudo-HDRI by Luigi Tolotti

209

Chapter 16 HDR Photography in the Art-Therapy by Marina Ramos and Susanna Jesus

223

Chapter 17 A critique of HDR - Photography by Richard Jack

231

Index Bibliography Links

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Preface The VIR2COPE Project

HDR Photography and European Blended Learning The authors of this work include professional photographers, advanced amateurs and newcomers, all of who have become familiar with HDRI as part of the VIR2COPE project and appreciate and wish to use what they have learned. It has been shown that the technique is suitable not only for professionals, but can also be used by beginners, providing them with lots of fun and a highly efficient way of improving their images.

The real challenge of HDRI photography is ultimately dealing with the large amount of data generated by multi-shot technology in a 32-bit image. It opens up enormous creative potential, but requires some practice to get the desired results.

the equipment needed for HDRI photography, round off the chapter.

Equally all those whose work involves pictorial representation are encouraged to try HDRI technology to assess its suitability to their requirements.

As an experienced IT expert and beginner in HDRI photography, Gabor Kohlrusz is especially interested in creating and editing HDRI images using free software. He tested several freeware programs available on the market and compared the results. The result of his most interesting work is summarized in Chapter 3.

HDRI technology offers a highly efficient and interesting additional tool for many work areas, whether it be for scientific documentation, in art or in marketing.

The efficiency with which HDR image editing can be carried out today with freely available software, aims to encourage both the beginner and the experienced user.

There are numerous HDRI publications on the market already, providing us with extensive information on the technology of HDRI photography. In particular, reference is made here to the extensive work of Christian Bloch (2013).

In addition to the previous chapter, Matthias Gessler considers both free and purchasable software for the production and processing of HDR images in Chapter 4.

In the introductory chapter on HDRI photography, Matthias Gessler and Ruth Schmelzer have concentrated on essential technical information and a brief overview of the current state of development in HDRI photography to give the reader a basic idea of this technique. In Chapter 2 the reader is provided with a tutorial for setting the camera to create digital bracketing. Matthias Gessler has applied HDRI for many years and also conducts seminars that facilitate practical implementation. Of course, each camera is a little different, but if necessary, it is easy to look up the designated settings in the camera manual. Notes on

Preface

In Chapter 6, the highly effective use of HDRI photography for replication of art, especially paintings are described. The author Annamaria Castellan worked together with the Italian painter Loredana Riavini and sensitively describes the enormous importance that faithful replication of works of art has, from the artist’s perspective. In addition to this, there are insightful remarks on human perception of colours and the history of the replication of art works. As a professional photographer, Annamaria Castellan impressively shows the painter how they could faithfully replicate their works using HDR photography. Utilising the potential of HDR photography, opens up a highly exciting field of application. In his famous black and white photographs even Ansel Adams tried to address the weaknesses of contrast ratio in photography. With the resources Ansell Adams had at his disposal, he achieved enormous success, indeed it can be seen as a predecessor of HDRI. Mary Gino dedicated her chapter to the work of Ansel Adams and thus provided the introduction to the project described below which was carried out in Italy by Annamaria Castellan, with students of the LICEO ARTISTICO art school in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Black and white photographs of landscapes and buildings using HDRI were created in the Ansel Adams way. The project not only illustrates the efficiency of HDRI technology in the field of black and white photography, but also demonstrates an innovative pedagogical approach to learning utilising the technique introduced in the workshop. In his 2008 book on architectural photography, Adrian Schulz mentioned the use of HDRI. In Chapter 8 Matthias Gessler explains, with numerous other examples from his practical work, the different opportunities that arise from the strengths of HDRI in architectural photography. HDRI photography offers significant improvements, for example in differently illuminated rooms or high-contrast images of buildings, compared with conventional photography. . For pure HDRI images, bracketing must be employed. But this can create problems such as when recording moving objects with HDRI.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Only minor movements can be removed by image processing. Another possibility is opened up by using pseudo-HDR. Irma Kanova, whose impressive portrait and fashion photography appears in reputable journals, describes in Chapter 9 the effective use of pseudo-HDRI in her work. Having discovered the positive effect of this technique for her shots, she used them successfully in her work on a regular basis. The marketing expert, Katalin Szalainé Szeili learned about HDRI photography at the beginning of VIR2COPE project at a workshop. From the outset Katelin was able imagine diverse and effective uses of technology in marketing, be it in product photography, real estate or in the tourism sector. Her extensive literature review on the use of HDRI photography in the marketing area revealed no equality issues. Finally, she tested different HDRI photography applications for marketing. Katelin’s successful work is vividly described in Chapter 10. The importance of pictorial language has increased enormously, supported by the Internet and digitalisation. Many millions of pictures are published daily, not only on the Internet, but also via printed media. The quality of the images is of the utmost importance for media and journalism in many respects. In Chapter 11 Ruth Schmelzer explains some of the opportunities to use HDRI in this area with some examples. In this, as in section 12.2. Ruth explains the possibility of creating an HDR image from an analog slide. HDRI Photography provides significant benefit to scientific documentation compared to conventional photography, due to the enormous dynamic range and tonal range and the high level of detail which is achievable. In Chapter 12 Matthias Gessler and Ruth Schmelzer provide examples from geography, archaeology and botany. As a geoscientist, Ruth Schmelzer knows the difficulties that can occur through high contrast landscape scenes and explains the advantages of HDRI.

Preface

Additional elements of the Chapter show other techniques which can be combined with HDRI, such as the application of the grey card and stitching, Interesting suggestions and detailed examples for creating HDRI images from analog slides are also provided. The photograph of ‘Lost Places’ is one of the photographic topics which Matthias Gessler dealt with as a lecturer and photographer in his long career. Not only he, but many others, have already discovered the excellent capabilities of HDRI for scenes of old abandoned and dilapidated places. There are many designs that require the level of detail in both the HDR and LDR area. The advantages of HDR over conventional photography are enormous. Extensive design possibilities in HDRI image editing also provide creative potential. Matthias Gessler describes some of his work as a stimulus for the reader in the chapter. In Chapter 5 Dagmar Pokorná, looked at the advantages and applications of HDRI panoramic photography. In this chapter Matthias Gessler concentrates on a different aspect of panoramic photography, rather than on the processing of HDRI panoramic images from the software programs Photomatix Pro and Adobe Photoshop. As a Photoshop expert he offers further interesting tips for image processing, such as automating image processing steps by batch processing, sharpening with the high-pass filter or tonal adjustments.

They were able to show that the creative potential of HDRI photography could be used successfully with disabled people. With a survey that primarily focused on project partners, Richard Jack presents different perceptions that may arise in dealing with HDR photography. In the first part of this chapter, Richard used a statistical survey of Croatian photographers from 2011 as the basis for a comparative analyse of their survey results with those of our project partners in relation to HDR photography. In the second part of the chapter the partners were asked to respond to comments by showing their level of agreement with a series of comments which have been made about HDR photography, both positive and negative. The summary of his results are discussed and presented in Chapter 17. Through the VIR2COPE project it should be noted that European cooperation on the subject of HDR photography has led to very interesting and stimulating exchanges, which have contributed to the spread and development of new applications for this technology. The project partners would like to thank the Co-funding from the European funding program Erasmus + for education, training, youth and sport.

In Chapter 15 the longtime photographer Luigi Tolotti explains the advantages of pseudoHDR. During the period of the VIR2COPE project he tested the technique in many situations and compared them with the results that have been achieved with conventional single images or HDR bracketing. In the chapter he sums up the results of his interesting work. The photography lecturers, Marina Ramos and Susana Jesus were excited about the project VIR2COPE to apply HDRI photography in the therapeutic field. To achieve this, they contacted the CRINABEL institution in Lisbon, which works with disabled people. In this way, the theoretical approach could be tested in practice and ultimately proved to be very successful. In Chapter 16, the procedure used by the two lecturers is vividly described.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Introduction

Introduction The authors of this work include professional photographers, advanced amateurs and newcomers, all of who have become familiar with HDRI as part of the VIR2COPE project and appreciate and wish to use what they have learned. It has been shown that the technique is suitable not only for professionals, but can also be used by beginners, providing them with lots of fun and a highly efficient way of improving their images. The real challenge of HDRI photography is ultimately dealing with the large amount of data generated by multi-shot technology in a 32-bit image. It opens up enormous creative potential, but requires some practice to get the desired results. Equally all those whose work involves pictorial representation are encouraged to try HDRI technology to assess its suitability to their requirements. HDRI technology offers a highly efficient and interesting additional tool for many work areas, whether it be for scientific documentation, in art or in marketing. There are numerous HDRI publications on the market already, providing us with extensive information on the technology of HDRI photography. In particular, reference is made here to the extensive work of Christian Bloch (2013). In the introductory chapter on HDRI photography, Matthias Gessler and Ruth Schmelzer have concentrated on essential technical information and a brief overview of the current state of development in HDRI photography to give the reader a basic idea of this technique. In section 2 the reader is provided with a tutorial for setting the camera to create digital bracketing. Matthias Gessler has applied HDRI for many years and also conducts seminars that facilitate practical implementation. Of course, each camera is a little different, but if necessary, it is easy to look up the designated settings in the camera manual. Notes on the equipment needed for HDRI photography, round off the chapter. As an experienced IT expert and beginner in HDRI photography, Gabor Kohlrusz is especially interested in creating and editing HDRI images using free software. He tested several freeware programs available on the market and compared the results. The result of his most interesting work is summarized in Chapter 3. The efficiency with which HDR image editing can be carried out today with freely available software, aims to encourage both the beginner and the experienced user. In addition to the previous chapter, Matthias Gessler considers both free and purchasable software for the production and processing of HDR images in Chapter 4.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Introduction

The result of HDRI photography is highly dependent on HDR image processing, so addressing this issue is imperative. The chapter provides this interesting information. The passionate photographer Dagmar Pokorná provides a good introduction to practical work with HDR photography in her chapter. With many examples, she illustrates the obvious strengths of HDRI in different applications, such as landscape, architectural and panoramic photography. Particularly interesting are comments on the use of HDR photography in the tourism sector, for example in the creation of 360 ° panoramas of attractions, marketing or also for the real estate market. In Chapter 6, the highly effective use of HDRI photography for replication of art, especially paintings are described. The author Annamaria Castellan worked together with the Italian painter Loredana Riavini and sensitively describes the enormous importance that faithful replication of works of art has, from the artist’s perspective. In addition to this, there are insightful remarks on human perception of colours and the history of the replication of art works. As a professional photographer, Annamaria Castellan impressively shows the painter how they could faithfully replicate their works using HDR photography. Utilising the potential of HDR photography, opens up a highly exciting field of application. In his famous black and white photographs even Ansel Adams tried to address the weaknesses of contrast ratio in photography. With the resources he had at his disposal, he achieved enormous success, indeed it can be seen as a predecessor of HDRI. Mary Gino dedicated her chapter to the work of Ansel Adams and thus provided the introduction to the project described below which was carried out in Italy by Annamaria Castellan, with students of the LICEO ARTISTICO art school in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Black and white photographs of landscapes and buildings using HDRI were created in the Ansel Adams way. The project not only illustrates the efficiency of HDRI technology in the field of black and white photography, but also demonstrates an innovative pedagogical approach to learning utilising the technique introduced in the workshop. In his 2008 book on architectural photography, Adrian Schulz mentioned the use of HDRI. In Chapter 8 Matthias Gessler explains, with numerous other examples from his practical work, the different opportunities that arise from the strengths of HDRI in architectural photography. HDRI photography offers significant improvements, for example in differently illuminated rooms or high-contrast images of buildings, compared with conventional photography.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Introduction

For pure HDRI images, bracketing must be employed. But this can create problems such as when recording moving objects with HDRI. Only minor movements can be removed by image processing. Another possibility is opened up by using pseudo-HDR. Irma Kanova, whose impressive portrait and fashion photography appears in reputable journals, describes in chapter 9 the effective use of pseudo-HDRI in her work. Having discovered the positive effect of this technique for her shots, she used them successfully in her work on a regular basis. The marketing expert, Katalin Szalainé Szeili learned about HDRI photography at the beginning of VIR2COPE project at a workshop. From the outset Katelin was able imagine diverse and effective uses of technology in marketing, be it in product photography, real estate or in the tourism sector. Her extensive literature review on the use of HDRI photography in the marketing area revealed no equality issues. Finally, she tested different HDRI photography applications for marketing. Katelin’s successful work is vividly described in chapter 10. The importance of pictorial language has increased enormously, supported by the Internet and digitalisation. Many millions of pictures are published daily, not only on the Internet, but also via printed media. The quality of the images is of the utmost importance for media and journalism in many respects. In chapter 11 Ruth Schmelzer explains some of the opportunities to use HDRI in this area with some examples. In this, as in section 12.2. Ruth explains the possibility of creating an HDR image from an analog slide. HDRI Photography provides significant benefit to scientific documentation compared to conventional photography, due to the enormous dynamic range and tonal range and the high level of detail which is achievable. In Chapter 12 Matthias Gessler and Ruth Schmelzer provide examples from geography, archaeology and botany. As a geoscientist, Ruth Schmelzer knows the difficulties that can occur through high contrast landscape scenes and explains the advantages of HDRI. Additional elements of the Chapter show other techniques which can be combined with HDRI, such as the application of the grey card and stitching. Interesting suggestions and detailed examples for creating HDRI images from analog slides are also provided. The photograph of ‘Lost Places’ is one of the photographic topics which Matthias Gessler dealt with as a lecturer and photographer in his long career. Not only he, but many others, have already discovered the excellent capabilities of HDRI for scenes of old abandoned and dilapidated places. There are many designs that require the level of detail in both the HDR and LDR area. The advantages of HDR over conventional photography are enormous. Extensive design possibilities in HDRI image editing also provide creative potential. Matthias Gessler describes some of his work as a stimulus for the reader in the chapter. 10

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Introduction

In Chapter 5 Dagmar Pokorná, looked at the advantages and applications of HDRI panoramic photography. In this chapter Matthias Gessler concentrates on a different aspect of panoramic photography, rather than on the processing of HDRI panoramic images from the software programs Photomatix Pro and Adobe Photoshop. As a Photoshop expert he offers further interesting tips for image processing, such as automating image processing steps by batch processing, sharpening with the high-pass filter or tonal adjustments. In Chapter 15 the longtime photographer Luigi Tolotti explains the advantages of pseudo-HDR. During the period of the VIR2COPE project he tested the technique in many situations and compared them with the results that have been achieved with conventional single images or HDR bracketing. In the chapter he sums up the results of his interesting work. The photography lecturers, Marina Ramos and Susana Jesus were excited about the project VIR2COPE to apply HDRI photography in the therapeutic field. To achieve this, they contacted the CRINABEL institution in Lisbon, which works with disabled people. In this way, the theoretical approach could be tested in practice and ultimately proved to be very successful. In Chapter 16, the procedure used by the two lecturers is vividly described. They were able to show that the creative potential of HDRI photography could be used successfully with disabled people. With a survey that primarily focused on project partners, Richard Jack presents different perceptions that may arise in dealing with HDR photography. In the first part of this chapter, Richard used a statistical survey of Croatian photographers from 2011 as the basis for a comparative analyse of their survey results with those of our project partners in relation to HDR photography. In the second part of the chapter the partners were asked to respond to comments by showing their level of agreement with a series of comments which have been made about HDR photography, both positive and negative. The summary of his results are discussed and presented in Chapter 17. Through the VIR2COPE project it should be noted that European cooperation on the subject of HDR photography has led to very interesting and stimulating exchanges, which have contributed to the spread and development of new applications for this technology. The project partners would like to thank the Co-funding from the European funding program Erasmus + for education, training, youth and sport.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 1

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 1

Theory, History and State of the Art in HDR Photography by Matthias Gessler & Ruth Schmelzer 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8

History of HDRI photography and present state of the art Theoretical Introduction to HDRI Photography Colors, tonal values and colour models Dynamic range The main formats of HDRI Photography: Jpeg and RAW format Tone mapping and HDR formats Software for the HDR Tone Mapping Pseudo HDRI

1.1 History of HDRI photography and State of the Art The limitations of photography to depict scenes with large differences in illumination was already well known in the analogue days of photography. If there were very bright and very dark areas in a scene, the photo showed over- or underexposed parts. Complex methods in the analogue laboratory, like Dodge and Burn corrections could be applied, but were not sufficient. Grey filters or the plus-minus button of the digital cameras could be used also to darken very bright scenes or lighten very dark scenes. However, here again, the correction is not satisfactory. The dynamic range of the photo cannot be increased with these methods. In the mid-eighties developed Greg Ward Larson the software „Radiance“ and the Radiance format (.hdr) that could save an HDR image without loss of brightness information. He used floating-point numbers to compute the image information, which made the rendering of HDR images possible. There were no screens or printers, which could represent such a huge dynamic range from an HDR image. Thus, it was necessary to reduce the dynamic range. In 1968 Oppenheim already worked with the principle of compression of images with high dynamic range - the so-called tone mapping. But the method became not popular in that time. In the early 1990s further research pioneers such as Paul Debevic, Erik Reinhard and Raanan Fattal worked on the development of compression techniques for the presentability of high brightness areas1. Initially the multishot-technique HDR was used preferably in the film branch, not for photography. Elaborate film productions such as „Harry

Freeman, Michael, 2008: 72 f. HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 1

Potter“ used HDR already in the late nineties successfully, but kept the technology under lock2. In 1999 the American company „Industrial Light and Magic“ developed an own HDR image file format for their film production. In the year 2003 they made the format as OpenEXR3 available for everybody.

games there exist already graphic cards that provide rudimentary HDRI in real time. Till now common printers and screens cannot display the dynamic range of HDR images. Although prototypes of HDRI monitors exist already, a breakthrough on the market cannot be seen yet.

To achieve HDR images it is necessary to make from the scene a sequence of photos with different exposure times (exposure latitude). Such a technique was already feasible with analogue cameras. Nowadays digital cameras often have an option for autobracketing4 as a basis for an HDR image. In the year 2009 RICOH produced the CX1camera, which was the first digital camera with automatic HDR function. The camera could not only create the bracketing automatically, but was also able to merge the differently exposed images to an HDRI. It already covered an enormous range of 12 f-stops or aperture stops. The aperture setting determines how much light is allowed to enter the lens and pass through to the sensor of a digital camera.

Fig 1.1 The sensor of the Nikon 800 camera can process up to 14,6 f-stops

Fig 1.2 Common Laptop with 8bit colour depths

With the HDRI tone mapping tools of special software programs, the color depth of the HDR image is reduced from 32 bit to 8 bit or 16 bit / channel. And although the data and the dynamic range of the tonemapped image are lessened it still has significantly more information than a conventional image. This is particularly evident in the bright and dark areas of a scene. A typical example is a photo of a view from the window. The dynamic range of this situation exceeds the capabilities of a common photo by far. Is not possible to show both the view out of the window and the inside of the building without over- or underexposured areas in the image. With HDRI images it is possible.

Since the beginning of the millennium, the industry is working increasingly on the improvement of camera sensors. Thus, the „Fraunhofer Institute“ developed 2008 the sensor „High Dynamic Range CMOS“, which works with a pixel-wise selection process. Its effective dynamic range of 120 dB and 50 pictures per second exceeds the possibilities of photography by far. Such cameras are used in medicine and astronomy or for monitoring systems and machine vision5. For Virtual Worlds/computer

Fig 1.3 A typical HDR image after the tonemapping

Bloch, Christian, 2003: 3 For more informations: http://www.openexr.com/

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

AEB = Auto Exposure Bracketing For practical information please refer to chapter 2

Chapter 1

The interior of the building is not underexposed whereas the view out of the window is not too bright. In the year 2003 the well known professional software for image processing Photoshop offered no tools able to process HDR images sufficiently6. The number of special software programs for the tone mapping of HDR images was

still quite rare at this time. Only since the version of Photoshop CS5, the programme delivers good results. Nowadays a range of useful software programms is available on the market as freeware or as paid programms7. HDR, so Wagner 2011, stick still in its infancy, although the concept is already decades old. Against the backdrop of the enormous potential of HDR

images, he pointed out that this technique can be seen as the biggest change in photography since the invention of the colour film8.

1.2 Theoretical Introduction to HDRI Photography At present common output devices such as screens and printers are still not able to show a pure HDR image. The dynamic range of the HDR photos must be reduced with the tone mapping process. In such a reduced format the image can be displayed on the screen or printed. Due to this development level the below mentioned method for producing an HDR photo that can be viewed on a screen, printed and edited with any conventional image editing programme, seems currently the best option. Three steps are necessary: 1 At first a sequence of 3-9 photos with different exposure times from the same scene is required. According the configuration of the digital camera the bracketing can be performed automatically or by manual adjustment. Depending on the type of camera you can take the bracketing shots in different file formats: RAW and/or JPEG9. 2 The photo sequence must be computed together with HDR software into an HDR image. This image has an HDR format, such as .hdr. This format cannot be shown with conventional screens because of its high dynamic range. It contains a huge amount of data providing an enormous potential for image processing. Therefore, the third step, the tone mapping, is necessary. 3 Depending on the software, the tone mapping process provides an incredible variety of creative ways to produce the final image. The result is usually saved in jpeg format and can be edited with any conventional image processing program. Below you can learn something about the theoretical background that stands behind these steps. The explanations will provide a good understanding of the HDRI photography and about the current state of development in the field of HDRI photography. Where available youâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ll find references for further information. Nowadays literature is available that provides detailed information about the technical side of the HDRI photography, in particular the work of Christian Bloch10.

Bloch, Christian, 2003: 3 More informations about the software for tone mapping can be found in the Chapters 3 and 4. 8 Wagner, Reinhard, 2011: 100

For practical information please refer to chapter 2 Bloch, Christian, 2013: The HDRI-Handbook 2.0 (E-Book + printed version), dPunkt Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 1 1.3 Colours, tones and colour models Colours are energy in different wavelengths, which can be perceived from the human visual perception system (eye, nerve, brain). The colours of a rainbow cover the full spectrum of visible light.

Fig. 1.4 The visible spectrum of light waves is between 380 and 780 nanometer

Usually we see colours which are generated from the reflection of light waves of different surfaces. If all wavelengths of light are absorbed from a surface, we see a black colour whereas the complete reflection of light can be seen as white colour.

255 for white. Each pixel of a digital image can be defined as a mixture of these three colour channels and their brightness values14. The number of the tonal values within a colour channel is specified in bits:

Two components of the human eyes are most important to see light and colours: the rods react light-sensitive and the cones perceive the colours. Colour models or colour spaces are used in order to digitise the colours in the way the human eye can perceive them. They represent the combination of light wavelength and intensity of light. Generally there exist device-dependent colour models like the RGB colour model and device-independent colour models such as the Lab colour model. The device-dependent colour models are adapted to the output devices like screens or printers in order to produce correct colours. For photography, the RGB colour space is relevant, because all screens, digital projectors, and usually ink printers produce colour in the RGB colour space. Especially in print media the CMYK colour model is also important11. The RGB colour model describes three colour channels or colour components: R for red, G for green and B for blue. There exist many different RGB colour models on the market, such as the sRGB12 colour model or Adobe RGB. The latter was developed in 1998 by Adobe as an adaption to the CMYK colour model, which is used mainly for professional print. If the devices are set to different colour spaces, it can cause problems in colour reproduction13. The levels of brightness of the RGB colours are defined in tonal values between 0 for black and

11 12

Grey, Tim, 2005: 16 ff. standard RGB

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

1 bit are 2 tonal values 2 bit are 4 tonal values 4 bit are 16 tonal values 8 bit are 256 tonal values

Digital cameras produce raster or pixel graphics, usually as a jpeg format with a colour depth of 8 bits/channel or RAW format with an enormous colour depth of 12-16 bits/channel. A 16 bit/ channel has not 256 values, but 216 = 65536 values!

Fig. 1.5 Model of an 8-bit raster graphics composed of pixel (left) and colour depth (right)

An image in HDR format has 32 bits/channel. Such a huge dynamic range must be processed back to an 8 bit-image so that common output devices such as a monitor or printer are able to display or print the image. Nowadays monitors like those from the company „EIZO“ are able to display also 10 bit/ channel images.

On the Website of „Fotovideotec“ the Adobe RGBcolour space is compared with other colour spaces. http://fotovedeotec.de/adobe_rgb/ 14 Grey, Tim, 2005: 16 ff.

Chapter 1 1.4 Dynamic Range or Range of contrast The relationship from biggest and smallest brightness of a scene is called the dynamic range. It can vary significantly from scene to scene. The scope of contrast of a digital photo can be seen for example in the tonal correction tool of an image processing programme. It is a diagram, which shows the tonal values from the brightest areas (255 = white) to the darkest areas (0 = black). If the dynamic range of an image is high, all the tonal values from 0 to 255 are available.

Fig. 1.6 Image with low dynamic range

Fig. 1.7 Image with high dynamic range

Fig. 1.8 Example for overexposured areas

Fig. 1.9 Example for underexposured areas

scenes. Light is converted into electronical signals, which are subsequently digitized by a socalled A/D converter. There are different sensors on the market. Especially since 2008 the CMOS sensor penetrated the market for photography after the elimination of initial difficulties. It is interesting that the CMOS technology allows to integrate a

variety of metadata in the same chip16. The development still not reached the end of the flagpole and Bloch predicted 2011 in his latest book that we are heading for the HDR sensor17.

The dynamic range of a scene frequently exceeds the representable range in the RGB colour space. In a conventional photo in jpeg format the exceedance can be seen as overexposed (too bright) and underexposed (to dark) areas in the image. In a digital photo the camera can show only those tonal values, which are within the capacity of the camera sensor. The sensors of modern cameras are already working with a colour depth of 10-16 bit/chanel. Thus the capacity is not 256 tonal values, but can rise till 65536 tonal values. This can be seen especially in the high accuracy of the details in the dark areas of a scene. With the respective settings of the sensors and electronic of a camera, the higher colour depth causes a significant increase of the dynamic range15. The camera sensors are the interface that produces a digital image from analogue

15 16

Marchesi, Jost J., 2011: 15f. Marchesti, Jost J., 2011: 19 f.

Until then, we have the possibility to generate an HDR image with an exposure bracketing and process it with tone mapping

Bloch, Christian, 2011: 128 ff.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 1

for common output devices. An elegant way to enhance the dynamic range significantly. The histograms of the respective images are showing, that the whole dynamic range was never reached with one single exposure. Only in the undermost image, which is a tonemapped HDR image, the histogram is showing the full dynamic range, from the darkest to the brightest tonal values.

Fig. 1.10 The figure shows an auto exposure bracketing with five single images.

1.5 Important formats for the HDRI-Photography: JPEG and RAW-format Nowadays modern digital cameras provide the photos in jpeg- and RAW format. With special software tools, the so-called RAW converters, such as the RAW converter from Adobe Photoshop CS6, the RAW files can be edited and then converted to an 8-bit format, for example a jpeg format. Raw files contain much more information than 8-bit images and have a wider dynamic range. Although RAW formats do not have the dynamic range of an HDR-image, they provide the highest amount of data in one single image, depending on

18 19

Wagner, Reinhard &amp; Kindermann, Klaus, 2010: 28 ff. Bloch, Christian, 2008: 35 ff. HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

the capacity of the sensor of the digital camera18. Often the RAW formats comprise additional metadata19. There are many different RAW formats on the market such as .raw, .nef or .dng. Since there exist no standard RAW format, the saving of data in this format is problematic. Usually RAW formats have colour depths between 10 and 14 bit/channel. Due to their higher amount of data RAW images can be processed very detailled with a RAW converter before they are converted into an 8 bit format. But still several software programmes cannot display at all any RAW formats. For output devices, for example for printers, or

Chapter 1

for the digital archiving, the RAW format must be converted into a standard format like jpeg. Jpeg files are automatically optimized by the strong increase of the mean tonal values for viewing on the monitor or for printing. This process called gamma correction causes a loss of data20. Bracketing for an HDR image can be done with both a RAW and a jpeg format. The bracketing in jpeg format already provides a high quality. In comparison, the bracketing in RAW format delivers a much larger amount of data that is available for the tone mapping of the HDRI‘s. Few years ago the storage of large amounts of data was problematic, but today with faster memory cards it can be managed very well. The loss of data caused by the gamma correction of a jpeg image is not the case with RAW formats. Wagner21 even claims that the gamma-corrected 8-bit jpeg is not suitable for any further change.

1.6. Tone mapping and HDR formats With software programmes like Photomatix, Photoshop, Fusion and others22 the images of an exposure bracketing are merged into an HDR image and saved in HDR formats. In the mid-80s GREG WARD LARSON developed the software „Radiance“ and a format in which the HDR images could be saved. It was the Radiance format (.hdr) or RGBE image format. This format stores 32 bits per pixel, 8 bits for each colour channel. It has one additional byte (8 bits) for a fourth colour channel (E) providing an exponential factor for the computation of the RGB colour channels. The trick was: the Radiance software worked with floating point numbers for the storage of brightness values. The specification of the tonal values per colour channel in the form of floating point numbers led to significantly more accurate data and the differentiation of 65,536 colours per channel. However, many colours in the bright and dark areas of a scene are not visible for human eyes. Without the use of floating points HDR images would not have been possible due to rounding errors. Meanwhile, a number of HDRI graphic file formats

are on the market23. In contrast to a jpeg format with 8 exposure values (EV) storage capacity, the HDR format can save 253 exposure values. That‘s an incredible amount exceeding the contrast between the sunlight and the deepest darkness of a cave that has about 44 exposure values. Usually in photography, it is not necessary to make more than 20 stops to capture the whole dynamic range of a scene24. With tonemapping the HDR format with a colour depth of 32 bit / channel is converted to an 8-bit JPEG format or 16-bit TIFF format. Since almost all the light data are stored in the HDR format the tone mapping provides an enormous amount of opportunities for the artistic design of the images, from a natural photo to abstract art illustration.

1.7. Software for the HDR-Tonemapping Today there is a wide range of useful HDR software on the market. Some mobile phone cameras already offer HDR functions creating a small bracketing of two or three shots and then automatically merge the photos into one HDR image. Since these are standardized functions the possibilities for an individual image processing are very limited. Software applications for tone mapping on computers have much more options. Freeware software, such as „Luminance HDR“ already produce remarkable results. Well known are the chargeable Tonemappers „Photomatix Pro“ or „Fusion“. Since the version of Photoshop CS5 this all-rounder among the image processing software provide also good HDR tools. The practical steps of the tone mapping vary with the different software programmes. Photomatix offers e.g. quite simple, but very efficient tools. In the Vir2Cope project the programme was used successfully from beginners and even from mentally retarded people. Meanwhile Photomatix can generate both 8-bit and 16-bit files from an HDR image. The tone mapped HDR images can finally be finished with any image processing programme like Gimp or Photoshop.

Wagner, Reinhard, 2011: 30 f. Wagner, Reinhard, 2011: 30 22 For more details about HDR software please refer to chapter 3 and chapter 4.

Bloch, Christian, 2012: 54 ff. More informations about the HDR-formats can be found in the book of Christian Bloch: Bloch, Christian, 2012: 35 ff. HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 1

1.8. Pseudo HDRI

Index Chapter 1

Since we need to shoot a series of images with different exposures to generate an HDR image, this multishot technique is not suitable for moving subjects. Here, the pseudo HDR comes into play. A pseudo HDR can be created from a single image in jpeg- or RAW format. A RAW format would be better, because it has a higher dynamic range and provides more data for the image processing. First from one image multiple image files are saved with different levels of brightness. Then the images with the different brightness are tonemapped like a bracketing. Of course an LDR image25 is far away from being an HDR image. But for some subjects, especially for moving subjects, the pseudo HDR provides significant results. You can find more about pseudo HDR in chapter 15 from Luigi Tolotti.

Adobe-RGB Bracketing Brightness Range CMOS-Sensor CX1 Debevic Paul Dynamic Range Exif-data Fattal, Raanan Floating Point Number Gamma correction Gamut Greg Ward Larson HDR JPEG LDR Luminance Open-EXR Oppenheim Pseudo-HDRI Radiance-HDR RAW-Format Reinhard, Erik RGB-Colour model Rendering RAW-Format Ricoh sRGB Tonemapping Tonwert

LDR = Low Dynamic Range HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 2

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 2

The Camera settings for HDRI auto bracketings from Matthias Gessler For the HDRI multishot technique you generally have to keep off all automatic settings of your camera. Exception: The aperture priority can be used At first select the programme A/AV. This programme fix the aperture and leads to a constant depths of sharpness in the autobracketing.

Fig. 2.1 Programme A/AV to fix the aperture

Set the camera to manual focus. This allows you to lock the focus and to avoid, that the sharpness of the images of a bracketed exposure sequence is not differently adjusted by an auto-focus. Turn off the automatic white balance on your camera. Manually select an appropriate white balance, for example, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sunâ&#x20AC;?. Thus the photos of the bracketing obtain a consistent colour temperature.

Fig. 2.2 Adjust your camera on the manual focus

Fig. 2.3 Fix the white balance

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 2 Camera setting for “bracketing” In the menu of Nikon cameras the option for “bracketing” is the “BKT”, whereas in the menu of Canon cameras it is the option “AEB”. Some cameras have buttons for the bracketing function directly on the camera body.

HDR shooting without a tripod can be done best with the “exposure series.” With a tripod the exposure brackets are sharper. For indoor areas and darker scenes with longer exposure times tripods are a must.

Select at least three exposures for the sequence of photos, namely: -2, 0, +2. More exposures are also possible, for example -2, -1, 0, +1, +2. Bracketing with three exposure levels tend to generate sharper HDR images while bracketing with more images could lead to an HDR-image with a finer colour gradation and also deliver good results even of scenes with a very high contrast. Fig. 2.6 Camera setting “exposure series”

Select ISO 100 or 200. High ISO values generate too strong image noise for HDR images. Never use the ISO automatic.

Fig. 2.4 Camera setting for bracketing

Fig. 2.5 Scheme of HDR multishot technique HDRI with: -2 0 +2

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Fig. 2.7 The ISO value for HDRI

Fig. 2.8 Scene with a high contrast

Fig. 2.9 Scene with a low contrast

The HDR multishot technique is good for images of scenes with high contrast and low contrast as well. The HDR multishot technique is suitable for scenes without movement since exactly the same scene must be photographed several times and afterwards the photos are composed together. Alternatively one can make a Pseudo HDR1 from scenes with movements. The range of contrast can be enlarged with this method. A Pseudo HDR should be generated preferably with a RAW format.

More information about Pseudo HDR can be found in chapter 15 HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 2

Fig. 2.10 Pseudo HDR made from a photo in RAW-format

The equipment for HDRI Photography The equipment for HDRI is rather simple. There is no need to buy a special digital camera for HDRPhotography. Usually with all digital cameras you can make a manual bracketing, many of them already have auto-bracketing functions. As already mentioned, a tripod and a remote release are necessary things for HDRI. Like in the common photography a lens hood is used to avoid lens flares, a polarising filter and a grey filter are also useful accessories in the photo bag. To process the HDRI on the computer there are several useful software programmes on the market like Photoshop or Photomatix and also Freeware like Picturenaut2.

Keywords Camera settings Exposure series

More information about software for HDR image processing can be found in the chapters 3 and 4.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 2

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HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 3

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 3

Freeware for HDR image editing von Gabor Kohlrusz This chapter will present how to set up an HDR workflow that uses software that are free to acquire and free to use. We will show you what tools you can use to develop RAW images and then use them to merge HDR images that you can tone map to become presentable LDR images after a few step in post process. A typical HDR workflow in most cases contains the following steps: shooting images catalogue them develop RAW files align images de-ghost images merge HDR pictures tone map them into LDR fine tune the images in post process recreate metadata publish the images Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be afraid, a workflow does not necessarily contains every step from the above list. There is more than just one that you may wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to use, but these are the basic steps we can download software for. The shooting and publishing steps are not part of this chapter, we will focus only those that uses some kind of freely downloadable software in the workflow. Catalogue The simplest way to manage your images is a well formed directory and symlink1 structure based on date, tags, categories, rankings, sources, etc... This is not something a beginner would like to do, since it can be a very tedious and tiring job if you have a lot of pictures. Instead of having your own method to catalogue the images there is a lot of solution to store and manage the files we create and you should choose carefully. If you start to use one of them it is not easy to change the software later on without having to rearrange your photos manually. Thanks for the Internet and all the people out there, this is the workflow step where we have the widest choice of software we may use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 3

XnView2 While XnView is not open source it is still free for private or educational use including non-profit organizations so I took a deep breath and included it in this list despite of the chapter title. It has functions to filter the images, give them color codes any kind of text tag or category either from a predefined set or custom values. And of course there are stars to rank images based on whatever attribute we may find useful. For every image you may browse the parameters, the added EXIF data, and get a histogram for the different color channels (red, green, blue) or the whole luminosity channel. XnView knows almost all image formats we may encounter through this workflow. It has the ability to give you a useable view of camera RAW files too, and even HDR images can be previewed. The program has capabilities for batch processing of images when we have to work with a lot of similar

http://www.xnview.com

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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pictures. The scripting function has tools starting from simple image transformations and converting, to more advanced image manipulation methods like setting black and white point or changing color balance. This functions are reachable from the user interface through the menus too if you want to understand how they work, what they do or you only have to change a few picture step by step. Take your time here before building a script with the selected

functions. If you have time you can register third party programs to open the selected images from XnView directly with only a key command, so you won’t have to drag and drop the images in Windows or open the images in the given programs. This can speed up your workflow a lot if you are getting lazy clicking around the user interface and start to use keyboard shortcuts for a faster image processing.

Raw processing Our first tab gives us opportunity to change the exposure in our picture. To a limited degree we can change the shadows and highlights with highlight reconstruction and tone map the raw image.

If your camera’s manufacturer provides you a free software to process your RAW images, then your best option is to use that software. No one knows better the RAW images that your camera creates for you then the given cameras manufacturer. What if you don’t have this possibility or just want to use a different toolset to process your images? Rawtherapee3 can help you. Rawtherapee is a raw image processor and even more. It has image catalogue functions and metadata management functions too. The reason I don’t advice using it as a catalogue program is that its functions are based around raw processing. The rest of the software is not as fast and sophisticated as a dedicated catalogue program. Other shortcoming of Rawtherapee is that it does not know many common image format out of the box beside the raw images. Anyway we are here for the raw development part of the software so this is fine for us. While working with this program you will not alter the source image. It creates a sidecar file that

Fig. 1 Tab 1

contains all information about the changes you made to the given image (with a .pp3 extension). This method allows us to redo all the changes we applied on the image and start over, or get back to a given point in the processing to find a better way to improve the image. After loading the raw image to the editor we can find most of the tools at the right side of the window: I will mention only the most important ones:

Rebalancing the lights and using the tone mapper can result an image that is presentable by itself if we are in a hurry or want to get a low quality preview of the scene. The problem with this option – and the main reason I mention it here – is that Rawtherapee automatically applies the auto level exposure function. This is something we don’t want since we are going to use these images to create HDR pictures from them, so we better remove the checkmarks before moving forward. The third tab is about color management. The most important part here is to set the color profile of our raw images to the one that our camera is using. This way we get more accurate colors from the raw files. The digital camera profile – usually a file with .dcp extension - is a set of data that helps the raw processor getting the correct color information from the raw

http://rawtherapee.com HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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DCP files. Just check the images at figure 1 and 2, it is clearly visible how the colors changed after applying the right camera profile. This means that we must get our cameraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s color profile either from the manufacturer or from Adobe with downloading their DNG Converter5 (although it is from Adobe this package is still free to download and use). The Converter contains a lot of common camera profile categorized by manufacturer. As I mentioned earlier, look for the files with .dcp extension.

Fig. 2 Tab 3

images, so it is pretty important to have right one. You may find more detailed information regarding these profiles in the dcpTool4 webpage. The little program there can help you check or even change

The fifth tab contains tools to transform the image. What we need from here is the Lens/ Geometry option. With this tool we can reduce the possible geometric distortion effects6 (barrel, pincushion or mustache) that are caused by the lens we were using while shooting the

Fig. 5 Tab 5

selected scene. Doing so will reduce the sharpness of the image, so it is possible that we lose detail with applying this function. We should use it only if it is really important. Scenes with organic or natural content may not need this kind of correction at all (we can avoid the possible data loss too), but we will have to use

Fig. 3 Before DCP

Fig. 4 After DCP 4 5

http://dcptool.sourceforge.net https://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.js p?product=106&amp;platform=Windows

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion_(optics)

Chapter 3

Fig. 6 Before LCP

Fig. 7 After LCP

this function almost always while shooting scenes that has a lot of straight lines like artificial environments. Since this distortion is a characteristic of the lens we are using, getting the correct lens profile may help a lot, unless you like to play with the sliders. The lens profile is another data set but this time, it is a lens specific dataset. It tells the program how a given lens distorts the scene, and how it can be corrected. Adobe DNG Converter contains a lot of common lens profiles too, and since we already have it just get the right one to load it into Rawtherapee. This time you should look for a file with .lcp extension. Still in the fifth tab we have the tools to reduce vignetting. This is the darkening we may notice at the borders and at the corners of our shoots. The further the pixels are away from the center of the image the more noticeable the effect. Using the right equipment we can avoid this effect entirely, but if we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have luck with our gear, we can still use this function to get rid of this effect. Vignetting is another lens characteristic that is very easy to correct once we have the lens profile from previous step.

The last step in Rawtherapee can be the reduction of chromatic aberrations that is another common lens error/characteristic that too depends on the lens we use. Visible in images as colored fringes or colored blur, between the bright and dark areas of the image. Again just like with vignetting, the effect is the most noticeable in the corners and edges. Zoom into such an area and use the pair of sliders to adjust the correction of the red channel (red-cyan fringes) and the blue channel (blue-yellow fringes). Since this is a lens specific error just like vignetting and distortion, if we have a good lens profile a simple checkbox in the lens correction profile group will do the trick. After these basic steps if we are satisfied with the result we can export the developed image to either a .jpeg, a .tiff or a .png format and move forward to the next step.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 3

Align images Now that we have our developed images we can move on in the workflow. The following step is not always necessary, but there may be a need to align the images. Always better to use a tripod or something else to provide a stable platform for our camera while shooting the brackets especially if you shooting in low light environment with longer exposure time, but there are situations when we simply cannot set up our equipment to get the best results. In these occasions we may have to align the images after the raw development. We can use a simple tool that is part of the Hugin - Panorama Photo Stitcher. Hugin7 is designed to create panoramic pictures from a series of images even in HDR (check the example below), but for now we need only the part that aligns images. This program is called align_image_ stack.exe8. We can find it in Huginâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s directory after installing the package. Since this is a command line 7 8

program, we have to define its behavior with a few parameters:

quality images we will need some preparation.

align_image_stack -c 24 -i -x -y -a aligned_ *.tif

I am going to show is a method that we use to remove ghosts that are produced by simple movement like birds, people or cars. In such a case our most obvious option is to wait the right moment, and if something messes up our scene just wait a bit more and try again.

This command will tell the program to take all images with .tif extension, and align them along the horizontal and vertical axis, re-center the image if needed and increase the number of control points to 24 for a more accurate aligning. The resulting images will be saved with an â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;aligned_â&#x20AC;&#x2122; prefix in the same folder. The folder we use should contain only the images we have to align. These images are ready to de-ghost them in needed. De-ghost Ghosts in HDR images produced by moving objects such as flags or trees, people walking around, birds or clouds or anything that changes position between the shoots of the bracket. Removing these artefacts is a very timeconsuming job if possible at all. In most cases the de-ghost functions provided by the HDR merger software may provide you some result, but to produce higher

http://hugin.sourceforge.net http://wiki.panotools.org/Align_image_stack

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

The real problem with this approach is that the right moment may never come. A second option is to shoot more than just one bracket and combine images of the same exposure value with Imagemagick9. Imagemagick is a program package that is designed to manipulate images from command line. It has tools to convert, identify, create, compose and distort images. There is a lot of other use of this package, but what we need for now is the function that merges the images (convert.exe10) and while doing so, removing the aforementioned elements from

http://www.imagemagick.org http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-lineoptions.php#evaluate-sequence

Chapter 3

the scene. In the example below you can see a series of five images from a mid-exposure of a bracket. After moving the images into a folder this command will do the magic:

offers solutions for both HDR and LDR manipulation. Such programs are Luminance11 and Picturenaut12. While different programs use different algorithms and different file formats to

is the HDR of the panoramic example from a few pages above. It was created with Hugin, saved as an EXR, and tone mapped later with Luminance.

HDR â&#x20AC;&#x201C; LDR

produce and store these merged images both of these programs can save the result in ILM OpenEXR13 and SGI LogLuv14 format. EXR has better precision; LogLuv has greater dynamic range and smaller files, and both of them cover the entire color visible color space.

If you are interested in detail how these HDR files works, check the page of Gregory Ward15. It has very good explanations and tests about HDR formats with pros and cons and not just these two. There is no winner or best solution of course, just possibilities.

The next step in the workflow is creating some HDR images (finally) and tone map them into LDR images. Actually these are two steps, but most programs

This can be important if we want to extend our possibilities: we can create HDR with one of program and tone map with the other or vice versa. An example for this

Picturenaut

convert *.tif -evaluatesequence median out.tif The resulting image is free from any moving object if we have enough source files. Enough is a relative term, the more the movement in the scene the more images you will need. The exact number is something you have to find out with using this method. An added bonus of this method is that the process reduces the noise, and can give extra sharpness to an image. This can be very useful when shooting with high ISO that produces a lot of extra noise such as shoots taken in low light.

http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net http://www.hdrlabs.com/picturenaut 13 http://www.openexr.com

Picturenaut is a simple app, best used for creating HDR but as I mentioned earlier it has functions

http://www.anyhere.com/gward/papers/jgtpap1.pdf http://www.anyhere.com/gward/hdrenc

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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for tone mapping too. After loading the LDRs we will have to set the exposure bias of the images, and to get the best

lot while generating the HDR to reproduce the right colors. If you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have this curve the program will try to determine it based on the pictures you are working at the moment. Simple image align and deghost functions are present if we are in a hurry and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have time to use the previously mentioned methods to prepare the images.

Fig. 4 After LCP

possible results we better have a calibrated camera curve too. This curve will help Picturenaut a

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Through the merge process we get a few information, containing the estimated EV span and dynamic

range of the created HDR. Picturenaut has four different methods for tone mapping, that it calls Dynamic Compression. After we select one of them from the dropdown menu the possible fine tuning options will appear just below the selection. If we find suitable settings we can save them to reuse later or to automate the tone mapping process through simple command line scripts. This can be a great help to work with a lot of images with similar settings. HDR time laps is a possible example for this kind of image process. The resulting image can be saved as jpg or png for the next workflow phase.

Chapter 3

has a window where we can manually adjust these two functions.

Luminance Luminance is a much robust program then Picturenaut. It has two different algorithms for generating HDR and options like response curve and weighting functions to fine tune the working of these algorithms. It can read the exposure information from the image file if the values are still there, but gives us the possibility to further refine them. Align and de-ghost functions can be found too, and the program

Since Luminance is a graphical user interface for pfstools15 the functions it uses for tone mapping are the same. The more notable methods are the Drago that creates images with true tone results but less detail, the Durand that creates highly realistic LDRs, the Fattal that amplifies smaller details, the Reinhard 02 that is designed to be realistic with clear details, the Reinhard 05 that is a realistic tone mapper that does not enhance the details and may look a bit blurred and the Mantiuk 06 for highly detailed but very unrealistic images. You can find more information of the working of these methods in the pfstools homepage.

performance reasons, so before creating the final image you will have to set the desired rendering resolution. Since the low and high res image may not be the same in contrast and saturation, be ready to change the slides of the operators even after rendering the high res preview. As we can see the different methods are not equally strong in every field of HDR creation or tone mapping, but most of these shortcomings are manageable through the fine tuning of the images in the post process phase. So letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s continue there.

Luminance will show you the results of the selected operator in a low resolution image for

Post process For the next step Gimp16 has almost all the tools that we need to start. It may lacks a few extra filter, add-on and plugin other programs may have, but those functionalities can be reproduced with existing functions or very similar results can be achieved. A more serious shortcoming of the software is that Gimp uses only 8 bits per channel (let it be color or alpha channel), so only works with LDR images. While the next version will have up to 64 bits per channel, it is not even in the horizon yet. At the moment anything we load to Gimp is converted to an 8 bit per channel representation and sRGB color space by default, if it not there already. That means the image we load may loses information and precision with the color space conversion.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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on the selected part of the images. Gimp has a lot of filters out of the box; we can find them under the filter menu, in a categorized structure. And if it is not enough we can still find even more useful scripts and plugins in the internet thanks to the built in scripting engine, and the community around the Gimp project. The selective usage of tools is also true in case of different global adjustments too like color balance, brightness-contrast, levels and curves. Using the softwareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s different selection tools like the simple shaped or freehand selections or the more advanced color or foreground selection give us the possibility to apply the filters only

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

The aforementioned tools work almost like the ones we may find in any other not so free software. Same setting, same algorithms, same results.

With the combination of these possibilities and the using of gimpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s layer system you may combine images like the two below. Took the sky from the one that was tone mapped in Luminance with the Mantiuk 06 method (image below) and used it to replace the sky in the other one that was mapped with Fattal (image above). This way the image had details not only in the foreground but the background too (image to the right). This is just a technical example, there is much more that can be done to manipulate the LDRs before publication (curves, sharpening, levels, saturation).

Chapter 3 Metadata

Outro

But before that there is one last thing we may want to change in our image. The metadata it contains. Thorough the workflow there is a lot of chance to lose that information, but it may be important in the end. If it is, then we will have to recreate that data based on one of the source images. Exiftool17 is a command-line application that can do exactly that. We may copy the required metadata only or everything that a source image contains.

The programs in this workflow were running under Microsoft Windows 10 operating system, but since the open source community works mostly with Linux these options are usable under the most popular Linux distributions as well. Beside these there are programs that run only under a Linux or Mac. For example Darktable is a Linux only program that can be used to catalogue images and process raw files in a similar way Rawtherapee does. For Mac there is a program called HDRtist, an HDR generator and tone mapper. These are solutions I hadn’t got the chance to test yet, but give them a try if you have the time and the needed equipment. Using free software may require more time in the beginning and you may have to look for information in places you usually would not, but in return you will gain a lot better understanding how and why things works as they do. This kind of knowledge can help to find better and faster methods developing HDR images, so the invested time will pay-off.

The later can be done with the command in the screen:

Return to Contents page >

As you see it is possible to work with HDR without spending money on any software. We can spare few euro this way that we may use later on to buy a few stuff we really have to pay for.

exiftool -TagsFromFile src.jpg “-all:all>all:all” target.jpg. If we have to change the metadata after this, or just simply remove specific entries from the final image Rawterapee can be our program of choice. It has a lot of option to rewrite the data stored along with the images and delete tags that has no meaning anymore like exposure bias or shutter time. HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 4

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 4

HDRI- Software from Matthias Gessler 1 Photomatix Pro 5.0.5 2 Photoshop CS6/CC 3 Fusion 4 Luminance HDR 5 Picturenaut 3.2. 6 FDRTools Basic and Advanced

In the following chapter I will present a selection of software programmes useful for HDR image processing1. 1 Photomatix Pro 5.0.5 Photomatix 5.05 is currently one of the best HDR software programmes on the market. The programme is useful for merging bracketed series in jpeg, Tif or RAW formats to an HDR image and processing it. It is also possible to generate a Pseudo HDR with a single image in RAW format. In the Raw conversion settings the White Balance can be adjusted manually before merging. For higher amounts of bracketings or single images the batch processing function simplifies the workflow enormously. What can be done with this automatisation would otherwise need hours and days. Another useful and efficient tool of Photomatix is its tool to remove ghostpictures automatically or manually. Standards shown as small thumbnails for different tonemappings simplify the processing of the HDR images. This way one standard which fits to the HDR image can be selected. Then the finetuning can be done manually. Although the merging process is a highly complicated logarithm the programme generates the HDR image quickly. Included in this process are the alignment of source images, noise reduction, reduction of the chromatic aberration and deghosting function. For the latter there exist two different possibilities. On one hand the deghosting can be applied to the whole image, on the other hand only parts of the images can be selected for this process. Advantage of the selective deghosting is that the application is only applied to parts of the image and - due to errors in the operation of the software undesirable changes of the other parts can be avoided. 1

Informations about HDR-software can be found also in chapter 3 HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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Fig 4.1 For the automatic merging of a sequence of bracketings the setting of the deghosting tool can be 100 percent.

With the tool „Selective Deghosting“ those parts of the image with moving objects are marked with the mouse.

Fig 4.2 Selective deghosting with Photomatix.

Before the tonemapping the merged 32 bit HDR image can be saved in different formats like .hdr (Radiance RGBE), .exr (OpenEXR) and .tif (Floating Point TIF). Saving the HDR image before the tone mapping enables us to try different tone mappings from the HDR image without the use of merging the bracketed sequence of source images all the time. With an appropriate screen the 32 bit HDR images could be watched without tone mapping. Although such HDR screens already exist, they are still not available on the market. Photomatix provides a lot of different useful tools for the tone mapping. This makes the tone mapping to an highly creative process that enables the user to distribute the huge amount of data of HDR images in very different ways. In the 64 bit version

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Fig 4.3 The formats available for saving HDR images in Photomatix are shown in a drop down menu after having clicked at the option „save as“.

the continuously updated preview of the images due to the change of the adjustments simplify the workflow enormously. The user-friendliness of the programme is excellent. Although there are many possibilities to process the images, good results could be quickly achieved. After the tone mapping the image should be reworked generally with a common image processing programme like Gimp or Photoshop. Such programmes provide efficient tools like contrast, colour corrections or sharpening, which are usually not available in pure tonemappers like Photomatix. As already mentioned Photomatix has an integrated tool to batch the merging of bracketed image

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Fig 4.4 Photomatix offers many different ways to process HDR images.

Fig 4.5 After the tone mapping with Photomatix the finetuning like colour, contrast and sharpness of the image is done with a common image processing programme.

sequences into HDR images. This tool simplifies and accelerates the workflow enormously. 500 1000 shots during a photo session with bracketings are a common thing, but the processing could be challenging without using batch function.

The batching function of Photomatix provides as much tools as the single processing of a bracketing, for example deghosting, reduce noise or align the source images. The automatization process is running smoothly if all bracketed sequences have the same number of images. Additionally it is good to put all sequences in a separate folder before the batching.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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Fig 4.6 Batching of bracketings with Photomatix.

2 Photoshop CC/CS6 With Photoshop you can merge bracketed series and tone map them to a 32 bit HDR image with the tool „Automate > Merge to HDR“. Before the tone mapping, the HDR-images can be processed or HDR-panoramas can be produced with the tool „Photomerge“ . If you want to make an HDR panorama out of 5 single bracketed series, you merge each of the 5 bracketings and save them as an HDR image. Then you merge the 5 HDR images to a panorama and tonemap it accordingly2. The browser window in Fig. 4.7 offers the option to select the bracketed image series on your computer. Additionally there is an option to align the images automatically. It is good to activate this function generally. Especially if no tripod was used for the bracketing the automatic alignment of the images with Photoshop is very helpful.

Fig 4.7 Selection of bracketed series on the computer with Photoshop.

After having merged the series of different exposures Photoshop automatically opens the browser window for the tone mapping process. You can save the 32 bit HDR image after the tonemapping if you click at the working step „32 bit preview option“ in the protocol window. This way the HDR image can be used for different tone mappings according the personal taste.

More informations about HDR-Panorama can be found in chapter 14

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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Fig 4.8 For this image the preset setting for tone mapping „scott5“ from Photoshop was used.

Photoshop offers different standards for tone mapping in 8 or 16 bit colour depths. Here the local adaption method offers the most options for differnt tone mappings. Even professionals for image processing like Scott Kelby developed tone mapping standards for Photoshop, like the standard „scott5“3. Fig 4.10 Photoshop CS6/CC offers 4 different preset settings for tone mapping.

Fig. 4.9: A slight S in the gradation curve of the preset setting „Scott5“ from Photoshop.

shows the tonal values as they are wheras the y-axis shows all modifications that were made with the gradation tool. Set an anchor point with a mousclick on the curve. The latter can be modified by moving the mouse on the anchor points. The tonal values change accordingly. With a little practice very good results can be achieved. Scott Kelby generated also a slight S in the gradation curve of his HDR Photoshop preset setting „Scott5“.

The local adaption mode allows also to work with the gradation curve, which is a highly efficient tool for tonal value correction. To work with the gradation curve is first a bit tricky and needs some experience. The tool is a diagonal straight line representing a linear function (y=x) in a two-dimensional coordinate system. The x-axis 3

Fig 4.11 You can uncheck the box to eliminate one or more images from the merge.

See also Scott Kelby, 2013: Photoshop Digitalfotografen: Erfolgsrezepte zum Arbeiten mit CS6 und CC HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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format as a „Radiance (.hdr)“ you just turn back to the „32-bit preview option“ in the protocol window after the tone mapping. I prefer the Radiance format over the PSD format because of the much smaller size of the file without greater loss of data. 3 Fusion With the free HDR programme Fusion you can generate HDR images out of bracketings or out of single RAW images. The user interface of the programme is easy to understand.

Fig 4.12 Photoshop offers several options to save 32-bit formats.

Speaking on the gradation curve Christian Bloch remarked: “If you master the curves, the force will be with you. You’ll be able to reshape the tonal range just the way you want it.”4 The simple tonemapping tool offers vast possibilities of designing.

the tone mapping by removing the small green check mark below the thumbnails with the mouseclick. But usually it is not necessary. Now I would like to turn to the possibility to save HDR images in a 32-bit format. This feature from Photoshop is very useful, because

Fusion provides two main options to process bracketings: the Summation Operator for fusion5 and the HDR Operator for tone mapping. Both modes - tone mapping and fusion offer different features for the individual processing of the HDR images. In a histogram you can follow all modifications of the

With the modus „exposure and gamma“ you can change the respective parameters, while the tools „light compression“ and „equalize histogram“ only generate a result without the possibility to process the image individually. These tools mainly focus on brightness adustment. The gradation tool is only visible in the mode „local adaption“. After the merging of the bracketed images into the 32bit HDR image, the thumbnails of the single source images still can be seen at the bottom of the screen (Fig. 4.11) There is the possibility to eliminate individual images from 4

Fig 4.13 Bracketing in the „Summation Operator“ of Fusion.

the 32-bit formats can be used for different tone mappings without the need to merge the bracketed source images always before the tone mapping. To save the 32-bit

Bloch, Christian E-Book HDR Photography 2.0

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tonal values. The programme has seven different defaults for tone mapping, but there are no previews of the results available like in Photomatix.

The so called exposure fusion is also a combination of bracketed images, but is technically simpler. More detailed information about fusion can be found in the HDRI handbook 2.0 (2012) from Christian Bloch.

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bracketing. You can trim the images automatically in two different ways, with the „Hugins Align_image_stack“- mode or the „MTB“ - mode. Which mode you choose and which threshold for the deghosting function is difficult to decide intuitively and also dependent from the images. Before you continue with the next step click at the option „advanced tools“ in order to make more processing tools of the programme visible. An assistant to generate HDR images will open in a new browser window (Fig. 4.17). Fig 4.14 The tools in the Summation Operator from Fusion.

This assistant provides 6 modes to generate an HDR image, but without previews of the results.

Adjustments with the respective sliders are visible after a few moments. Unfortunately the 32bit format cannot be saved in this programme version. But after the tone mapping the images can be saved in 8-bit or 16-bit formats like BMP, jpeg, Tiff 8 and Tiff 16. On the whole the programme was intuitive to use while generating acceptable results. 4 Luminance HDR The free programme LuminanceHDR (formerly Qtpfsgui) can be used to generate HDR images. The current programme version 2.4.0 was tested. Some features like the upload of the source images, were easy to use. For other features there was a need to have prior knowledge. If you roll over cursorsensitive fields and icons brief informations about the tools occur in a small window. As an opensource programme the software is under constant development so that the tools and the graphic interface can change

Fig 4.15 Seven different defaults for the tone mapping in the Tone Mapping Operator from Fusion.

quite fast. In the internet there can be found quite a lot of useful tutorials for Luminance providing quick informations about the current version. In the Browser-Window for uploading the bracketed images there are options for automatic deghosting and for the automatic alignment of the images. Both should be activated even if you have used a tripod for the

Without prior knowledge you only can try out the functions. For beginners I would advice to use the mode 1. Advanced users have the option to compose userdefined settings. During the processing of an HDRimage the processing steps cannot be reversed. You have to start from the beginning if you want to change something in the HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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process. For the tone mapping of the 32-bit HDR image there are several default options available. In a panel on the right side of the screen there are thumbnails showing a preview of the effects of the respective defaults. Click at the thumbnails for the presets to process the image accordingly. Each preset for tone mapping has tools for the fine-tuning. After you have moved the sliders of the tools for fine-tuning, the effect becomes only visible after a click at „apply“. That makes the processing a bit laborious. But with a little practice you can achieve good results. If you reduce the size of the preview of the LDR image, the effect appears significantly faster.

Fig 4.16 Browser window to generate an HDR image in Luminance 2.4.0.

The preset „Fattal“ is interesting because of its additional tools to adapt the values for brightness and white balance. Luminance offers a range of LDR formats to save the tone mapped images. You can save also the 32-bit HDR images in different formats like OpenEXR (*.exr), Radiance RGBE (*.hdr) and HDR TIFF (*.tiff).

Fig 4.17 Second window to generate HDR images: assistant to generate HDR images.

Fig 4.18 Thumbnails of the available presets allow a quick selection of a suitable tone mapping. 48

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Fig 4.19 Tone mapping with the operator „Fattal“ in Luminance.

Overall the programme needs a little practice but is quite efficient. It remains to be wished that instead of the manual actualisations the effects of the tone mapping tools become automatically visible after having moved the respective sliders.

Fig 4.20 Loading source images and different features in Picturenaut

5 Picturenaut 3.2 Picturenaut is an opensource programme for Windows user developed in Germany. It describes itself as the fastest tone mapper of the world. In the internet there can be found several good tutorials which are useful for the operation of the programme6. To generate HDR images source images in jpeg, tiff or

RAW formats can be used. The bracketed sequence of images can be loaded in the programme with the option „File > Generate HDR“. The filter options „exposure correction“, „deghosting“, „colour balance“ and automatic image alignment“ are clearly arranged. The operating field „curve“ refers to the camera response curve indicating the relationship between the incoming light to the camera sensor and

For example the tutorial from Marc Mehl and Christian Bloch, 2008: http://www.hdrlabs.com/picturenaut/Picturenaut.pdf HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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the pixel values of the digital photo. When you start with the programme it is helpful to work with the standard setting at first.

Fig 4.21 Display of a 32 bit HDR image in Picturenaut.

Also the function „weighting“ which refers to the weighting of the pixel values of the differently exposed images of a bracketing for generating an HDR image, should remain in the standard setting at first. Experience has shown that, if the bracketing was produced with constant exposure steps like +1, 0, -1, the weighting of the single photos for generating an HDR image remains the same. Exposure time, aperture and EV (exposure value) of the source images are shown clearly in a table (Fig. 4.20). The HDR image is computed quickly. The display of the HDR image can be set to be brighter or darker. For the tone mapping with Picturenaut 4 different presets are available: bilateral, exposure, adaptive logarithmic, photoreceptor. Each of the presets comprise 2-4 different tools for the individual finetuning of the images. In a histogram the effect of the tools on the distribution of the tonal values can be seen very good.

Fig 4.22 Various settings, histogram and gamma correction for the tone mapping with Picturenaut.

Fig 4.23 Formats to save images in Picturenaut.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

I would especially recommend the mode „Photoreceptor“ for the tone mapping. This mode allows to regulate moderately the colours and provides the possibility to deactivate the tools automatic luminance and automatic contrast. Thus the luminance and contrast can be regulated manually, adapted to the respective HDR image. Finally the tone mapping tool from Picturenaut allows only few own creativity compared with other programms like Photomatix. You can save images in 8-, 16- and 32-bit formats. Depending on the

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number of bits you selected, the programme offers several formats in separate drop down menues to save the images (Fig.4.23). It is a practical solution offering a lot of different formats. Altogether Picturenaut is a userfriendly software with several useful tools. The resulting images were coloured rather reservedly. A reworking with a common image processing programme was necessary.

Fig 4.24 Uploading process of the bracketing in FDRTools.

Fig 4.25 On the left side of the screen a bracket series with three differently exposed images is loaded. The images are shown as thumbnails. On the right side of the screen you see the 32-bit HDR image generated out of the three single images.

6 FDRTools Basic and Advanced Whereas FDRTools Basic is Freeware, the Advanced-Version is liable to cost7. The most important difference is that FDRTools Advanced is offered as a 64-bit version, faster and useful for higher quantities of image processing. With FDRTools you can generate HDR images and tone mapping them. A

very comprehensive and well constructed compendium from Andreas Schรถmann makes it easy to get started with the programme. The download of the E-Book is available for free on the programme homepage. Since the programme is not so easy to handle, the compendium is very helpful. FDRTools offers tools to batch bracketings and generate several

The price for FDRTools advanced 2.6.2 is 39 Euro (last update: 1st of February 2016) HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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HDR images automatically. In the following example I selected a bracketing with 3 images in a nef-format. After having them selected and uploaded into the programme with a click on „Edit“, they appeared as thumbnails with a questionmark. During the upload of the images a bar graph showed the progress of completion. Basically the tool to align the source images of a bracketing automatically is already standard of the opensource tonemappers. They are based on different efficient and complicated logarithms which could be also a source of error in the image processing. Therefore it is recommendable to use a sturdy tripod and a remote release for the photography of bracketings in order to get a good alignment of the single photos.

Fig 4.26 Tone mapping with FDRTools. Many of the processes are visible in the gradation curves.

In the menu „Window > Tools“ you can find a useful tool in form of a pipette to change the white balance setting when producing an HDR image. If you want to save a 32-bit image before the tone mapping you can find in the menu „images > save as“ many 32-bit formats to save the image. Three different possibilities are offered to generate HDR images: „Average“, „Separation“ (if you want to remove ghost pictures) and „Creative“. In Fig. 4.25. the option „tone mapping“ can be seen easily as an icon in the upper menues. After a click at this icon the different options for tone mapping appear. For the tone mapping 4 presets are available: Identity, Simplex, Receptor and Compressor. With the preset Compressor the tone mapped HDR-images get a very natural appearance. In the respective sub-menus of the 52

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Fig 4.27 HDR image after tone mapping with FDRTools Basic.

presets you find more features for individual reworking of the images. Whereas the mode Identity provides the fewest features, Compressor provides the most. In the modes Simplex, Receptor and Compressor you can practically work with the gradation curve by setting anchor points on the curve. To save the images after tone mapping you select the option „Save“ to open a new browser

Fig 4.28 FDRTools offers a huge amount to save images in 32-bit, 16bit and 8-bit formats.

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window. If you click at the menu point â&#x20AC;&#x17E;file typeâ&#x20AC;&#x153;, there are offered many different formats in which you can save the tone mapped images. Conclusion The first steps in HDR image processing can certainly be done with a free software providing tools to merge sequences of differently exposed images to a 32-bit HDR image and to tonemap such images to 8-bit or 16-bit formats that can be used for common output devices like screens or printers. Several of these programmes like FDRTools Basic or Picturenaut already deliver very good results. Which programme is being used depends on personal taste where the graphic user interface of the programmes and the ease of use are essential factors. Nevertheless it is worth to spend a short familiarisation period to get started with freeware that offers more tools. For the free programmes are usually comprehensive tutorials available in the internet. For the long-term and comprehensive use of the HDR technique it makes sense to buy a programme. The most popular and efficient HDR software is Photomatix. The programme convinces especially with multiple creative features for tone mapping, ease of use and excellent results. Other useful options like batching, deghosting or alignment of the source images are also available.

The quality/price ratio is very good. Nevertheless, those who are working already with the image processing software Photoshop can use also this programme for HDR processing. I have both, but prefer Photomatix for HDR image processing and use Photoshop to rework the results. For all tone mapped images it is strongly recommended to rework them in a common image processing programme. Especially sharpening is important, since the resulting images of multishottechniques become generally a bit blurred due to the whole image processing.

Index directory HDR Software Photomatix Photoshop CS6/CC Luminance Picturenaut FDRTools Basic FDRTools Advanced Fusion Gradation curve Selective deghosting Batching Photomerge Scott Kelby

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HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 5

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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HDR in practice for practice von Dagmar Pokorná HDR – verbatim High Dynamic Range Imaging HDRI, its main meaning is to save pictures to the widest possible range of positions between the lightest and darkest points of each image. Simply said, the human eye can capture both bright and dark spots. A camera in basic set captures points, which were set at first. Therefore, either it takes a picture of dark spots and objects that are close in front or it hasretained the distant sky appearing as a bright spot in the photo, or vice versa, capturing the sky, but the object in front of the lens remains lackluster, flat. The human eye sees well while subjects is placed in the shade or sun. However, the sensor chip camera can not capture such wide range of tones, neither monitor can display such a range. HDR technology must deal not only with a limited dynamic range of the sensor chip, but also with small dynamic range monitor or paper. This is not a computer program that would have been helpful in distorting upgrading photos. It is a relatively new technique of capturing pictures, and it is a meaningful use of the possibility of almost any camera. I tis a fascinating way that allows one shot to get more information and data, in one place, than we ever had a few years back. For a better idea, let us have a look on the picture of sunset, when the sun goes down, it has got a gorgeous moment around the pink, orange clouds. This situation can shoot by sharpening the valley and the surroundings in front. Then contours of the sky and sunset will be missing at the photograph. On the other hand, we can sharpen the sky at the yellow dot of the sunset, but the valley and the rest will be dark. Chip camera simply can not cover such a big difference in exposure. And here comes the opportunity to showcase the sophisticated technique called HDR. The instrument is to set three different exposures that a computer program connects to one final photo. It is quite simple and logical technology that allows us to do impossible for the camera, and that is to capture the reality of light and shadow, as perceived by the human eye. The captured image may seem preternaturally beautiful. It may seem unusual because our eyes have got the same scene seeing correctly, the human eye captures all positions of lights, shadows and contrasts., But no camera and the material is simply not able to capture the visual perception. Certainly, using HDR technology is not just about sunset photography, this technique can be successfully used in business, industry, or trade. I tis enough to edit pictures from the office and watching the final photograph, afterwards one usually says: „Yes, this is it!“ It is completely HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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Fig 1 Detailed picture in shadow, limited light.

Fig 3 HDR image containing the dynamic range of the scene. Fig 2 Detailed picture in light, limited shadow.

different reality in the picture, where suddenly from the picture excels in the office as interior, and all that was behind the window, that is what would otherwise be just a white spot flare.

When taking the source pictures for HDR photo it is automatically considered to be a necessity to have a tripod so that we maintain the same grip on all slides.

The basis is to get at least three photos that are exposed in different modes, such as normal mode, overexposed and underexposed. As already mentioned, the HDR image is combining several frames, at least three, though certainly better results such as the number 6.9. More than 6,9 is usually not very used, because the higher the number of images, the higher demands on processing performance, and also the risk that oe of these pictures will be displaced and will thus unuseable is very likeable.

Exposure bracketing helps a lot reducing the risk of random camera shakes, or to align random motion taken by an image. Absolutely perfect condition is having the camera on a tripod whilst using a remote control that prevents most unintentional camera shakes. Selecting the exposure settings depends on the object that is being shot as a starting point, it is best to use the exposure difference of 1 or 2 stops on both sides of the underlying exposure. The exposure differential is good for landscapes, environment, architecture, if we would like to photograph people, it is necessary to reduce the exposure difference, such as 1/3 or 1/2 EV. HDR effects on skin tones would work too much and unnatural. HDR effects on skin tones would look too much and very unnatural.

For this exposure mode with exposure to HDR images are more suitable time automation that we guarantee the permanence aperture during the exposure of the individual images. If there is a change in the iris, the depth of field photos would change as well. That would cause the subsequent compilation of images blurring of the image. Since the calculation for obtaining the optimal exposure should be measured luminance distribution in the entire frame, it is recommended to take pictures using the evaluative metering. When using centerweighted metering or spot metering it is not precisely defined brightness of the image field in areas that are not directly measured. Results of these in HDR images, could be pictures that do not have the expected high quality.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

When shooting HDR it is good to turn off automatic ISO sensitivity control, or at least keep the ISO as low as possible, because linking images at high ISO would cuse that pictures had excessive noise. I tis ideal is to work at it in aperture priority mode (so we do not change the depth of field) to shoot RAW (the source file photo) to give program as much information as possible. Since the vast majority of devices can display 6-8 bit range and even quality graphics monitors, can not display 10 bit range. To make this possible

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it is necessary to do the so called Tonal mapping to a lower dynamic (bit) range. These mapped images are called HDRI (although they are often mistakenly referred as HDR), thus High Dynamic Range Image. HDR contains 32 bit range in actual HDR format, HDRI is already HDR that has been already processed by mapping the tonality into 8 bit range and may be stored in any standard image format. HDR is suitable for scenes with high dynamic range (backlight, strong side light, the big difference of light and shadow, night shots) and allows us to be very creative while process, with other 8-bit and 16-bit image formats. Connecting these two source images can handle almost any program, but in practice many programs and tests have shown the best one is HDR Photomatix. This program connects pictures, in such a precise way that offers quite a lot of variations possible for the final display, including the preview of the final picture. The topic of HDR is often discussed, photographers´ opinion are diametrically opposed, and yet you can not tell that someone is absolutely right or absolutely wrong. The truth is that the picture should look realistically, as close to reality as possible. It is not good when the raise of contrast and colours is obvious on the photo and so the picture looks artificial, unreal, too dramatic, and tensioned. On the other hand, it is true that what the photographer sees, camera sensor does not see, and so we have the opportunity to incorporate these different perspectives into a single photo, due to the possibility of HDR Photo.

Wrong idea about HDR is it that allows you to take photos anytime during the day, in any weather conditons having the perfect result of the final picture or changes possible to be fixed in the Photoshop or Photomatix, which obviously is not true. Even though, HDR offers more flexibility while capturing scenes, it does not solve nor fixes light conditions. HDR is an excellent dynamic tool that offers converting our well-known and widespread JPEG units so that the contrast ratio was 256: 1. The great potential of HDR lies especially in landscape photography, which is most evident the difference between what we see with our own eyes and what the camera captures afterwards. HDR helps us significantly capture the right mood of nature, wonderful panoramas, sunrises and sunsets, architecture – It is a captured image, which was the first evaluation provoked amazement, experience captured moments and torque. Excellent effect of HDR technique can be used particularly in the field of panoramic photography. Panoramic photo is a technique which combines several captured images into one with to expand the field of view. Often more than can be captured by the human eye. In order to create really high quality panoramic photos the original images must be taken in HDR quality. Nowadays, many companies operating online are engaged in detailed mapping of one another‘s territory and creating detailed maps. They work so precisely that in places where they have represented various local and large companies, HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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Normally scenery photographed pictures compared to our experience of HDR looks less dramatic, dull, the skyâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s either overly contrasty or lost somewhere. Much earlier than the HDR technique has been tried, photographers realized the shortcomings of sensors and lenses tried to deploy different types of graduated filters, gray filters, just to capture a greater dynamism shown.

supplement the data in their maps not only show names of companies and their localization, but also provides files HDR panoramic photographs of interiors and exteriors of companies. Use of these panoramic photographs has a great impact not only on the orientation of maps, but also serves as an advertisement for many companies about their companies and their activity.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Who else can continue to effectively use the panoramic HDR photography? These are the towns and cities - each city or community is dependent on tourism. 360Ë&#x161; HDR panorama is a good way to let people know about the cultural activities in the city, or to show interesting sights, which visitors could come to visit. You can actually create a virtual tour composed of interesting city buildings such as the town hall,

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courthouse, museum, church and many more Furthermore, historical monuments - a considerable part of tourists seek information about the destination online before their personal expenses. A brief description of a particular place and high quality photographs - the best quality panorama HDRon websites- significantly influence tourists

decision making. Using the panoramic HDR photos can affect their decision a lot. Just like, panoramic virtual tours of museums, interesting buildings, where each virtual visitor can pass through rooms and buildings, thereby gaining a sense of interactive browsing buildings can make them lure to visit that monument to visit in person.

Other uses HDR panoramic photographs might be in the field of education, where parents can be introduced to areas of the school or kindergarten and thus also reassure be reassured that the school meets their expectations. Parents can use the virtual tour of the school to browse and view individual rooms. At higher secondary schools and universities, there are also presentation avaiable in the HDR format that is a prestige way for students who are keen to modern performance school, nowadays

choose low-quality gray photo, on the contrary, i tis the sight of quality photos that will attract eyes. For more expensive real estate is seems even more fancy and of a higher standard having the presentation of the property in HDR photos.

HDR Photography is widely used by real estate agencies, when a large amount of advertisements are chosen by a buyer who is after all the one who selects the property. Visually interesting, different from other ads that stands out catchec the eye, because buyers choose by eyes. Eyes would not

As we started with the tourism, we will also end with tourism. We will return to a hotel or restaurant. Here, almost every visitor of any hotel or restaurant seek fairly ahead how the hotel ort he restaurant looks like, at which table to sit, or how nice and cozy hotel rooms and bathrooms look

Really great, professional panoramic images are achieved by using the HDR photo.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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like. Luxurious inns have nothing to hide, on the contrary, they want to attract new customers and to their great interest show off to potential visitors everything they have to offer. The presentation of the interiors of the hotel and the restaurant is perfect once again created in in HDR quality of 360˚ skyline. In practice, it might look as though a virtual tour of the hotel before entering the hotel in real, it should be followed by a reception, restaurant, and possibly other services such as a spa, swimming pool, sauna and so on. But one thing is true - quality photos certainly form the basis of a successful HDR Photography, any downstream mistakes shall not be be fixed anymore. Panoramic HDR photos are unsurpassedly magical. One can capture with them a lot more space than into a single photo. Panoramic HDR photo is a composite of multiple photos from one position, but in a different viewing directions. With several photographs we can create a complete image around or more of the horizon which no longer fits into a single image.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

We have HDR today, which is in any case a huge step forward. Many cameras have these days HDR built into their mechanisms, as well as many mobile phones. The truth is that it is a poor example of what HDR can, in fact be capable of, but it is also a sign that it is only a matter of time before the high dynamic range becomes the norm rather than the exception. So let us watch forward to be ready for tomorrow‘s standard. And we, all photographers, let us také pictures with HDR technique, so that we have a beautiful, amazing photos, but at the same time, let us no one recognize at first sight that this technique was used when capturing a photo. However, if we are to expect in the future a real revolution in photography, HDR could be one of its objectives. The main attraction of HDR should be making magical HDR images and simply not knowing it has been used, capture the reality of an unprecedented dimension, make HDR a different reality that changes the view of the world. Therefore, a long life to a different reality!

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HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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Replication of Artworks with HDR Photography by Annamaria Castellan Draft of the study Photographing works of art has always been considered an extremely critical procedure because it requires great artistic sensitivity and respect to the artist creator of the work. How many times when visiting an exhibition do we notice that colours, texture and the three-dimensionality of a painting, a sculpture or an installation are not so faithful to the images published in catalogues, on billboards and other advertising stuff? Personally, I happened to visit the exhibition of William Turner, the greatest painter ever in my opinion, whom I totally worship because I deeply love his hues and the sublime tints of his soft and intimate atmospheres. I bought the catalogue before entering the exhibition and, painting by painting, as I was leafing through the pages to see the reproductions I noticed to my horror they were very different from the original. In essence, the colours were completely distorted. I asked myself why the reproduction of the works of such an outstanding artist was not faithful at all. I cannot figure it was a question of saving money, insufficient funds or even that the task was entrusted to a beginner with few means. I could offer my own answer but this is not the right context to debate this question. I have just brought this example to point out that there are many factors contributing to the reproduction of artworks in a faithful, coherent way. As a starting point it is necessary to learn and understand how the perception of colours works in the human eye. Colour vision The colour vision represents a complex phenomenon where three main factors intervene: the light emission, the chemical and structural composition of the matter and the relationship eye/brain. The colour perception originates from the white light hitting the surface of the objects which own the property to reflect fully or partially the light they receive. More in detail, the surface of an object retains some wavelengths and reflects some others. To see any object we need some sort of light as we are completely blind in deep darkness and can barely move and orientate just using the other senses. Only if we learn the eye functioning we can understand how we see and distinguish colours.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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By eye, here we only refer to the human eye so it is always manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye we take into account when speaking about perception since animals have the ability to see and perceive colours in a totally different way from man. The mechanism of vision The visual process begins in the eye and is completed in the brain. Objects and all the illuminated surfaces reflect parts of light. The luminous radiation reflected goes through a section of the eye until it is absorbed by the photoreceptors of the retina. The photo receptors are sensitive to three different wavelengths which correspond to the three fundamental colours, red, green and blue. From here nervous signals are generated which, sent to the brain through the optical nerve, give origin to the stimulus of colour. The eye has four main components: the optical system, the focusing system, the pupil and the retina. The optical system It is made of the cornea, the aqueous humour, the lens and the vitreous body. The cornea, the front, outer dome-shaped surface of the eye is a thin transparent layer that allows light to penetrate inside; the aqueous humour is a watery fluid that fills the space between the cornea and the lens; the vitreous body is a transparent gelatinous fluid that fills up the globe of the eye; the crystalline lens, placed behind the cornea, is like a biconvex lens whose purpose is to focus the luminous rays onto the retina. These light impulses produce on the retina upturned and miniature images of the environment around. It is the task of the optic nerve to transmit the information to the brain which will then straighten them. The focus system It provides the clear vision of the objects at any distance between the eye and the object. It is made up of the crystalline lens, placed just behind the outer surface of the eye, and a number of tiny muscles. We can picture it as a sort of transparent, flexible lens that is flat when the eye is relaxed and contracts when it is in activity, i.e. when it has to focus the objects. The clear vision depends on the degree of flexibility of the crystalline lens and changes according to the age of the individuals.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

The pupil It is the element through which the light enters the eye. It is made of a series of light sensitive cells. The iris, the coloured curtain around the pupil, regulates the amount of light that enters your eye by adjusting the size of the pupil opening. It makes it dilate in strong light and restrict when the light is poor. The retina It is the layer of tissue lining the inner part of the eye. It is made of a number of light-sensitive cells that by triggering electrical impulses transmit the images to the brain through the fibres of the optic nerve for it to process them. The function of the retina is similar to that of a camera film that captures the light impulses both in black and white and in colour. It is here that the colour vision is performed. The retina photoreceptors The photoreceptive cells of the retina are of two types: the cones that react in good direct light conditions (photopic vision) and transmit information on the colour, and the rods, insensitive to colour, but allowing a good vision in condition of poor, scattered light (scotopic vision). Cones and rods are cells that change their sensitivity according to the intensity of light and contribute to the process of adjusting the eye to light. In detail, cones are endowed with photosensitive pigments, three types of proteins, corresponding respectively to the colours red, green and blue. When the light ray strikes/stimulates the visual system the colour perceived is determined by the intensity of reaction of each colour of the cones receptors which varies according to the wavelength of the radiation reflected by the surfaces. The different combinations of the stimulations of the three receptors allow the perception of all colours. To summarize: the objects around us release a number of photons that, as they strike the retina of our eyes, cause a series of brain sensations of the visual type that we call â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;COLOURSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Thanks to this process our visual system is able to get information about the shape, movement and colour of the surrounding world.

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Eye sensitivity to colours Measurements carried out on the spectral sensitivity of single cells supply a physiological basis to explain the characteristics of the visual perception. The response of the eye to different coloured stimuli varies according to the colour as the human eye assesses in different ways the intensity corresponding to different wavelengths. However, this is a subjective phenomenon. To a yellow-green radiation (wavelength of about 555 – 560 nm) the eye responds with the highest sensitivity equal to 100%. The sensitivity to all the other lengths can be assessed in relation to this maximum sensitivity. With red radiations, or tending to infrared ray, the wavelengths are absorbed by the eye in a weaker way. The same accounts for the radiations next to ultraviolet where the wavelengths are absorbed by the cornea and the lens but do not reach the retina. The colour we attribute to a surface corresponds to the wavelengths of the light either reflected or diffused. This way, we can state that colour, shape and definition of the light/dark relationship are determined by our eyes’ processing of the light emitted by an object. One of the most interesting features of the colour vision is the subjectivity of each individual and from the above synthesis on the physiology of the human eye we can infer how complex our relationship with the colour perception may be and how subjective its detection is. Statistically it is yet possible to establish a general rule to define the colour which includes the majority of the population, leaving out pathological psychological or physiological deficiencies such as colour-blindness, achromatopsia and other visual diseases. The history of artworks reproduction Having learnt that the camera was built with the aim of reproducing the human eye and that the colour perception is subjective, now we can delve into the history of the reproduction of the works of art. Since the announcement of Daguerre’s invention the reproduction of the works of art has been considered as one of the fundamental subjects in photography. The two main qualities of the new invention, precision and clarity, have been praised even by its most stubborn detractors. For the first great photographers the reproduction of artworks represented a rather challenging and tough confrontation, above all as regards engraving.

As Henri Zerner has recently remembered, it was right on this ground that the future of art photography was mostly played. In that period, the faithful representation of a painting or drawing was the best chance for a photographer to show his skill to understand the spirit of the artist, grasp his style and reproduce it. In 1851 Francis Wey commented on the value of the paper photography in these words: “As the painter-copyist and the engraver may be competent and capable, inevitably they will end up changing the character of the model. Otherwise, they will not be able to copy it. Faced with these difficulties, we can only resort to the intervention of heliography and it is precisely in this field that this technique is called to produce wonders.“ (La Lumière, March 23, 1851) The technical limits of illumination, the difficulties in replicating the chromatic values of the canvas, the impossibility of moving the work for shooting purposes contributed to exalting the talent of the first art photographers even more. By the mid-nineteenth century there take hold the first trading attempts to spread the artworks by means of photography. In Lille, Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard starts up a printing press laboratory specialized in the printing of photographs where, on explicit request of the artists and art collectors, reproductions of architecture and artworks are made. Since 1853, the Goupil publishing company, specialized in the production and selling of hand engraving, has been selling various photographs among which those taken in Egypt by Félix Teynard. From 1853 to 1858, Goupil sells various series of works among which Notice sur la vie by MarcAntoine Raimondi illustrated by the photos of Benjamin Delessert, L’Oeuvre de Rembrandt with photos of the drawings made by the Bisson brothers and L’Oeuvre de Paul Delaroche, the first publication devoted to a contemporary artist, printed in 1858 with photos by Robert J. Bingham. In 1855, Adolphe Disdéri photographs the halls of the Universal Exposition of 1855. The editorial by the painter Edmond Lebel, recently bought by the Musée d’Orsay, includes a collection of pictures of the paintings exhibited during the exposition; HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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for sure they are images shot by Désiré Lebel, Edmund’s father, in partnership with Disdéri. These photos represent a rare and precious testimony of the event. From the middle of the nineteenth century on, Adolphe Braun spreads many photographic reproductions of works shot in the French and other countries’ museums. In December 1883 the company known under the name of ‘Ad. Braun et Cie’ becomes the official photographer of the Louvre Museum after defeating the preconceptions of the curators and management of the museum. The photographic reproduction of artworks is quite impossible without a technical knowledge Consequently, to make reproductions of works of art acknowledged as such, it is necessary to be able to use efficiently a mix of very complex techniques, which means getting a specific preparation to become a specialised photographer in this sector. Many courses are oriented to the training of photographers in artworks today. You need to avail yourself of the right tools and get some good competences such as to foresee the outcomes of the reproduction, which is an integral part of the process itself. In the event of the reproduction of a painting we can state that to photograph it you need to focus your attention on such aspects as light which must be even; therefore you will need to enlighten the work consistently by means of four lamps placed at 45° with respect to the axis photo-camera/painting and position them on the same plane as the camera. In order to reproduce the picture effectively, that is to keep the angles at 90°, you need to position the camera on the tripod in perfect axis with respect to the ground level and point it towards the centre of the painting. You must not forget to determine the proper exposure by means of a separate incident-light meter. In any case it is always advisable to make three different exposures when photographing a painting. Moreover, in order to get the highest performance both the photographer and the wall opposite the painting should never be lit and any other source of light should be dimmed. Finally, to meet all these recommendations the photographer should stand behind a black board with a hole for the lens. The practice suggests to 66

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

freeze the time suggested in the handbook and use the pair time-speed/diaphragm aperture where the diaphragm is 5, 6 or 8. It will be useless to diaphragm more as you do not need depth of field to photograph a flat subject like a painting. As far as lights are concerned, should you use continuous light lamps, a blue conversion filter or a film for artificial light are recommended. To limit the vibrations of the camera you must shoot using a flexible lead or the automatic shutter release since the camera is placed on the tripod. Nowadays, in the courses organized to be a photographer of works of art – therefore to learn the art of how to photograph a work of art – how to approach them is taken into account more and more frequently and underlies the importance of studying the work in all its aspects. Considering the manifold quantities and modalities of language present in the messages of the contemporary art it is essential to acquire the ability to understand the spirit of the work and interpret the author’s intentions. Digital shooting makes use of innovative digital cameras which, however, in many cases have not yet substituted the traditional cameras (optical bench). The courses also offer the training to develop competences as regards the reproduction of mobile painting works in diffused or oblique lighting, transillumination and any other light conditions to meet the needs required by the reproduction of contemporary artworks. Even so, it is always possible to consider the reproduction of a work of art as impossible. W. Benjamin in his famous The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Paris, 1936) maintained the uniqueness of the work of art by these words: “In even the most perfect reproduction, one thing is lacking: the here and now of the work of art - its unique existence in a particular place. It is this unique existence -and nothing else- that bears the mark of the history to which the work has been subject.” Each work (sculptures in particular) is to be viewed in the context or space where it is placed. As regards the reproduction of a sculpture artwork the issues to face are numerous and not only with reference to the way of lighting it up that theoretically could respect – and thus bring back – the lighting conditions of the works in its original context, which is often impossible and therefore disregarded most of the time. Above all, this kind of reproduction should include more

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points of view corresponding to those of the viewer who turns around the work, just to give an idea. Even a painting, especially one belonging to contemporary art, sometimes implies the movement of the viewer.... A work of reproduction, though highly defined and entirely faithful as regards the chromatic rendition, will never render the work in its context and will never give justice to the emotion you feel when viewing it directly on the spot. Anyway, the reproduction is an excellent means of popularisation of the artwork and a reference for explaining its content. Hence, we must acknowledge the great merit of the photographic reproduction of a work of art for contributing to spreading art and creating awareness and sensitivity to it, a shared heritage belonging to everybody not only to the few who can go the museums and enjoy them as they are. The HDR photography applied to the reproduction of the works of art After all that has been said above, the question to ask is: how and how much can the HDRI technique influence and improve the faithful reproduction of a work of visual art? High Dynamic Range Imaging is a digital method that liaises with high and low light and increases the definition of the image making it clearer and more detailed. For this reason, starting from the assumption that theoretically HDR can be an excellent help in the reproduction of works of art, an experimentation was carried out in the months of June and July 2015 with a well-known Trieste painter, Loredana Riavini, who accepted the proposal about the HDR reproduction of her paintings. She was then working on a very large exhibition of her paintings to open the following autumn at the Sala d’Arte of Trieste’s Town Hall and needed to reproduce her new works for her archive, the exhibition advertising and the print of a catalogue.

overexposed by 1stop, 3 shots underxposed by1 stop: ISO 100 Mode A Diaphragm 8 In contrast with the classic method for shooting a work of art and with the aim to experiment the application of this technique in difficult shooting situations, the photos were taken at the painter’s studio, which did not offer easy conditions as regards space and homogeneity between natural and artificial lights. The paintings were framed but without glass covering protection. The post-production was carried out with Photomatix pro 5 to assemble the shots and get a first setting of the image. Later on, the photographic elaboration was finished with Photoshop. The painter’s supervision was fundamental as regards the tone mapping and the hardness/ softness of details and textures as well to prevent that, though a professional, the photographer may sometimes be tempted to ‘personalize the image’ thus disrespecting the faithful reproducation of the work. As I had already curated the photographic reproduction both digital and on film of the works of some local artists for their publication in art catalogues, I have checked that HDR is definitely the technology to be employed in this field. As a matter of fact, unlike the classic methods, HDR helps the photographer to handle lights, colours, definition of details and texture of an artwork, which is very important to make it as faithful as possible. Following are some examples of reproductions of paintings in hdr and ldr:

All of her paintings were photographed with: Nikon D800 camera Nikon lens Af Nikkor 24/85 mm2.8/4 D tripod remote photo shooting The camera setting was the following: 7 shots, of which the first with a correct exposure, 3 shots

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 6

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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Before concluding my essay I wish to report the painter’s opinion on this since she is the author of the artworks and the most eligible person to express a judgement on the result obtained by using this new shooting methodology, speaking of which I addressed her some questions: Loredana, what’s important for you in the reproduction of your works and why? In the reproduction of my works I believe that the most important thing is the colour. The reproduction must correspond to the original in its shades and marks. If I have used ochre it must remain ochre and not become a sort of brighter or darker yellow.... As regards the mark then, it can be positive to reproduce only an enlarged part of the work to ‘relish’ the marks of spatula and brush. In your long years of artisitc career how have you dealt with the reproduction of your works? That’s a good question… ‘many years of artistic career’ …It’s true. Everybody knows that young artists aren’t usually rich, so as a young artist I didn’t have to deal concretely with the reproduction of my works. I made do with what the others did publishing some works of mine in newspapers or magazines on their own initiative on the occasion of some prizes received. When I started up painting again after a long pause due to marriage, children and family I began to take care also of the management of the reproduction of my works. Total disappointment! Colours that never, never reflected the reality of my works!

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Only a print shop once reproduced perfectly the colours on the invitation for the inauguration of one of my exhibitions. I thought I had found the right place but I was disappointed by them too, and the printer told me that ‘I had been lucky’ the first time…’ What suited you and what didn’t work? I found a graphic designer for my first catalogue. Perfect presentation and lay-out , well done in all its parts thanks to his help, except for the colours. I had to make do. If something worked something else didn’t. Really, the colour has always been the most difficult element to reproduce! What do you think of the photographic work made with this technique? I’d say that this technique will prove very satisfying. The photos of my latest paintings taken with this technique are definitely similar to the originals.

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What does work and what can be improved? In my opinion the photo shooting of my works was perfect. What didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work and must be improved was the printing elaboration not the photografic reproduction. Also the impression must sync with the work of the painter and the photographer. In fact, unluckily, the excellent photographic reproduction was not enough to prevent the wrong printing of the colours on the invitation card of my exhibition.

Anyway, I believe that a step forward has been made.

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Loredana Riavini is a painter utterly attached to the Istrian landscapes. With her paintings she renders the simplicity of the Istrian house, bare and humble, yet releasing an ancient, soothing family warmth. She uses spatula instead of brush and acrylic colours that, compared to oil colours, allow her quick light coating strokes on the dark ones, impossible otherwise. She prefers a hard wooden board -more similar to a wall - to canvas and to prepare it she exploits the old base used for the egg tempera (made of Bologna chalk and Caravella glue). To intensify the gritty effect of the walls, she mixes colours with various texture gels thus getting a tridimensional materic effect that seems to skip from the board. Finally, she uses a blend of shellac to dab the whole painting save the white parts. Her style is immediate. Used to painting outdoors, alone or participating in the ‘ex-tempore’, over the years Ms Riavini has patiently selected a personal range of colours for her palette and refined a particular technique of her own that allows her to reproduce the walls of the houses by simulating with her spatula the same strokes of the bricklayers slathering mortar. 88

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Each ‘domus’ in her paintings hides secrets of lost hearths (or on the way to vanish) and belongs to the vast Istrian village that the artist holds in her soul and everybody can find either adventuring on the Istrian roads or admiring her paintings.

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HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 7

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 7

Ansel Adams by Mary Gino 1 Short biography and main phases of his artistic activity “I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate.” 1 Revealing beauty and inspiring them to others was one of Ansel Adams’ aspirations encompassed in his famous statement, which became his personal philosophy all through his life both as a photographer and an environmentalist. Born in 1902 and died in 1984, Ansel Easton Adams was one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century whose professional legacy is important today as well as his innovative technique during his lifetime. His legacy entrusted to the thousands of shots left has won him worldwide fame and praise by professionals, critics and the large public. His career should probably have been that of a pianist but a trip with his family to Yosemite Park in 1916 triggered his passion for photography and nature… “the splendour of Yosemite burst upon us and it was glorious... One wonder after another descended upon us... There was light everywhere... A new era began for me.” 2 On that occasion for the first time he used a photo camera3 given him by his father. He was then 14 years old. This extraordinary experience would affect his whole life and get him to abandon his aspirations to a piano career to devote himself entirely to photography. In 1921 he published his first photographs and the following year the shots of the Yosemite Valley collected over the years were published by the Best Studio. Observing them and all the photos of his extraordinary professional life one can understand how the discipline, the care for substance and structure learnt from his music studies were reversed into his photographic technique. His 60-year career dedicated to photographing, studying, innovating, teaching and writing shows how he left nothing to the case and how his exacting craft both as a musician first and a photographer later ‘informed his visual artistry as well as his influential writings and teaching on photography’.

Ansel Adams, an Autobiography, Boston 1985 published posthumously

2 3

Ansel Adams, an Autobiography, ibid. A Kodak Brownie box camera HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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Adams’ new realistic approach to the objects of his photographing became more and more apparent during the particularly productive and experimental years of the 20s and 30s. In 1927 he produced his first portfolio Parmelian prints of the High Sierras4. His new style rejected ‘pictorialism’ that was typical of the photographers until then and also afterwards by creating different effects thanks to the variety of lenses he used, the sharp focus, the heightened contrast and precise exposure along with his darkroom craftsmanship. The collection included his famous image Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, taken with his Korona view camera using glass plates and a dark red filter to heighten the tonal contrasts. In April 1927, he stated “My photographs have now reached a stage when they are worthy of the world’s critical examination. I have suddenly come upon a new style which I believe will place my work equal to anything of its kind.” He had opened a new revolutionary way that would influence the photo shooting and making from then on. As his black-and-white landscape photographs were much requested and bought by wealthy patrons whom he also photographed Adams understood how important it was that his carefully crafted photos were reproduced to best effect. At Bender’s invitation, he joined the Roxburghe Club, an association devoted to fine printing and high standards in art books. Here he learned much about printing techniques, inks, design, and layout which he later applied to other projects. During these years some colleagues and friends became extremely important to him and influenced his career turned to new goals and challenges. Just to mention some, among them there were Fred Archer with whom he developed the ‘Zone System’ as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print, Cedric Wright, his philosophical and cultural mentor and Paul Strand, with whom he shared some techniques and who recommended him to use glossy paper to intensify the tonal values of his photos. To reach Strand’s standard, Adams decided to broaden his subject matter beyond landscapes and include still life and close-up photos as well. To achieve higher quality by “visualizing” each image before taking it he emphasized the use of small apertures and long exposures in natural light, which created sharp details with a wide range of focus. Through a friend with Washington connections, Adams was able to put on his first solo museum exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute in 1931, featuring 60 prints taken in the High Sierra. He received an excellent review from the Washington Post, “His photographs are like portraits of the giant peaks, which seem to be inhabited by mythical gods”. After a group-show at M.H. De Young Museum including Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston, with other four San Francisco photographers they founded the Group f/64 which embraced “pure or straight photography” over ‘pictorialism’ borrowing some principles from painting. Also, in these years Ansel Adams opened his first Art Gallery in San Francisco (1933) and published his first book Taos Pueblo, 1930. At the same time, he began to publish essays in photography magazines and wrote his first instructional book Making a Photograph in 1935 while deploying his photographs in the cause of the wilderness preservation.

Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras by Ansel Adams, 1927. It is a portfolio of 18 silver gelatin photographic prints.

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He had been starting his environmentalist experience since his first visit to Yosemite Valley after which he had joined the Sierra Club, a group dedicated to protecting the wild places of the earth. He often participated in the club High Trips as a paid photographer for the group. In 1940 the area of Yosemite valley was declared National Park thanks also to his efforts and testimony before the American Congress. The following years were similarly very intense for Adams, dedicated to writing, teaching and taking his superlative landscapes photos, often from the roof of his car. In 1946 a Guggenheim fellowship enabled him to visit and photograph many of the national parks and monuments. The tour produced a series of books and portfolios that document and celebrate America ‘s natural wonders through the art of the camera. He also contracted with the Department of Interior to make photographs of national parks, Indian reservations and other natural environments. In 1945, he was asked to form the first fine art photography department at the San Francisco Art Institute. Later on, in the 60s some important art galleries started exhibiting Adams’ photographs alongside fine paintings and a major retrospective exhibition was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1974. In 1966 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1980 President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour. Today professionals regard his art and technique as highly instructive and inspirational while the large public admire the whole of his creative production and is always emotionally surprised by the sensations transmitted by his black-and-white shots. 2 The Straight Photography and the activity of Group f/64 The group, founded in the 30s by Adams, Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston, was composed of seven photographers of the San Francisco artistic environment who put together their craftsmanship and intellectual skills to promote a new vision and way of making photography that rejected photographic ‘pictorialism’. They produced a manifesto that stated that “Pure (or straight) photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form.” However, this was not completely abided as “pure photography did borrow from some of the established principles of painting, especially compositional balance and perspective, and some manipulation of subject and effect.” The Group turned to the western lands of the US as objects of their newly adopted techniques that was mainly based on the application of many common darkroom techniques to enhance the appearance of their prints. ‘Rather than factual accuracy, the term came to imply a specific aesthetics typified by higher contrast and rich tonality..’ At their 1932 exhibition Group f/64 displayed a manifest whose main issues are reported below: “The name of this Group is derived from a diaphragm number of the photographic lens.

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Chapter 7 It signifies to a large extent the qualities of clearness and definition of the photographic image which is an important element in the work of the members of this Group… It limits its members and invitational names to those workers who are striving to define photography as an art form by simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods. The Group will show no work at any time that does not conform to its standards of pure photo...”.5 The most complete collections of prints from Group f/64 photographers are now housed at the Center for Creative Photography and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. There the shots taken by the Group photographers plus a number of invitational photographers keen on Straight or Pure Photography show their ‘emphasis on the sharp and detailed prints typical of modernist photographic aesthetics’. By applying many common darkroom techniques to enhance the appearance of their prints they reproduce the West and the West Coast in their wild splendour but also the rural and urban areas under the effects of the Great Depression. By the end of 1935 Group f/64 dissolved but its members today are considered among the most important and influential photographers and artists of the 20th century.

3 Adams and the Wilderness: a philosophy of life “Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space. I know of no sculpture, painting or music that exceeds the compelling spiritual command of the soaring shape of granite cliff and dome, of patina of light on rock and forest, and of the thunder and whispering of the falling, flowing waters. At first the colossal aspect may dominate; then we perceive and respond to the delicate and persuasive complex of nature.” 6 The trip to Yosemite Valley affected Adams’ life forever and changed it for good. After that not only became he one of the most important and innovative photographer of the last century but a strong defender of the natural landscape, wilderness preservation and an environmentalist. Joining the Sierra Club at the age of 17 and his commitment to it throughout his life even enhanced his appreciation for natural beauty and a strong conservation ethics that was instilled into him by his father. “To live a modest, moral life guided by a social responsibility to man and to nature” became his life creed and his mission to reveal the beauties of nature to others. When caretaker at the Sierra Club visitor centre in the Yosemite Valley during the summer from 1920 to 1924 he made several first ascents to the peaks of the Sierra and enjoyed a life of hiking, camping and photographing. With his friend and amateur photographer Cedric Wright he shared the philosophy of beauty in life and art as he

Mary Street Alinder (2014): Ansel Adams: A Biography, p. 75

HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Ansel Adams, The Portfolios Of Ansel Adams (1977)

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stated several years later, “I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate.” He, who was a dedicated pianist, turned completely to photography and transformed his passion into his main activity to promote beauty and nature. His black-and-white photographs of scenic natural areas and monuments have become the symbol of his environmental attitude and of his dedication. His limited-edition book, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail, is regarded even today as one of the means that most influenced the American opinion and got the US Congress to pass the law on the creation of more natural parks and preserved areas among which the Yosemite Natural Park in 1940. As an environmentalist all through his life he fought in first person for the conservation of the territory using his influence, his art and his writings to shake consciences, move opinions and gain support to the environmental cause. His is considered an early voice that rose against blind administrations and unscrupulous ways of making money by exploiting the natural landscape, “The imposition of commercial ‘resortism’ violates the true function of national parks,” he wrote in 1945 and further in letters and articles. In an article in 1948 he denounced the need for regulations to restrain some tourist activities and misdemeanours in the parks. His role of artist-activist who contributed to raising an environmental consciousness in the U.S. is universally acknowledged and ‘his photographs continue to inspire the artist and the conservationist alike’ while nourishing the hope of a mankind living in harmony and balance with its environment. The Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography was established in 1971, and the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation was established in 1980 by The Wilderness Society. The Wilderness Society also has a large permanent gallery of his work on display at its Washington DC Headquarters.

4 Ansel Adams’ Zone System In the 1950s Ansel Adams was asked if he thought the Zone System was still relevant in that then-modern world. He replied “If you don’t use the Zone System, then what system will you use to know what you’ve got as you photograph?” He had developed the Zone System technique in the 1930’s with Fred Archer as an approach to guarantee a correct exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. It is a method of photographing that precisely defines the relationship between ‘visualization’ (the way a photographer visualizes the photographic subject) and the final results. The resulting clarity that characterizes Adams’ photographs and ensure sharpness in his images is due to the use of this systematic method that provides a proper exposure in every situation of lighting. The Zone System was applied originally to black-and-white sheet film but it is also applicable to black-and-white and colour roll film, negative and reversal as well, and to digital photography and video. How does the Zone system work? It is concerned with the control of image values, ensuring that the light and dark values are rendered as desired. In a way, it provides an anticipation of the final result before HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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making the exposure which is known as visualization. This allows the photographer to make changes as he is photographing to optimize the final prints. Ansel Adams chose to divide the shade range between white and black into about ten zones, that gives account for the name, and each of these zones is an f/stop apart. The Zone System consists in the relationship between the zones to one another and how they change as they go through each step of any photographic process. Colour film and digital tend to have fewer zones but they share the same principle. Simplifying, Adams and Archer subdivided the range of tones that can be captured into 10 zones from darkest black to completely white. Within this range, zones 3 and 7 are the most important as between them you can maintain detail of your scene or print. Over the years the method was perfected especially in the phase of development and printing process. From the 1970â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on films stopped to be developed one shot at a time and began to be developed all at once and print on variable contrast paper. Nowadays, with the employment of digital the Zone System is focused on the response of the digital camera to different levels of light and dark and provides the basis for understanding PhotoShop Curves command. The principles of the film-based Zone System is applied to digital imaging today with an approach that still works with digital exposures. HDR Imaging & the HDR Zone System High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging is a photography technique used to reproduce larger dynamic range of luminosity than that produced by standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. In few words, it relates to the difference in the contrast between the lightest and darkest colour values of a photo. As a consequence, as HDR produces a higher range of contrast than what a camera is capable of producing, the Zone System method is very applicable in producing HDR Zone System images. Ansel Adams elevated the Zone System to an art form that he pursued at its best by concentrating both on visualization when using his camera and working on tones in the darkroom. His elegant, extraordinarily impressive shots of the American natural landscapes and monuments have become ever since the symbol-images of his photographic artistry and of his devotion to and participation in the environmental cause.

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Bibliography Thomas Harrop, M.S. (2011): An Introduction to the HDR Zone System. Links Ansel Adams Biography for Kids. Roy Firestone interviews Ansel Adams http://www.anseladams.com/roy-firestone-interviews-ansel-adams/ Wikipedia: Ansel Adams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams Youtube: Ansel Adams https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ansel+adams Ansel Adams – A photography legend – video: Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film 2002 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0760229/ The role of the artist in the environmental movement: http://www.anseladams.com/ansel-adams-the-role-of-the-artist-in-theenvironmental-movement/ 5 In the footsteps of Ansel Adams, a pedagogical experience Ansel Adams and his striking black-and-white shots of natural landscape is the topic of Chap. 7 of the essay contained in the e-Book about HDR photography. Why this connection to a photographer that has never used the digital camera and the HDR technique in the least? The answer is simple: Ansel Adams’ Zone System and ‘water bath development’ were the precursors of today’s HDR technique in an age when digitalization did not exist. However, they are still used today by film photographers. Hence, the passage from Adams’ extraordinary technique in shooting landscapes to the HDR photography is very close as both can provide the same ‘dynamic range’ shots capturing the deep contrasts between dark and light. Retracing Ansel Adam’s steps by using the digital camera and the HDR technique was the reason for some students and their teachers of Liceo Artistico of Cortina d’Ampezzo to recreate those atmospheres. Shooting the landscape of Cortina in black and white became a project within the major Erasmus+ project Vir2Cope on HDR photography. The pedagogical experience was recorded in the following pedagogical card.

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Photography Experimental Project Title: “Greetings from Cortina” - In the footsteps of Ansel Adams The mountain landscape through a photographic experimentation Subjects involved: Visual education Photography History History of Art Geography Duration: 7 months Age of students: 16-17 Description The project contributes to favouring creativity and descriptive imagination in a contest of investigation, documentation and knowledge of the landscape heritage. The project origins from the analysis of the art work of the U.S. photographer Ansel Adams and retraces his fundamental phases. It constitutes the inspirational subject for the didactic experience. The photographic technique used in the project is HDR – High Dynamic Range Photography. General Education Objectives to acquire new competences in the field of observation of all forms of cultural heritage and be able to interpret them by using experimental expressive means to become aware of the importance of a lasting and respectful interaction with the cultural heritage to learn the different techniques of representation and documentation of reality in an experimental mode (photography). Specific Objectives of the Project diffusion of the art of photography among students of art understanding its diverse creative languages learning about Ansel Adams and his particular use of the camera learning and experimentation of photographic techniques learning the HDR Photography technique participation in online webinars Competences To collect and select information To record a moment of observation through the written word, a camera, a video-camera, etc. To be able to work in group To learn the specific use of digital camera and software To use the HDR technique in all its phases 98

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To be aware of the purposes and bearing of the project To discuss products, outcomes and experience Materials and Products Photos and photographic panels Educational panels Educational exhibition Calendar 2016 Greetings from Cortina The Phases of the Project FIRST PHASE Presentation of the HDR technique Theory and practice Presentation of some examples of HDR photography Use of the Digital camera for HDR purposes Selection of the shots SECOND PHASE Outdoor activity for documentation Study of the landscape Critical debate on the work done outdoors and selection of the photos Learning to use the Photomatix software and its employment in HDR photography Elaboration of the photos with Photomatix software Dummy for printing works and check of sample prints Printing of the photos THIRD PHASE Dissemination of the experience Creation of the Calendar 2016 Greetings from Cortina Participation in the Erasmus+ project Vir2Cope exhibition (Trieste â&#x20AC;&#x201C; February 2016) Publication in the Catalogue of the Vir2Cope exhibition. Assessment The assessment is structured in three phases. FIRST PHASE On-going evaluation and monitoring of the different phases of the project to check its development Evaluation of the progress as related to the objectives SECOND PHASE Evaluation of the final result as related to the objectives Evaluation of the learning level achieved by the students as related to the subject Evaluation of the grade of knowledge and competencies acquired. THIRD PHASE Evaluation of the operational dynamics of the students during the different phases Evaluation of the ability of each student to present their work to the group of students Evaluation of the level of awareness acquired by the students at the end of the course. HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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Chapter 7 6 The pedagogical card and the HDR pictures are the contribution of the students of Liceo Artistico from Cortina dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ampezzo: Silvia Cherubin, Silvia Da Rin, Arianna Salmaggi and Margherita Smaniotto who experimented under the guide of their teacher Giuliana Corbatto and of the professional photographer Annamaria Castellan.

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HDR technique used for Architectural photography Matthias Gessler & Ruth Schmelzer Architectural photography is an interesting and extensive field focussed on the photography of one or more buildings, no matter if they are modern, historical, ailing or only temporary. Architectural works and pieces are photographed from outside, inside and also partially relevant fragments. The intention behind is interesting for the photography of architecture, because it determines the style. Photographic documentation is different from photos we take for the sale of an object or for artistic purposes. Especially in artistic photography details, unusual perspectives and image details are in the focus. In all fields of the architecture photography the HDRI technique provides unique creative and technical possibilities, which will be explained step by step in the following1. When we photography architecture especially in sunny weather we are often confronted with different light conditions: a part of the building is in the bright sun and the other is in the shadow. Depending on the colour and material of the building and intensity of the sun, the contrast could be very high. It is a typical situation for the use of HDR technique, which allows us to catch the full dynamic range of the scene without over- and underexposed areas in the photo. If I photograpy a building in a central perspective when the sun is shining directly on the front the shadow areas could be reduced or even eliminated (Fig. 8.1.). Taking a photo from a building in a draw perspective with two vanishing points the shaded areas could increase (Fig. 8.2.). The draw perspective generates more plasticity, which is a desirable effect. But in sunny weather the contrasts could become very high and colours, details and plasticity in the shadow could easily turn into quite dark areas with dull colours on the photo.

Fig 8.1 Part of a building photographed in central perspective when the sun was shining directly on the front of the building. Due to the lack of shadows and fine tonal gradation there is a lack of plasticity.

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Fig 8.2 Building photographed in draw perspective in sunny weather. The contrast between sunshine and shadow is impressive. The scene has a high dynamic range. The colours in the shaded part of the building are quite dull.

Fig 8.3 Building photographed with HDR technique in sunny weather. No matter if the parts of the building are in the shadow or in the sun, the details, colours and structures became visible and also the colours are very realistic.

Fig 8.4 Building photographed in diffuse light when the sky was cloudy. There are no shadows visible. But the plasticity is low and the colours of the building are not brilliant despite image processing. Structures and details are hardly visible.

The diffuse light from overcast skies causes lower contrasts which can be used for common photographs in order to capture the whole dynamic range of a scene with one photo. But with the HDR technique high contrast scenes can be captured in a sequence of 3-9 single shots, which are merged into one HDR photo where over- and underexposed areas are eliminiated or reduced enormoursly.

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Fig 8.5 This photo was taken with HDR technique while there was cloudy sky. Compared with the photo in fig. 8.4. the colours are more brilliant and the building has more plasticity.

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Fig 8.6 Example for an HDR photo in a modest artistic style. The scene is a part from a lost place. The image was elaborated more abstract with the tone mapper „Photomatix Pro“ and with Photoshop. The details of the photo have been accentuated slightly.

The HDR technique provides a huge amount of tonal values available for the image processing. The photos can be worked out in a very natural, but also in an artistic style. It is up to the photographer what he/she prefers. HDR opens up also an enormous range of possibilities for the artistic design of the photos. The microcontrast can be increased and the details of a photo become more visible. Due to the huge amount of tonal values in a 32 bit HDR image available for the image processing the colours could worked out more natural which increase the plasticity of an object (Fig. 8.3., 8.5.). Artistic architectural photography uses also unusual perspectives like extreme frog‘s perspective, as a stylistic device (Fig. 8.9., 8.11.). Here the HDR technique could be also interesting, because the contrast between object and sky is often quite high. Additionally the clouds of the sky could be shown very impressive with HDR (Fig. 8.10., 8.11.). Usually converging lines are avoided in architectural photography, because they distort architectural works in an unrealistic way. Converging lines occur when the camera is held not horizontally while taking pictures. A tripod is useful to keep the camera horizontal while photographing. Sometimes converging lines are used as a stylistic device. The geometric forms and lines of buildings are a central element of architectural photography. Also here, a strength of the HDR technique comes to bear: with HDR the detailcontrasts can be accentuated, so that lines, structures and geometries become clearly visible.

Fig 8.7 Example for an HDR photo in another artistic style.

Fig 8.8 Image processing in a naturalistic style of the HDR photo shown in Fig. 8.7.

Generally all kind of lenses, also the shift-lenses which are often used in architectural photography, can be used for the HDR technique. In architectural photography the weighting of a scene could be different. The focus could be on one or more architectural works or on parts of them, depending on the intention of the photographer. Since the HDR technique provides a huge range of possibilities for the image processing it supports the different weighting in a photo (Fig. 8.13., 8.14). To photography one or more buildings as plastic as possible is an important point in architectural photography. Three dimensional objects can be shown quite spatially on two dimensional photos with the HDR technique. This has something to do with the excellent depiction of lines, geometries, surface properties and colours with HDR photography. HDR Photography - A Practical Guide 121

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Fig 8.9 HDR photo in a frogâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s perspective, which is often used for artistic architectural photography.

Fig 8.11 Impressive clouds shown with HDR technique. The house was photographed in a frogâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s perspective. The sky plays an important role in this photo. The colours were reduced so that the photo became even more dramatic.

Fig 8.10 Impressive clouds shown with HDR technique

Fig 8.12 Black-and-White HDR photo from a lost place. With the HDR technique the details, structures and geometries could be evenly emphasized although the contrast between shadow and sun was high.

The photos in Fig. 8.3., 8.5. , 8.10. , 8.13., 8.15.) are examples for these effects. The fine-tuning of the tonal values is a crucial point in the image processing of HDR photos. Architectural works could be staged effectively with a creative interplay of lights in night photography and during the blue hour (Fig. 8.16., 8.17.). Especially in difficult light situations when common photography reach its limits the strength of the HDR technique emerge. Subtly-nuanced colour 122 HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

effects as well as the elimination of under- and overexposed areas in the photo are also possible in difficult light conditions. For an HDR photo a series of 3-9 single shots is usually taken. In difficult light conditions with high contrasts 7-9 shots should be taken in order to capture the complete dynamic range of the scene. Of course, a tripod is necessary for the long exposure times and for the bracketing. Artistic architectural photography show architectural work in a creative way and not necessarily in a realistic style.

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Fig 8.13 HDR photo. Here the photographer processed the image in a natural style with the programmes Photomatix Pro and Photoshop. The modern style of the building with the shadows, mirrorings, patterns and geometries is shown very realistic.

Fig 8.15 Plasticity generated with the accentuation of the surfaces, a strength of the HDR Photography.

Fig 8.14 The same scene as in Fig. 8.13. This HDR photo is an example for the artistic style of image processing in architectural photography.

There exist many stylistic devices which can be optimized by using the HDR technique, like colours (Fig. 8.3., 8.8.), structures and patterns (Fig. 8.3., 8.7., 8.16., 8.17.), shadows or mirrorings (Fig. 8.13, 8.18.).

Fig 8.16 HDR-Photo of architecture staged impressively by light effects in the blue hour.

Architectural photographers often use panorama photography in order to get the complete building or more buildings on one photo. HDR photography can be used also for outdoor and indoor architectural panoramas2. 2

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Fig 8.18 HDR photo showing a historical factory building mirrored in an old window glass. With the 32-bit HDR photo the colours and structures could be worked out very well.

Fig 8.17 Night photography with HDR technique allows a creative interplay of colours.

Fig 8.19 HDR-Panorama from the interior of the church in Lichtenau, Germany. The illumination of the whole room is well balanced. Such a photo would not be possible with common photography.

Interior Photography Generally the strengths of the HDR technique are important for the photography of outdoor and indoor areas as well. Special light conditions within rooms could be a problem for common photography. For example the photo of a sequence of rooms could provide an interesting perspective inside a building. Often the light in the rooms is different, so that under- or overexposured areas could occur. With the HDR technique these differences of the light can be harmonized. 124 HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Especially the transition from the house to the outside or vice versa is often difficult to photography. With the HDR technique the view out of a window is possible without getting over- and underexposed photos. A room could have differently illuminated parts. Close to the windows the light is different than in the corners. Mixed-light situations in buildings are very common. Using a flash in a building could destroy the light atmosphere of an interior space. The HDR

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Fig 8.20 View out of an archway of an old castle ruin, photographed with common photography. The outdoor area is very bright whereas inside the ruin the details of the wall hardly can be seen.

Fig 8.22 Another scene showing a view out of a window, photographed with HDR technique. Also in this photo the exposure of the outdoor and indoor area is well balanced. Such a photo is not possible with common photography. The scene exceeds by far the dynamic range a common camera sensor could capture.

Fig 8.21 HDR photo from the same scene like in figure 8.20. The difference is obvious. Both, the outdoor and the indoor areas are well exposured, the colours are natural and much more details are visible.

Fig 8.23 HDR photo from a room in a traditional farmerhouse in the Black Forest. There was a sunny day outside, but inside the room the light conditions were rather bad. The exposure times for the sequence of single pictures was 1/4 sec to 1 sec. No single picture could provide the result of the HDR photo.

technique preserves the authentic light situation of an interior space (Fig. 8.25). Of course, it depends on the final image processing of the HDR photo to show the light atmosphere as authentic as possible. It is sometimes a challenging work, because the range of possibilities to process HDR photos is huge.

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Conclusion In architectural photography, there are numerous situations where conventional photography quickly comes up to its limits. The strengths of HDR photography, such as being able to capture the whole dynamic range of scenes, enormous availability of tonal values and ability to accentuate detail contrasts, makes it a powerful tool for the photographic documentation of architectural works. Generally the architectural photography profits from the HDR technique enormously.

Fig 8.24 Single photos with different exposure times were taken for the HDR photo in Fig. 8.23. The single photos could not provide a well balanced illumination of the scene.

Fig 8.25 HDR photo of the church of the monastery in Maulbronn, Germany. The marvellous light atmosphere could be preserved well with the HDR technique.

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Mode & Portrait Photography with HDR from Irma Kanova My webinar will be about using true and pseudo HDR techniques with people. HDR is not just reserved for nature and still life. Yes, portraits, fashion, and wedding images can be utterly amazing in use of High Dynamic Range. We have already had opportunity to hear about HDR from the last webinars from collegues from Italy, Portugal and at last from my country colegue Dasha, so let me do just very quick and short recapitulation what is HDR all about…. Real HDR is the combining of light and dark tones of multiple (3, 5, 7 or 9) images taken at varied exposure levels and then blended using software like Photomatix, Photoshop, or another HDR program. Here you can see the final picture of a Baroque castle restaurant in Kunin, which I took two weeks ago for their big billboard. This picture consists of 9 pictures.

There is a process of creating large banners of this particular, as well as any other, Castle. This picture I took consists from 9 pictures at different exposures, thus is a real HDR. All those pictures are took in real HDR, out of 9 pictures. I uploaded bracketed photos into Photomatix. Photomatix is the most popular program among HDR fans. Basically, this software blending allows the photographer to choose selectively, the strenght of light according to one´s preferences in various parts of the image. We will have light to dark range that’s much higher than that of a normal HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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exposure, thus giving us much more control over the final image. I always try to finde as realistics as possible final picture. Here I was thinking about Natural (left one) and Interior (right one) picture. Because of the billboard picture my decision was to choose more colored interior picture just to attract the eye to image. Here you can see real HDR done from 9 picture from Baroque castle in Ratschtadt. We can also create Pseudo or False HDR, that actually consists of one single image. Program like Photomatix allows us to do this, but it can also be done by working with shadows highlights and tones in Photoshop, the most common program used for Pseudo HDR is Lightroom, which gives great results. There is only one necessity, it is important to rember to take pictures in RAW format. On the picture at the bottom you can see a self portrait (taken with tripod and with 10 seconds timerâ&#x20AC;Ś so I Â´d really had to run so quickly from camera to yellow chair). Final picture was done from two pictures from right corner)

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Portrait photography Portrait photography, or portraiture is photography of a person or a group of people that displays the expression, personality, and mood of the subject. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is usually the person‘s face, although the entire body and the background or context may be included. When you view a portrait in HDR, the various light levels you experience as your eye traverses the image „tricks“ your brain into thinking you might actually touch the person on the picture. Your mind will jump near and far a you bulid a new network of associations, feelings and memories around the images, as you can see on those my own favourite picture. History The fundamental features of HDR allows you to see the true color in atmosphere. For the old masters of painting and the way they mixed their pigments for their colors, getting pure colors it was very challenging, even with their most advanced tolls of the day. When they mixed colors, the net result could be quite dull, absorbing more wavelengths than desired. The Impressionist painters (as we can see 4 famous pictures of Claude Monet) had better access to more vibrant colors but still tried to leave them unmiexed to keep the reflective colors clean and pure. But not only at the Impressionist we can see great work with colors, here we are paintings of my favourit painter Caravaggio, master of light, shadows and colors from the 16th century. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, are very inspiring for a lot´s of photographers today. What is good news for all of us - with today´s photo sensors and the tools we use, we are able to reproduce colors like never before.

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HDR portraits of people When we have a still subject its fairly easy to take a sequence of images at various exposure levels and get a great HDR. With a moving subject like a person on animal, things get more challenging. To do shooting entire portrait sessions with HDR would be too hard on the subject, and require way to much editing time to be practical. Also HDR images arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t needed in every scene. Where they shine is in scenes with a high light to dark range. But sometimes it would be very helpful, especially in dark or high contrast places. Process of HDR portrait photography is not so hard. Tell to your subject to stand or sit as still as they can. It is good take three images in rapid sequence. Normaly photographers use more than three to make HDR, as you had already occasion to seen on the very biggining of my webinar , but three is usually all we will need and often all we can get due to movement. After that you can proces it in Photomatix or Photoshop. What I usually do is pseudo or false HDR so thatÂ´s why I take all my picture into RAW format. My first step is to play with picture in Lighroom with the tools, especialy with shadows and hightlights, as you can see in yellow arrow or selectively paint with selected tool from blue arrow. I highly recomend you to have a look into some Lightroom tutorial on internet, there are plenty of them. After Lighroom processing I do all the skin and line correction in Photoshop. And here we are the final picture, this one was approved by PhotoVogue.

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Let´s have a look to camera setting now. If you want, you can set your camera to Aperture Priority, so all that changes is shutter speed and not our depth of field (it is important since we will be combining there images later). Set your camera to auto bracket mode at the fastest frame rate and try to maintain a fast shutter speed). Than take an EV -2, EV 0 and EV +2 exposure (or -1,5/0/+1,5), so that when we hold the button down it will take three quick exposures and keept blur low. Since great HDR´s are often taken in the evening, the resulting slow shutter speed can cause blurring issues. The way how to deal with is to crank up the ISO a bit to compensate. The noise compounds from the blending of multiple images hower. But it depends on type of your camera, with my Nikon D800 I can get away with more ISO. All the pictures for real HDR are done into .jpg format, pictures for Pseudo HDR must be shooted into RAW format! IMPORTANT! All the pictures must be done with tripod, exposed with cable release or with remote control to avoid shake. Dealing with Movement. Movement of subject it seems to be hardest part about HDR. There are some ways how to manage with it. Naturally the subject holds as still as posssible during the image sequence. Some photograpers recomends that HDR portraits work are best in wider scenes with wider lenses. I usually do my pictures in studio with 24 – 70 mm lens. There´s no set rule to this, but if you are really close or have a long lens, the slight movement of your

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subject will be exaggerated and cause them to be blurred even more. Some blur can be OK, on a dress or hair for example, but in the end the primary part of face on our subject will usually need clarity. How to clarify movement. There are more than one ways how to clarify movement from picture. When we are working with Photomatic, than we can select tool Show options to remove ghosts. It is a great tool for elimination of involuntary movements. In Photoshop you can use layer mask technique to hide parts of our render HDR and reveal the layers below as needet to show details you need. This can be fine for replacing the blurred face with the sharp version. It can also be used to mask out areas of a rendered image that have bad artifact or noise. When and where to use HDR: It is not necessary to use HDR for every portrait or fashion scenes, but only for these where it is beneficial. Like that a image of someone sitting or standing in dark room close the window, with daylight falling into subject. When we want to see everything in the room or out of the window. The most important topic of HDR. Using HDR is attractive but should be used sensitively, because lot of us probably seen plenty of bad HDR´s with white borders, big contrast, unrealistic colors (…and it is realy not an art….:-) atc.

But there are also very good ones – these are done by Miss Aniela – fashion and art photographer, which very often use an HDR technique for her pictures.There are no rules how HDR picture should look, but often les sis more. I can higly recomend Photomatix program for extensive edit and Lightroom for quick HDR blending. So I wish you big fun with HDR! Source: A World in HDR by Trey Ratcliff HDR Portrait & Wedding Photography Techniques by Gavin Seim

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Use of HDR photography in supporting marketing activity by Katalin Szalainé Szeili 1 Introduction Marketing and HDR photography, the use of HDR photography in enhancing marketing activity are very recent topics. Papers, dissertations, books or book chapters cannot be found about this topic in the scientific literature. Nor can be found any literature with practical approach on this special, yet very innovative use of HDR photography. This book chapter makes an attempt to summarize the use of HDR photography for marketing purposes with a practical approach. It presents HDR photography solutions for the everyday use in the field of marketing. 2 Marketing basics Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller, two of the world’s leading marketing professionals defined marketing and marketing management as following in their joint book Marketing management: “The American Marketing Association offers the following formal definition: Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Coping with these exchange processes calls for a considerable amount of work and skill. Marketing management takes place when at least one party to a potential exchange thinks about the means of achieving desired responses from other parties. Thus we see marketing management as the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value.” 1 In order to successfully fulfil marketing activity marketing experts have to persuade the above mentioned target groups. To persuade the approached target groups the effective use of different marketing communication tools is essential. In order to make these tools attractive the use of visual elements is one of the most important means of the persuasion.

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Many things can be marketed: Goods Services Events Experiences Persons Places Properties Organisations Information Ideas

3 Importance of photography in marketing activity Photography is extremely important when performing marketing activity. At least the following marketing communication means are needed:

Quality brochures, well designed posters and roll-ups Regular appearance in professional magazines Spectacular promotional gifts Daily development of home pages Daily upload to social media sites.

There is always a need to reemphasize: just text messages are uninteresting; it does not raise the attention of the target groups. There is a need of outstanding pictures in order to raise awareness. Advertisements without pictures are unimaginable. At the first glimpse of an ad possible consumers look at the photos, the graphic design. Texts are only read in case of liking the photo or of course in case of hatred, but it is always the photo, the graphic design which has to be perfect to raise awareness. In case advertisers would refresh Facebook sites daily just with text messages, without photos, it would be very boring; no one would ever come back and visit the Facebook profile again. The conclusion is clear: the need of professional, quality photos is growing, everyday use of photos is essential in marketing.

electronic outputs. Why are photos prepared with HDR technology really useful? The marketing team of the University of Pannonia (Centre of Communication) recognised that the aim of marketing is very similar to the aim of HDR photography. Both of these would like to hand on information to the observer in a very detailed way, displayed very attractively. Both have to be liked at the first sight; they have to impress the viewer immediately. HDR is designed to help to take better-looking photos, especially in certain situations. This book chapter is going to show some specific situations with examples further on, but firstly let us see some general advantages of HDR photography. HDR technology results in the following benefits: more natural feeling contrasts evening out photos adjusted to the needs of target groups (with the right choice of tonemapping options) The advantages of HDR photography can be especially well exploited in the following situations: 1 - LANDSCAPES Big landscape photos usually have a lot of contrast between the sky and land, which is difficult for the camera to deal with in just one photo. With HDR, we can capture the sky’s detail without making the land look too dark, and the land’s detail without making the sky too bright. 2 - PORTRAITS IN SUNLIGHT Lighting is one of the most important aspects of a good photo, but too much lighting on someone’s face—like harsh sunlight—can cause dark shadows, bright glare, and other unflattering characteristics. HDR can even that all out and make the subject look better. 3 - LOW-LIGHT AND BACKLIT SCENES

4 HDR photos as effective tools for marketing HDR pictures are an effective tool for marketing, they could be an essential part of marketing communication activities. The use of HDR photos is very beneficial on home pages, brochures, posters and other kinds of marketing aimed material. It can be used well on paper materials as well as on 138 HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

If the photo is looking a little too dark—which often happens if the scene has too much backlight—HDR can brighten up the foreground without washing out the well-lit portions of your photo. We can also benefit from the following feature: Small details are very emphasized on HDR pictures. Dynamic pictures are really needed for marketing

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purposes and many details can give the feeling of dynamics, of movement without anything actually moving. 5 Opinion of photography experts about the use of HDR photos for marketing purposes

From the answers we can draw the conclusion that even photography experts, not working in the marketing field find the HDR tool very useful for strengthening marketing activity. 6 Ideal camera settings for excellent HDR pictures

As part of the ERASMUS + project “Vir2Cope – European Blended Learning and HDR Photography” a presentation about marketing and HDR photography has been held. At the beginning of the online training participants have been asked to use the whiteboard tool in order to make a short brainstorming. Participants have been asked to put down answers, ideas to the following questions: “Why are HDR pictures an effective tool for marketing? Why is it good to use HDR photos on a home page, brochure, poster etc. Do you have any ideas why photos prepared with HDR technology are very useful?”

For those readers who are not familiar with camera settings I would like to suggest to use the camera settings below. 2

The ideas received from the photography experts proved to be very useful. It gave a valuable input for further discussion.

7 Examples for the use of HDR pictures for marketing purposes

The answers have been the following:

- “Better visualisation” - “HDR could be used for many purposes. Show

1) Low ISO setting : 200 ISO 2) Program : AV to fix the aperture 3) Fix the focus, turn to manual focus 4) Select the white balance, for example to sun 5) Select the exposure bracketing: -2, 0, +2 ! 6) Activate serial exposure 7) Make the pictures with the tripod! 8) Find the right exposure time!

Under this section examples for the use of HDR pictures for marketing purposes are going to be shown. Each example presents different goods or services to be marketed. Each example is targeting different groups of users, i.e. target groups.

more structures, more colours, better colours”

- “Wake up the interest of the viewer” - “The image often grabs attention because it has

a slightly unreal look”

- “More plasticity, 3-dimensional impression” - “The range of contrasts is much better”

These camera setting were proposed by Mr. Matthias Gessler, Europäische Fotoakademie ArtWebDesign. For further information please feel free to contact: Mr. Matthias Gessler, CEO, Europäische Fotoakademie ArtWebDesign, m.gessler@art-web- design.eu HDR Photography - A Practical Guide 139

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8.1 Touristic sight - Eiffel Tower (1.), Paris, France Original raw photos:

HDR: From the upper three original raw pictures the under one HDR picture has been prepared with the use of Photomatix software. Default tonemapping option has been chosen. Looking at the colours the viewer can notice that the colour of the sky could never be achieved with the original bright picture or the colour of the tower with the original dark picture. This HDR photo could be perfectly used in tourism marketing.

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8.2 Touristic sight - Eiffel Tower (2.), Paris, France Original raw photos:

HDR:

From the upper three original raw pictures the under one HDR picture has been prepared with the use of Photomatix software. Painterly 4 tonemapping option has been chosen. During the preparation of this HDR picture a totally different tonemapping option has been chosen in order to show the possibilities to be achieved with different kind of tonemappings.

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8.3 Museum - Louvre, Paris, France Original raw photos: See images to the left. HDR:

From the upper three original raw pictures the under one HDR picture has been prepared with the use of Photomatix software. Creative 2 tonemapping option has been chosen. Creative 2 tonemapping can be used for tourism marketing purposes as well. This tonemapping option gives a warm and welcoming feeling. Looking at these pictures the future tourist can feel the atmosphere of a place certainly worth to visit. The colours are more vivid than on the original pictures. That is one of the reasons why it can be very useful to work with HDR technique in marketing.

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8.4 Nature - The Lake Balaton, Hungary Original raw photos: See images to the left. HDR:

An attractive Hungarian tourism destination: the Lake Balaton. The Lake Balaton is a freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region›s foremost tourist destinations. The HDR picture with photographic tonemapping shows real colours, the trees are normally green, the sky has a natural colour. The picture is much more attractive than the original raw ones.

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Chapter 10 8.5 Art - Rodin: The Thinker, Paris, France Original raw photos:

HDR: The photo shows the famous statue of Auguste Rodin: The Thinker. The HDR picture was prepared with photographic tonemapping. Looking at the picture the viewer can feel like standing in Paris, visiting the Rodin museum personally and looking at the real statue, because looking at an HDR picture certainly gives the feeling of 3D. This is very helpful in marketing when someone markets an art exhibition or when someone intends to sell 3D objects. It might be a gift from a gift shop or a house where the marketing expert works for a real estate agent.

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Chapter 10 8.6 Idea of environment protection â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Csabrendek, Hungary Original raw photos. See images to the left: HDR: This example shows that not only touchable goods can be marketed using HDR photography. Sometime ideas have to be popularized as well. This use of HDR photography could be highly interesting for marketing experts at non-profit organisations. This HDR picture could be used when popularizing the idea of environment protection. The place displayed used to be a forest, but mining activity begun here, which destroyed the area. The mining activity was shut down several years ago, so the nature reclaims the area. Looking at the HDR picture, really stunning colours can be seen: the red soil, the green trees with their white strains. These are their natural colours, which no other pictures could give back. Except of an HDR. In order to make the picture look natural, photographic tonemapping was used.

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8.7 Quality clothing Original raw photos. See images to the left: HDR: Jack Wolfskin is a German-based producer of outdoor wear and equipment. Its products include mountain and leisure clothing, footwear, rucksacks, sleeping bags, and tents. I would like to note, that this example is not one of their advertisements, it is just an example for the use of HDR photography. On the original pictures either the jacket can be seen or the nature which surrounds the hiker. For marketing purposes it is favourable to have a picture on which the jacket, its brand and the environment can be clearly seen in detail. This is impossible with traditional pictures, but it is possible with an HDR. Both parts of the picture are very important. The consumers have to see the quality jacket, because that is the product to be sold. And of course they have to see the environment, because it has to persuade them to buy the quality outfit. It has to transfer the message: this quality jacket which is suitable even for winter hiking. Looking at the HDR even the frozen lake can be seen.

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Chapter 10 8.8 Cities â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Part of Paris, France Original raw photos:

HDR: Looking at this picture the observant can see nice, old houses, modern flats, some trees and plants. All have its natural colours, all details are very visible. This means that HDR might be an option to market cities (as touristic destinations, as places of residence, as business meeting points or cultural centres etc.) as well.

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8.9 Carpenterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s piece Original raw photos:

HDR: In case you are a carpenter and you would like to sell fine pieces you have prepared, HDR is a great opportunity for you. Looking at this inlay it looks like it just would be in your hands. The 3D can be almost felt in this art piece.

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8.10 Airplane museum â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Le Bourget Airport, France Original raw photos:

HDR: This picture was taken in an airplane museum. It could very well advertise the museum on any marketing aimed material (eg. home page or brochure). On the HDR every detail of the object can be seen. The picture is neither too dark nor too bright. The HDR picture was prepared using the interior tonemapping, which is indeed very useful for internal spaces. Observing the room surrounding the airplane, a big gallery space behind the airplane can be seen, which tells the observant that there is a lot more to see in the museum. Looking at the picture, someone might have the feeling of being there personally.

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Chapter 10 8.11 Patisserie Original raw photos:

HDR: The above HDR picture could be used during the advertisement campaign of a patisserie. The HDR was finalised with creative tonemapping, because this tonemapping possibility highlights the wooden desk. The pattern of the wood gives a feeling of tradition, and who is able to resist home-made traditional cakes? It also emphasizes the delicious strawberries. In case customers-to-be see this picture on the table of a patisserie they will surely step in for a piece of cake.

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Chapter 10 8.12 Religion, religious institutions – Sacre Coeur, Paris Original raw photos:

HDR: This is a very typical HDR of a church interior prepared with interior tonemapping.

During a brainstorming activity (using an interactive chat tool) with photography experts the experts have been asked the following questions: “What do you think, why is the HDR picture much better than the original pictures? “

The answers were the following: - - - - - - -

“I think the light of the day and the interior room are not easy with common photography. The range of contrasts is too high.” “HDR has much more depth and clarity.” “You would have never seen the mosaic or picture on the walls.” “I think the dome behind is very clear and the only way to see it is this way.” “The structure - that means the stones of the walls - and the figures can be seen much better with HDR.” “HDR deals better with high and low lights so the image results in better details.” “The colours are very natural.”

All of the photography experts found that the picture taken was much better with HDR technology than the common pictures, the picture can profit from the HDR technique. They all emphasised the added value of this innovative technique. Another question has been also posed: Which tonemapping would photography experts use? Photography experts agreed that the choice of tonemapping is a question of taste.

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Chapter 10 8.13 Castle, castle programme â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Pierrefonds, France Original raw photos:

HDR: The last example: Pierrefonds, a French castle on the countryside. Here painterly 4 tonemapping has been chosen which gives a very nice texture on the wall. Here again it can be observed how HDR increases the feeling of 3D. It can be seen that this HDR picture is much deeper than the original raw ones. It would be a great possibility to use this photo and tonemapping option when advertising childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s programs at the castle, because this is very similar to fairy tale pictures, very colourful, very plastic. It would raise the attention of children and their parents as well.

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Chapter 10 9 Disadventages of HDR photography in marketing We can clearly state that HDR pictures are very useful for marketing purposes, but to draw a full picture we have to mention some very minor disadvantages as well. In case pictures are taken in cloudy weather the clouds become very visible which gives the impression of bad, rainy weather. This is not very fortunate for marketing purposes. On the other hand, sometimes there is a need of photos displaying bad weather for example when making an advertisement for hair styling spray. Then the marketing experts can show that the hair spray works in normal weather, extremely hot weather and rainy weather. Sometimes it is a need to have clouds in the ads. Of course, in case we do not need the clouds, the pictures should be taken in clear, sunny weather to avoid the mentioned disadvantage. There is a second disadvantage of HDR pictures from a marketing angle. HDR is not able to capture movement. If any of the subjects are moving, HDR increases the chance of a blurry photo. This is because to prepare an HDR picture we need at least three original raw pictures and if the subject moves between the three shots, the final picture will not be clear. Though in the case of moving subjects there is an option to prepare pseudo HDR pictures, which means that instead of three pictures we only need one single picture with RAW-format and we can use the same tonemapping options than with a real HDR. As from the marketing point of view this is not the best solution, but it is a viable solution.

10 Use of different tonemapping settings The tone, the feeling of the photos is extremely important from marketing perspective, as it might be a decisive factor for the customer. Tonemapping in general is a matter of taste. Some people prefer natural settings, some admire surreal settings, some are fond of black and white settings. That is why when choosing between different tonemappings it is essential to take the taste of the target group and the product in consideration. Obviously it is not a good idea to choose surreal tonemapping for an elderly target group or black and white tonemapping settings for the persuasion of children. In case of selling a luxury item, black and white tonemapping with its fine elegance would be a great choice. In case a seller intends to sell a computer game it can use a surreal setting because that gives the feeling of an unreal and interesting dream world. In conclusion the choice of tonemapping depends on the target group and on the goods or services to be sold. To some extent the choice of tonemapping depends on the market as well. For the Asian market the choice of a more colourful tonemapping would be appropriate, for the European market a more natural would fit better. Before actually launching an advertising campaign market research is suggested. It is also essential to test the draft advertisement on group representative for the future target group.

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10.1 Examples for the choice of tonemapping 10.1.1 Eiffel Tower, Paris, France On the left hand side the HDR is finalized with default tonemapping. This picture would be perfect for a tourism marketing campaign in home pages, brochures.

In the middle, the HDR is prepared with black and white photographic tonemapping. This picture could be used in tourism marketing as well, but for another target group. It would be more appropriate to include it in a rather elegant, quality liberal art paper.

marketing of computer games which take place in France. To conclude we have to ascertain that different tonemappings are appropriate for different marketing activities.

On the right hand side, the HDR is prepared with surreal tonemapping. This one could be used in the

10.1.2 Eiffel Tower (2.), Paris, France The first HDR is prepared with default tonemapping. It could be used to emphasize the structure. The second HDR is made with painterly 4 tonemapping, which rather emphasises the splendour, the value of the tower. Again the tonemapping depends on the use of the picture. 11 Conclusions HDR photography is a very usefl tool for achieving marketing purposes. By using this technique better looking pictures can be achieved, which is essential for paper and electronic marketing materials. We can profit from the clear display of small details, the 3D-like-look, and that it covers a wide range of contrasts. This means that there are situations where its use is indispensable. There is a strong need to emphasize that the right choice of tonemapping options is essential for the success of the marketing activity. It needs to be highlighted that there are no real disadvantages of using an HDR picture instead of other photographic techniques.

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12 Further information The ERASMUS + project “Vir2Cope – European Blended Learning and HDR Photography” was very important for the University of Pannonia, Faculty of Business and Economics. The faculty intends to aftercare this project in the future. We plan to collect all useful information and experience on the topic Marketing and HDR photography further on as well. The University of Pannonia, Faculty of Business and Economics, Centre of Communication wishes to use HDR photos further on to strengthen and enrich its marketing activity. For further information and in case anyone would like to contribute to the intellectual output of this project please contact Katalin Szeili Szalai, head of communication, University of Pannonia, Faculty of Business and Economics (katalin.szeili@gmail.com).

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HDR-Photography for Media and Journalism from Ruth Schmelzer Realistic images with HDR HDR images from analogue Slides HDR images from Bracketings Batching of HDR images HDRI for Interior Scenes HDRI for the photograpy of Objects The annoying matter with the tripod Conclusion

The digital photography and the Internet have increased the visualisation of our communication. Never before pictures could be spread so fast and in such huge amounts around the world. Recently the magazine SPIEGEL stated that the daily amount of photos spreaded by social networks and apps was 1.8 billions1 in the year 2014. Thousands of photographers and journalists are documenting incessantly the daily events and drawing up reports on political, social and cultural issues for print and online media. The daily flood of images already changed the reading behavior. We can capture the content of images much easier and faster than from texts. An image corresponds to an entire word field and, taking into account culturally determined differences in interpretation, images speak one language. Whether as a pure decorative element or as a central content message, images in the media can be used multifunctional. As an eye-catcher, they are used to arise the interest of the reader for the text, they help to structure pages and underline the importance and content of an article. Remaining unforgotten are publications speaking with impressive images. The quality of the photographs decisively influence their expressiveness. To make really good photos you have to consider things like image composition and image design. A proper equipment, camera technology and last but not least, the use of the multi-shot technique HDRI are also important factors for good shots. 1

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Journalists increasingly are expected to make at the same time their report and the necessary photos for it. Often professional photojournalists are omitted and the journalists, recognizing the importance of images, have to improve their skills in photography and image processing often by their own. Fortunately, the HDRI technique can be learned easily and there are no high costs associated with it. In view of the fact that images are a powerful tool to transfer information their importance for the quality of the journalistic work cannot be overstated2. Pseudo-HDRI for moving objects Imagine the following situation: the person of interest is standing in an unlit room in front of a bright background, such as a window. There are some unbridgeable meters between the photographer and the person. The movements of the person are too strong for creating an HDRI from a bracketing. A powerful flash might be the solution. Alternatively a pseudo-HDR4 could be created.

The fast amount of photographic activities for media provides countless opportunities to use HDRI-Photography whether from a bracketing or as a pseudo-HDR. Especially in difficult situations, for example in low light conditions, the HDRI technology provides a valuable solution for good results. The following examples are intended to serve as an inspiration for using the technology in many situations3.

The range of contrast was too high in order to get a balanced exposure from both, the person and the view out of the window. It can be seen clearly that the person is underexposed and the view out of the window is overexposed.

The worst result of the backlight situation delivered the image in the 8-bit jpeg format. Here is the smallest amount of data available. The maximum amount of colour gradations is expressed in bits. Each pixel has 3 bytes and each byte has 8 bits. Accordingly the colour gradations for an 8-bit JPEG-format has 28=256 colour gradations.

Fig 11.2 Person in front of a bright background. The photo is a 14-bit RAW format.

The photo in the RAW format contains much more colour information than the jpeg format. The sensor of a modern full-frame camera provides already a 14-bit colour format. Although the dynamic range captured in the RAW format is significantly higher, no optimal exposure of the whole scene could be achieved. For the image processing, the optimal illumination of the person was preferred. The result shown in Fig. 11-2 is already rather acceptable. Fig 11.1 Person in front of a bright background. The photo is an 8 bit jpeg format. 2

Basic knowledge for photography especially for journalists can be found for example in the book from Kay-Christian Heine: Fotografie fĂźr Journalisten (Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Reilly Verlag, 2010).

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Theoretical Informations about the HDRI technique and how it is practiced can be found in the chapters 1 & 2. 4 More information about Pseudo HDR can be found in the chapter 15

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Fig 11.3 Person in front of a bright background. The photo in Fig 11.2 war converted to a pseudo HDR and reworked with Photoshop.

In order to capture the dynamic range of the scene as good as possible, a pseudo HDR can be created from one image in RAW format by merging three different exposure levels from the same picture. This technique can be carried out e.g. with Photoshop or Photomatix5. Especially in the lighter areas of a scene the pseudo HDR can make details more visible (Fig. 11-3). The integrated HDR function of the newer digital cameras, or even in the smartphone sector does not ultimately lead to an optimal result, because the functions are only standardized as a preset menu item „HDR“. Although the built-in HDR function of a digital camera often use already 3 differently exposed shots for an HDR image, the individual image processing of a pseudo HDR on the computer provides usually significantly better results. The software programme Photomatix Pro 5.0 provides a tool to merge a pseudo HDR automatically from one image in a RAW format. For the tonemapping of the pseudo HDR in Fig. 11-3 the option „Inside 2“ from Photomatix Pro 5.0 was exemplarily applied. Afterwards it was finished with Photoshop. As a result, a good balance was achieved in the highcontrast scene: both the person and the background are well exposed. Especially the colour shades could be fine-tuned much better in the pseudo HDR than in the jpeg- or RAW format. Thus the photo got more plasticity and naturalness. Creating an auto bracketing in RAW format makes always sense even if you don‘t work out all photos as an HDRI. The internal exposure meter of a camera or an external one is not always measuring reliably. With a bracketing you have the option to select the photo with the optimal exposure of the scene. For image processing even a single photo in RAW format is better than a jpeg format. As shown in Fig. 11-2 for a backlit 5

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situation, a pretty good result could be achieved by brightening the photo with the RAW converter of Photoshop. From the same scene the photo in the jpeg format was suffering from significant over- and under-exposures (Fig. 11-1). This can‘t be corrected sufficiently with image processing. Another backlight situation was photographed only in JPEG format.

in order to achieve a more balanced exposure of the image. Realistic images with HDR The claim of many photojournalists to pursue realistic photography is - from the technical point of view - ideally supported by the HDR photography. With no other technique you will get such realistic results. In many circles the HDR photography is unfortunately discredited, because the images would seem overdrawn and unrealistic. This rumor persists, perhaps because the photographer doesn‘t mark the realistic processed HDR images as an „HDRI“, while the HDR effect of the overdrawn images immediately can be seen. Basically every photographer should make the image processing according his/her own preferences. Just please do not assume that no realistic images could be achieved with HDR photography. It‘s quite the opposite! HDR images from analogue Slides

Fig 11.4 A backlit situation. The photo is a jpeg format. The image processing was done with Photoshop.

Slides from analogue days could be also important for a report. They consist of multiple film layers that respond to light differently. Therefore slides feature a very high dynamic range. The digitisation of slides was and is often carried out with scanners. Another way to digitise slides is to photograph them. Required are only a tripod, light panel and a digital camera preferably with a 50 mm macro lens. With this equipment a bracketing for an HDR photo can be created from a single slide. Here are some examples:

Fig 11.5 Backlit situation with persons. The picture is showing a pseudo HDR which was made out of one image in a jpeg format (Fig. 11-4).

The pseudo HDR was created with Photomatix Pro 5.0. There were made two copies from the normally exposed photo (0), one overexposed (+1) and one underexposed (-1). Then, the three images were merged and tonemapped with Photomatix. Compared with the single 8-bit jpeg format, the pseudo HDRI is more balanced. It approved, that even if no single image in RAW format is available, it is worth to try a pseudo HDR with a jpeg format 160 HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

Fig 11.6 Photo in an 8-bit jpeg format from an analogue slide.

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From an analogue slide of a young girl a digital photo in an 8-bit jpeg format was produced and processed with Photoshop. The photo has strong contrasts, the hairs disappear partly in the darkness of the shadow. The picture shows a bluish colour cast that often have been caused by analogue films. The colours are not much differentiated. An intensification of the colours would have changed the facial colour unfavorable.

Fig 11.7 HDR image from an analogue slide.

From the analogue slide of the young girl in Fig. 11-6 an HDR image was created out of a sequence of 7 differently exposed photographs in RAW format. For the bracketing a light table, tripod and a full frame camera were used. The image processing was done with Photomatix Pro 5.0 and Photoshop. The result can be seen in Fig. 11-7. Compared to the photo in Fig. 11-6, the HDR image is more detailed and has more colour differentiation. Even in the shadows as well as in the „bleached-out“ parts in very bright areas the details were revealed. The settings for the contrast were carefully finetuned in order to make the image as realistic as possible. Exaggerated local contrast especially in portrait photography generates an artistic effect. Here a careful use of the tools „detail contrast“, „strength“ and „black point“ in the tonemapper Photomatix Pro 5.0 is recommended. Of course, one could even use other software programms, for example, for facial retouching after the HDR image has been tonemapped. To maintain the naturalness of the person in Fig. 11-7 a retouching has been omitted. Another example of an HDRI from an analogue slide was produced from an image of an old man carrying a boy on his back. A bracketing with 5 shots in RAW format was created, merged with Photomatix Pro 5.0 into a 32-bit HDR image and rendered to an 8-bit jpeg with the tool „Fusion“.

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Fig 11.8 Bracketing from an analogue slide.

The rendered HDR image yielded a more balanced picture than the single photos. Especially the faces of the old man and the young boy appear more natural and vivid. As already shown in the previous example (Fig. 11-7) also in this photo more details could be revealed in the overexposed and in the underexposed parts. The postprocessing of the HDR image was done with Photoshop with the tools „tonal correction“ and „unsharp mask“. Using the features „detail contrast“, „black point“ or „strengths“ in Photomatix Pro 5.0 too much, the details and contrasts of an HDR image can be significantly exaggerated resulting in an artistic effect. But it is by no means sharper. To sharpen an image it is recommended to use other image editing programms like Photoshop or Gimp after the tone mapping. Then, the image is actually sharper and retains its naturalness.

Fig 11.9 Finished HDR image from an analogue slide.

If only slight movements occur in a scene during a bracketing it can be corrected with the feature „remove ghost pictures“ from Photomatix Pro 5.0. Nevertheless, for moving objects the pseudo HDR remains the means of choice, while for non-moving motifs the bracketing can be used for an HDR. Whether the scenes have a high dynamic range or a low dynamic range is not the decisive criterion for the application of HDRI.

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HDR images from bracketings HDR images usually are created by making a sequence of 3-9 differently exposed photographs and then merging them into one 32-bit HDR image. This format, called also â&#x20AC;&#x17E;radiance mapâ&#x20AC;&#x153;1 can store approximately the physical values of luminance or radiance that are in the real world. Although the amount of data is reduced by the tone mapping process to an 8-bit jpeg or 16-bit tiff format, the 32-bit HDR image provides enormous possibilities for image processing. Due to its high colour depths even for low contrast scenes much more details and a better plasticity can be yielded. Against the background of this consideration, the HDRI technique could be applied nearly for every scene. Fig 11.10: Low contrast scene in an old factory. The final 8-bit jpeg image was created from an HDR-image from a bracketing with 5 shots in RAW format.

Batching of HDR images Generally on photo-tours I make bracketings in RAW format. Afterwards it can be decided

Fig 11.11 Low contrast scene in an old factory. The final image has a very realistic appearance based on the 32bit colour depths of the HDR image.

to make an HDR or just to take the best shot in a RAW format for the image processing. HDR image processing takes time. For a larger quantity of bracketings Photomatix Pro 5.0 has the feature for batching, which reduces the working process enormously. Quite often the reason for not to make an HDR is the time needed for the image processing.

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Chapter 11 With the â&#x20AC;&#x17E;Batchingâ&#x20AC;&#x153; feature multiple bracketings can be automatically merged into HDR images, so that only the tone mapping must be done individually on the computer. One can batch also both to merge the bracketings into an HDR image and to make a standardized tone mapping. In order to obtain better results, I prefer to make the tone mapping individually for each photo. Even small changes of the photographed situation, eg. an altered light, could cause changes in the HDR image processing . Fig 11.12 HDR image of a cemetery.

The cemetery was photographed on a grey, cloudy day. It was a typical low contrast situation. In the background a slight lightening of the diffuse light could be seen, because on this place there were no higher trees and therefore no shadow effects. Such weak lightening and colour shades can be worked out more impressive with HDR images than with traditional digital images. The scene in Fig. 11.12 has predominantly greens and greys. Due to the high depth of colour of the HDR images the colour gradation could be worked out very fine and it was possible to set a slight colour emphasis on the brighter place of the meadow in the background. Fig 11.13 Early morning mist.

HDR images for foggy and backlight situations The finished 8-bit image in Fig. 11.13 was created from an HDR image from a bracketing of 7 shots in a RAW format. The sky in the real scene had a very slight colour that would have been visible only a little or not in a traditional digital photo. With an HDR image, however, the mood with detailed colour nuances could be visualized. Photographing into the bright sunlight, even in fog, is not unproblematic. Often the objects in the backlight are too dark, loose colour and structure.

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These effects can be used as a stylistic device. If you want to avoid them, however, use the HDR technique. Only with this technique, the high dynamic range of the scene can be captured. In Fig. 11.13, the details of the soil and even the green of the grasses is still visible. Here Photomatix offers numerous possibilities of tone mapping from a realistic to an artificial abstract effect. HDRI for Interior scenes The dynamic range and the lighting situation of interiors often results from different light sources: the sunlight coming through windows and other glass areas and the artificial lighting of the interior lamps. Numerous parameters influence the situation: the size and number of glass areas, the exterior lighting conditions (sun, shade, exposure), the size, form and colour of the rooms, the light sources in the room and reflections. If you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t want to change the character of the the room by using a flash you can apply the HDRI technique.

Fig 11.14 HDR image of the dining and living room in an old farmer house.

The photo in Fig. 11.14 shows a room that was only illuminated by the light from a small row of windows. The part of the room on the opposite side of the windows was quite dark and without artificial light. The scene has a high dynamic range: from the sunny daylight coming through the window to the semi-darkness of some parts of the room. Nevertheless with the HDRI technique it was possible to expose all parts of the room well-balanced and detailed. The fine colourcoordination generates plasticity and a realistic picture of the room. As already mentioned the huge amount of data of a 32-bit HDR image bears a lot of creative possibilities in the image processing process. Accordingly, the results can differ enormously. In order to illustrate the big differences to finish an HDR image to an 8-bit jpeg, the naturally finished image of the room in Fig. 11.14 is shown with a quite artistic effect in Fig. 11.15.

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Fig 11.15 An artificial HDR image of a dining and living room in an old farmer house.

Fig 11.16 Rock church in Cappadocia.

Similiar to the previous photos of the room in the old farmer house difficult light conditions could be found also in historical buildings like churches and castles. The following example is showing an 8-bit jpeg from an HDR image of a rock church in Cappadocia. In the semi-darkness of the church in Fig. 11.16 only few daylight impinged some parts of the wall. The artificial light of the altar niche in the back as well as the sun-exposed and shadow areas caused a difficult blended light situation. An auto-bracketing with 5 shots in RAW format was taken. The longest exposure time was 13 seconds. A sturdy tripod and a remote release were obligatory in this situation. The finished image shows a well balanced exposure and plasticity of the room. Only those parts of the room that seemed to be completely dark kept dark in the image. Probably a bracketing of 9 instead of 5 shots would have revealed the details even in the darkest shadows. The blended light situation could be solved well with the HDRI technique. HDR for the photography of Objects For reports the photography of objects is often essential. But the objects are not always located in good conditions of illumination. The old sewing machine in Fig. 11.17 stood in the semi-darkness of an old farmer house. From the HDR image it was possible to get a natural image of the object.

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Fig 11.17 Antique sewing machine.

The working process was the same as for the image from the room in the old farmer house in Fig. 11.14. The annoying matter with the tripod Generally a tripod for a bracketing is essential. But, to have a stable tripod for reports in the bag is not always possible. Sometimes it has to go too fast or there is only little space or many people can push. There exist lots of reasons why you don‘t have a tripod here. Nevertheless, it is worth to try to photograph a bracketing for an HDR out of the hand, at least in some situations. You have to keep in mind that the longest exposure time must be photographed also out of the hand. Usually it functions at maximum of 1/60 seconds without blur. You need a camera that has the function „auto bracketing“ (AEB). Without this tool you cannot shoot the bracketing for HDR out of the hand, because the exposure time for each shot must be adjusted manually and you need 3-9 stops exactly from the same scene. In this case try it with a pseudo-HDR out of one photo in RAW format. The faster your camera can make the bracketing, the higher is the chance to achieve a sharp HDR image. Lighting conditions, data amount and type of camera influence the speed of the automatic bracketing. To lean the camera on a fix object like a wall is helpful to avoid own movements during the photography. If you could make at least 3 sharp shots with only slight movement you can make an HDR image. To remove the effects of the slight movements you can use the feature „Deghosting“ from Photomatix Pro 5,0.

Conclusion In the past few years the enormous potential of HDRI photography was more and more discovered from photographers. Of course, the current stage of development of HDR photography bears the potential for improvements in terms of camera sensors, HDRI camera technique and HDRI image processing. One can hope that the relevant steps are further optimized in the near future. Nevertheless, the results are already convincing for the use of the multi-shot technique. Never before such realistic images were possible as with HDRI. This fact should give the technique a proper place in all media.

Index Directory Media Backlight Realistic images Analogue slies Low contrast scene Interior scene Blended light Tripod

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HDR Photography for Scientific Documentation from Ruth Schmelzer & Matthias Gessler HDR-photography for quarternary geology and geographical documentation HDR-Photography for archeological documentation HDR photography for Botanic Documentation

For the scientific documentation with photography a well balanced illumination and natural colours of the photos are of great importance to obtain a realistic picture of the scene or object. With common digital photography over- and underexposed parts in a photo occur frequently, because the dynamic range of a scene is often higher than the dynamic range, the camera sensor can capture. Plasticity and colour fastness of a scene can be shown in a common digital photo only up to a certain point, especially in high contrast situations or unfavorable light. A flash can reduce the plasticity and colour fastness significantly whereas high ISO values cause colour deviations and noise. The HDRI technique is a powerful tool against these weaknesses. Using a lens with 50 mm focal length has many advantages for the scientific documentation. In particular, the low distortion has a positive effect. The angle of view of the human eye is similar to the 50 mm focal length. In addition, this standard lens has a very high light intensity, eg. 1: 1.4, which supports faster shutter speeds and a higher sharpness of the images. The barely existing distortion and a good, uniform illumination of the image without darkened corners (vignetting) support a natural appearance and high quality of the photos. With close-up lens rings these lenses are also suitable for close-up and macro shots. Colour fastness may sometimes lead to boring photos. However, in the scientific documentation colour fastness plays a significant role. The use of grey panels is recommended in order to get natural colours. With a polarizing filter you can eliminate reflections and intensify colours, but it does not support the colour fastness. The following examples of scientific documentation in quarternary geology, geography and archeology with HDRI photography shall illustrate the advantages of this technique. HDR-photography for quarternary geology and geographical documentation

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Fig 12.1.1 A tone mapped HDR image out of a series of 5 differently exposed images (camera with tripod).

Meaningful photos from topography should in spite of the twodimensionality of the image have a three-dimensional effect, so that the geomorphology of the terrain appear clearly. You should be able to distinguish clearly foreground, middle ground and background of the image. This can be achieved both by natural colours as well as by a balanced exposure of the scene. According the perception of the human eye, a natural colour scheme has more saturated colours in the foreground, while in the background outweigh blues and greys in a fine colour graduation. The HDR image in Fig. 12.1.1 shows such natural distribution of colours. Due to the HDR technique a quite balanced exposure of all areas, from the shadows to the sun could be achieved. Particularly in very bright scenes, for example in arid or semi-arid landscapes with few vegetation, the shots are often too bright and therefore appear less plastic. The sensor of the camera is not sufficient for the given dynamic range of the scene. Although a polarizing filter can remove reflections on surfaces (plants, water surfaces, etc.) and make the colours richer, it cannot increase the exposure range of the camera. This can be done with the HDRI technique. For the HDR image in Fig. 12.1.1 a bracketing with 5 shots was created. The aperture was set at f / 8 and ISO set to 200. The images in Fig. 12.1.2-12.1.6 are showing the results of the different exposure times: In the differently exposed images it can be seen that the darkest parts of the scene are perfectly captured with the longer exposure time, the brightest parts with the short exposure time. But the sequence show that it was not possible to capture the whole dynamic range of the scene in one image. The data, provided in the entire series of images with different exposures, can be merged digitally into one HDR image. In the subsequent tone mapping the data will be compressed again into an 8-bit or 16-bit image, to make it displayable on a monitor or being able to print it out. Although you throw away most of the precious rendering when saving out an 8-bit image, the landscape still can be displayed much more detailed than with a common photo due to the extensive 170 HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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exposure data. In all areas of the HDR image (Fig. 12.1.1) structures and details can be seen much better than in the single photos of the bracketing. From the geographical point of view an HDR image can provide much more information. Moreover, the excellent colour rendering of an HDR image plays an important role in the plasticity and natural reproduction of the scene. Fig 12.1.2 - 1/1250 sec

Fig 12.1.3 - 1/640 sec

The tone mapping of the 32-bit HDR image offers an enormous variety of different processing options. This process is more demanding than the image processing of a common photo. Photomatix provides a lot of useful features to facilitate the tone mapping. Several presets are available showing their effect in small thumbnails. You can select the preset that fits well to your image. The fine tuning can be done manually with several sliders. Nevertheless, the results can vary widely from natural to artific appearance. After the tone mapping additional common image processing like sharpening or tonal correction are necessary. Another example of the meaningful use of the HDR technique for topographical surveys provides the following picture in Fig. 12.1.7.

Fig 12.1.4 - 1/320 sec

Fig 12.1.7 HDR image: Badlands in Cappadocia / Turkey Fig 12.1.5 - 1/160 sec

Fig 12.1.6 - 1/80 sec

The scene in Fig. 12.1.7 is typical for a high dynamic range situation: sunshine reflecting on the unvegetated bright surfaces and areas in the shadow cause a high contrast. With the HDR technique, however, a well exposed image could be obtained. The different shades of colour and particles in the solidified material are clearly visible in the HDR image. These are important informations for the scientist because they let draw conclusions about the origin and process of the sedimentation in this area. With common photography or even in analogue times I had problems to photography such HDR Photography - A Practical Guide 171

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Fig 12.1.8 a-c

surfaces in the bright sunshine. It was helpful to wait for the warm light of the evening sun. But even in this light the result was not as good as with HDR.

Fig 12.1.8 d-e Bracketed exposure sequence of 5 images.

If the surfaces are uniformly illuminated, the bizarre morphology of the badlands generated by the different erosion of rocks and sediments with different weather resistance can be seen very detailed. The effect of too strong contrasts due to bright sunlight and shadows can lead to a wrong impression of the actual morphology of the landscape. With the HDRI technique the contrasts are shown in a natural way and not too strong. The bracketed exposure sequence for the HDR image in Fig. 12.2.7 was merged and tone mapped with Photomatix Pro 5.0. For the tone mapping the option „standard“ was chosen and then optimized with different features for the finetuning. Especially the options „strengths“, „colour saturation“, „detail contrast“, „light effect“, „black point“ and „white point“ can be used carefully. An exaggeration of the images, in particular with the unduly use of the features „black point“ or „strength“ has an adverse effect on the natural characteristic of an image. The image processing of HDR images for geographical or geomorphological purposes is very specific. The best results can be achieved with the separate processing of single images, not with a standard processing for all images. General overviews like in fig. 12.1.1 and fig. 12.1.7 deliver other geographical informations than close-up and macro images. Such photos are taken for example from outcrops or escarpments which are more or less steep faces in the landscape, where the rocks and sediments of the ground become visible. Their origin has various causes, for example the erosion of a river or geological activities. In fig. 12.1.9 an HDR image of an outcrop can be seen. A 50 mm lens was used to avoid perspective distortions.

Fig 12.1.9 HDR image from the bracketed series of 5 images shown in fig. 12.1.8 a-e

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Compared to the single photos in fig. 12.1.8a-e the tone mapped HDR image in fig. 12.1.9 shows more details of the structures in the material and a better finetuning of the colours. Although the results of the single photos in fig. 12.1.8a and 12.1.8b are already quite good, the HDR image reveal obviously more details and colours. The best information for quarternary purposes delivers a realistic photo.

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Additionally to overview images details like particle sizes, sorting, colour and alignment of the sediments are important informations that should be photographically documented in the scientific field work. Exactly here are the strengths of the HDRI technique. Since the RAW format already provides the approximate maximum of the respective camera sensor data the bracketing in RAW format is better than the jpeg format. A greyscale card could be used to determine the appropriate white balance for the original colours of a scene as closely as possible in the photo. After the tone mapping the image should be finetuned with an image processing software. Since the HDR image is a product of several images, it has the tendency to be a bit unsharper than a single photo. Especially recommended features are the „high pass filter“ or „unsharp mask“ of Photoshop to sharpen the images.

Index directory Focal length Scientific documentation Vignetting Close-up rings Quarternary geology Geomorphology Outcrop Perspective distortions Scientific field work

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Chapter 12.2

HDR-Photography for Archeological Documentation from Ruth Schmelzer & Matthias Gessler Numerous archaeological findings such as inscriptions, petroglyphs, tombs, objects and settlements are subject to a precise scientific documentation. Often the objects are not in good condition. Thus it is important to use a documentation technique which is able to show the details of the object as good as possible, for example its form, quality of the surface, colours and plasticity. Archeologists let make for example meticulous drawings from less descriptive photos in order to provide a more accurate image of the ancient object. With an HDR image contours, structures, colours and plasticity can be shown better than with a conventional photo. In 2011 the archeologist David Wheatley1 already described the advantages of HDR photography for archeological documentation. The interesting aspects of the HDR multishot technique shall be shown in the following examples: Fresco in the rock church „Hali Kilise“ in Cappadocia Already considerably damaged frescoes can be seen in the rock church „Hacli Kilise“ (Cross Church) in Cappadocia / Turkey from the 10th /11th century. The lighting conditions in the rock room are problematic for photography. The altar area is dark, the frescoes are only dimly visible. Daylight shines through the doors/windows on the opposite part of the altar. With the camera on the tripod a bracketing with 5 shots with each one stop difference was created. The dim light required relatively long exposure times. Therefore an additional remote release was used to avoid blur caused by vibrations. The aperture was set to f / 4.5, ISO on 200. For merging and tone mapping the HDR image the software „Photomatix“ was used. Here it is recommended to use the function „remove ghosting“ routinely to eliminate minor blurring. The figure 12.2.6 shows the tone mapping with Photomatix. The HDR photo of the rock church was first tone mapped with the preset „Standard“, while the fine tuning was done especially with the settings „strength“ and „detail contrast“ (left window).

Wheatley, David, 2011: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Archaeological Recording, in: Journal of Archaeological Method & Theory. Sep2011, Vol. 18 Issue 3, p256-271.

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Fig 12.2.1 Exposure time 1/4 sec.

Fig 12.2.2 Exposure time 1/2 sec.

Fig 12.2.3 Exposure time 1 Sec.

Fig 12.2.4 Exposure time 2 Sec.

Fig 12.2.5 Exposure time 4 Sec.

As a result, balanced colours, high detail reproduction and good plasticity could be achieved (Figure 12.2.7). This HDR image was saved after the tone mapping in an 8-bit jpeg format. With Photomatix it is also possible to safe the HDR image after the tone mapping in a 16-bit format. The white balance is important for the colour temperature of an image. Especially if there are difficult lighting conditions like a mixture of artificial and daylight (blended light) the white balance is problematic. There are several ways to adjust the white balance of the camera to a scene: with the option â&#x20AC;&#x17E;live viewâ&#x20AC;&#x153; you can see directly the scene in the monitor of a digital camera. Accordingly you can manually adjust the whitebalance in Kelvin until the scene has the best colour temperature. Although this method is rather subjectively it has proven to be very practical and efficient. The series of images with different exposures for an HDR image should be always in a RAW format. The white balance can be finetuned in RAW formats without problems. The tonemappers usually do not have an option for the white balance. You can adjust the colour temperature of the RAW formats with the RAW-Converter from Photoshop before merging the series of differently exposed photos into one HDR image.

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Fig 12.2.6 Tone mapping with Photomatix

Fig 12.2.7 Finished HDR image of the rock church â&#x20AC;&#x17E;Hacli Kiliseâ&#x20AC;&#x153; in Cappadocia/Turkey

Medieval wayside cross in the Black Forest Another example of the documentary value of HDR photography provides the inscription on a stone cross, which had clear signs of weathering. The main focus was to make the surface structure and the details clearly visible in the photo. With an aperture of F 6/3 and an ISO value of 200, an exposure series of 9 shots in RAW format was taken in heavily overcast sky. Tripod and remote release were used. The results are shown in figure 12.2.8 to 12.2.16.

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None of the single photos delivered an optimal result of the inscription.

Fig 12.2.8 - 1/250 sec

Fig 12.2.9 - 1/100 sec

Fig 12.2.10 - 1/60 sec

Fig 12.2.11 - 1/30 sec

Fig 12.2.12 - 1/15 sec

Fig. 12.2.13 - 1/8 sec

Fig 12.2.14 - 1/4 sec

Fig 12.2.15 - 1/2 sec

Fig 12.2.16 - 1 sec

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Fig 12.2.17 Tone mapping with Photomatix. The inscription of the wayside cross appeared clearly in the image.

Fig 12.2.18 Postprocessing of the tone mapped HDR image with Photoshop.

The series of 9 images was merged with „Photomatix“ into an HDR image. The option „selective ghost images correction“ was used in order to remove unsharpness. Then the HDR image was tone mapped. The magnifier in Photomatix is very helpful to select the appropriate tone mapping. In the enlarged segments of the photo you can see exactly the details of the processed image. To bring out the inscription clearly with the tone mapping some presets from Photomatix were appropriate like „Soft“, „Surreal 2“ and „Painterly5“. In the example of Figure 12.2.17 „Painterly5“ was used, then the midtones were slightly reduced. The HDR image was saved in a 16-bit tiff format and then finally sharpened with the Photoshop tool „Unsharp Mask“. With this processing the inscription became clearly visible. The postprocessing of the tone mapped HDR image with Photoshop improved the result obviously. The finished image was saved in an 8-bit jpeg format.

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A Tibetan Brass Vase The following example demonstrates how to show a 3-dimensional object in a 2-dimensional image as plastically and detailed as possible with the HDR technique. The object was a 14 cm high, tibetan buddhist vase with ornaments. In soft evening light (without artificial light) a sequence of 7 differently exposed shots with an ISO value of 125 was taken. Aperture 8 was selected to achieve the best sharpness.

Fig 12.2.19 Exposure time - 1/10 sec

Fig 12.2.20 Exposure time - 1/5 sec

Fig 12.2.21 Exposure time - 1/2.5 sec

Fig 12.2.23 Exposure time - 1,6 sec

Fig 12.2.24 Exposure time - 3 sec

Fig.12.2.25: Exposure time - 6 sec

Fig 12.2.22 Exposure time - 1/1.3 sec

For all shots a tripod was used. For the colour-neutral adjustment of the white balance a grey card2 was helpful. The camera adjusted with the greyscale card to a value of 6350 Kelvin3. This ensures that the colours are photographed as naturally as possible. The bracketing was taken in RAW format. The sequence of 7 differently exposed photos was merged with Photomatix into an HDR image and then tone mapped.

Greyscale cards are colour charts with a standardized shade of grey that can be identified from digital cameras. It reflects 18 percent of the light. Grey cards are very helpful to find out the suitable white balance in different light situations or different light temperature. The digital camera can automatically adjust the white balance according the grey card.

Three hours before, in a slight sunlight, the camera adjusted the white balance to 4300 Kelvin with the greyscale card. This big difference show once more how important the exact adjustment of the white balance is.

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Fig 12.2.27 HDR image processing with Photomatix.

Fig 12.2.28 Finished HDR image saved out as an 8-bit image.

The preset â&#x20AC;&#x17E;strongâ&#x20AC;&#x153; for tone mapping in Photomatix generated a good result. Although some of the single shots of the bracketing already provided quite good results, the finished HDR image showed a better plasticity. In contrast to the artificial photography, where the photographer try to photograph a scene as impressive as possible by using light and shadow or special perspectives, the scientific documentation requires an image that corresponds to the nature of the scene or object as much as possible. Soft, scattered light, precise white balance, a 50 mm lens and neutral backgrounds foster the natural reproduction considerably. The finished HDR image in Fig. 12.2.28 of the tibetan vase shows the ornaments, edges and bumps in a realistic way. The colour temperature of the image was displayed on some monitors more bluish, whereas the actual vase has a warm brass colour. This difference can be caused by the different calibration of the monitors. Generally it is important for the image processing to know the colour space1 of the devices (camera, monitor, printer) used and synchronize them accordingly in order to avoid colour deviations. Another example for the documentation of archeological objects with HDR photography was introduced by Watson, J. T. and Weiland, J.2, whereas Theodor, J.M. described the advantages of HDR Photography for the documentation in Paleontology3.

4 5

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Chapter 12 Buddhist petroglyphs from the Karakoram Highway, Pakistan In the following example a buddhist rock carving from the Karakorum Highway in Northern Pakistan was photographed with an analogue camera. The image of the rock carving was only available as an analogue slide. With camera, light table and tripod a bracketed exposure sequence was taken out of the slide. The colour temperature was adjusted with the white balance. The individual shots of the exposure series brought a moderate result. With shutter speeds of 1/30 sec. or 1/15 sec. the photo became too dark. With longer exposure times a mirroring of the rock surfaces exposed to the sunlight occured, which was caused by the dark patinated, relatively smooth suface of the rock.

Fig 12.2.29 Exposure time - 1/30 sec

Fig 12.2.30 Exposure time - 1/15 sec

Fig 12.2.31 Exposure time - 1/8 sec

Fig 12.2.32 Exposure time - 1/4 sec

Fig 12.2.33 Exposre time - 1/2 sec

Fig 12.2.34 Exposure time - 1 sec

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The series of images in RAW-format was merged into an HDR image and then tone mapped. With the tone mapping the mirroring of the rock surface could be reduced but not completely removed. The buddhist rock carving itself kept flat in the finished HDR image.

Fig 12.2.35 Exposure time - 2 sec

Fig 12.2.36 HDR image processing with Photomatix. Rock carvings from the Karakorum Highway in Pakistan.

Since we aimed at making the rock carving visible as good as possible, we used the preset „Dark“ of Photomatix and increased the colour saturation. As a result we got an unrealistic image. The carvings appeared more yellowish, but still not clear enough. The mirroring on the rock surface was nearly removed. With the tone mapping in Photomatix the contours of the rock carving became yellow and a bit clearer. Then the image was reworked with Photoshop. With the Photoshop tool „Selective Colour Correction“ the yellow colour of the petroglyph could be intensified significantly. The photo was sharpened with the filters „Unsharp Mask“ and „Highpass“. Thus, the rock carving appeared clearly, better than the actual carving (Fig. 12.2.39).

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Fig 12.2.37 Tone mapped HDR image of a rock carving

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Although it was necessary to process the tone mapped HDR image additionally with Photoshop in order to make the rock carving clearly visible, the final result could be achieved only with the use of the HDR technique. We tried to get the same result with a single shot in RAW format, but failed. Index directory

Fig 12.2.38 Result after using the default â&#x20AC;&#x17E;Darkâ&#x20AC;&#x153; from Photomatix for the tone mapping.

Blended light Kelvin Greyscale card Magnifier Colour space Selective Colour Correction.

Fig 12.2.39 Rock carving on a patinated rock surface. The HDR image was processed with Photomatix and Photoshop.

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HDR Photography for Botanic Documentation from Ruth Schmelzer & Matthias Gessler Photos are a valuable medium for the documentation. Often this fact is disregarded. For example for the documentation of museums: the gathering, providing and accessibility of informations to all kinds of objects in museums is well described, but there are no or only scarce informations about the importance of photography for documentation.

Fig 12.3.1 Alant, exposure time - 1/400 sec

Fig 12.3.2 Alant, exosure time - 1/200 sec

Fig 12.3.3 Alant, exosure time - 1/100 sec

Fig 12.3.4 Alant, exposure time - 1/50 sec

Fig 12.3.5 Alant, exposure time - 1/25 sec

Fig 12.3.6 Alant, exposure time - 1/13 sec

Fig 12.3.7 Alant, exposure time - 1/6 sec

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Fig 12.3.9 Finished HDR 8-bit image of an Alant plant

Frequently the images touch people much more than texts. Thus it is important to keep an eye on the quality of all kinds of photographic documentation. In the following text the botanic documentation will be explained more detailed.

The shots of the bracketing were merged with Photomatix into an HDR image and subsequently tone mapped. The huge data volume of HDR images enables many different possibilities for the image processing.

For the photographic documentation of plants the properties of the plants must be reproduced clearly. Most important are the colours, structures and plasticity of the plant. The following examples show how to get good photos with the HDR technique.

The tone mapped HDR image is showing the Alant plant very close to its real appearance. Structure and form of the leaves, blossoms and stems can be seen detailed whereas its colours are realistic. Photographed with a 50 mm lens the image has no remarkable distortion. A metre stick or an object of a well known size in the photo could be used as a benchmark in order to facilitate the estimation of the size of the plant.

In the bracketing shown in Fig. 12.3.1-7 none of the shots with different exposure time show the structures of the plant really good. This is probably the reason why in handbooks for plants there are often no photos but drawings of the plants with a clear accentuation of their characteristic features.

Fig 12.3.8 Merging of an HDR image and tone mapping with Photomatix. The magnifier makes it easier to select the most suitable preset from Photomatix for the tone mapping.

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Chapter 12 Extension of the focus depths: FocusStacking in combination with HDRI technique For closeup images with the HDR technique the Stacking could be a useful additional improvement. Closeups have only a small depth of focus. Only a comparatively small part of the image seems sharp. With an open aperture the depth of focus can be extended up to a certain point. Another very effective way to sharpen a photo in the fore, middle- and background is the Stacking. It can be applied together with the HDRI-technique. Like the HDRI technique the Stacking is also a multishot-technique. That means you need several photos from one scene. Whereas for an HDRI the photographer needs a sequence of differently exposed shots, for the Stacking a sequence of photos with different focus adjustments is required The focus depths must be different in each photo.

programms providing the tools needed for Stacking. The programme filters out the sharp focus of each photo and merge them accordingly. The final result is an overall sharper image. For Stacking you can also find freeware like Enfuse, Combine ZP or Macro Fusion. In the following example Photomatix was used for merging and tone mapping the HDR image. Then the stacking was processed with Photoshop. First from the same motif, a thistle, 4 different autobracketings ( A - D) each with 5 single shots were taken: Each bracketing had a different focus on sharpness. There was diffuse light under a cloudy sky. ISO 200 was used and an aperture of 2.8. The camera was on a tripod in order to avoid vibrations and loss of sharpness. Each of the 4 autobracketings provided 5 differently exposed images for the processing of the HDR images.

Then the photos are merged with software-

Fig 12.3.10 bracketing A thistle, exposure 1/20 sec.

Fig 12.3.11 bracketing A thistle, exposure 1/10 sec.

Fig 12.3.13 bracketing A thistle, exposure 1/2 sec.

Fig 12.3.14 bracketing A thistle, exposure 0,77 sec.

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Fig 12.3.12 bracketing A thistle, exposure 1/5 sec.

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The only difference between the 4 bracketings was the different focus on sharpness in the foreground, middle and background of the image. The sequences of differently exposed images in bracketing A, B, C and D were merged into 4 HDR images.

Fig 12.3.15 - Bracketing A: Finished 8-bit HDR image after tone mapping. The depths of focus is on the tips of the thistle in the foreground.

Fig 12.3.16 - Bracketing B: Finished 8-bit HDR-image after tone mapping. The depths of focus is also in foreground, but little different to the depths of focus in bracketing A.

Fig 12.3.17 - Bracketing C: Finished 8-bit HDR image after tone mapping. The depths of focus is between the thistle in the foreground and the one in the background. Parts of the leaves are also sharp.

Fig 12.3.18 - Bracketing D: Finished 8-bit HDR image after tone mapping. The depths of focus is on the thistle in the background.

Finally the 4 HDR images with different focus of sharpness were merged into one image. With this method the areas of sharpness of an image can be enlarged enormously.

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The image processing for the stacking in Photoshop is like this:

Fig 12.3.19 Focus-Stacking with Photoshop. Select the options „file>scripts>upload file in batch“

With the option „upload file in batch“ a new window opens that show the documents on your computer disk. Select the files and upload them in the programme (Fig. 12.3.22).

Fig 12.3.20 Focus Stacking with Photoshop. The images used are uploaded to the programme

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Fig. 12.3.21: Focus Stacking with Photoshop. The selected files are uploaded as different levels in a pile. You should also activate the option to align source images automatically.

Photoshop loads the selected files in a pile. Select the option â&#x20AC;&#x17E;process>superimpose levels automaticallyâ&#x20AC;&#x153; (Fig. 12.3.24). The programme recognises the areas with the highest sharpness in the images and merge them into one image.

Fig. 12.3.22: Focus Stacking with Photoshop: The images are defined as levels and superimposed automatically.

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Fig 12.3.23 Focus Stacking with Photoshop. Photoshop has two options for superimposing, one for panorama and one for the stacking of images. For the focus stacking use the option â&#x20AC;&#x17E;stacking imagesâ&#x20AC;&#x153;.

Fig 12.3.24 Focus Stacking with Photoshop. The different superimposed images can be seen as levels in the small window on the right side on the bottom of the screen.

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Fig 12.3.25 The final result. An image of a thistle made with HDRI technique in combination with Focus Stacking.

The finished 8-bit image is delivering a result that wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t have been achieved with common digital photography. The HDRI technique ensured brilliant and realistic colors, plasticity and more details, whereas the high sharpness was achieved with the focus stacking. There are still some parts of the photo which arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t sharp. With more photos for the stacking these parts could be made also sharp.

Index directory Focus Stacking Depth of focus

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Lost Places from Matthias Gessler The atmosphere and scenery of lost places fascinate more and more photographers. Of course it could be a challenging thing to highlight leaking roofs, damp walls, floors and staircases, rotten window frames and doors, old furniture and stuff or old castles and historical buildings. But exactly this motivates and inspires the passionate photographer.

Fig 13.1 Lost Places are ideal locations for HDR-Photography.

For the photo in Fig. 13-1 the following camera settings were used: ISO 200, Aperture 5,6, Bracketing with 5 single shots 1 EV Difference. Like night photography and landscape photography â&#x20AC;&#x17E;Lost Placesâ&#x20AC;&#x153; fit very well for HDR photography. There are many situations, that require the strengths of HDRI technique. Lost places often comprise high contrast scenes like interesting open or damaged windows and doors. Photographed from outside into the interior of the house you often get too dark photos whereas the shots out of a window or door often are too bright and overexposed. Dark corners overgrown with plants, showing remnants of colours and walls, are beautiful, but difficult scenes for common photography. Revealing the details of old walls, ceilings and floors with interesting patterns, structures, colours, wallpapers and tiles could be a fascinating task for a photographer. With an HDR image you are able to catch all

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the interesting details like yellowed surfaces of the wooden staircases and interior equipment like curtains, old fashioned armchairs, grandmother‘s cupboards and wardrobes. To give a dark low contrast scene in a building brightness, colour and brilliance could become a photographic challenge. For all these scenes the strengths of the HDR technique can come into effect:

HDR images can represent a greater range of luminance than can be achieved using common photography

Being able to capture all data of a scene from the brightest to the darkest part in one 32-bit HDR image (the information corresponds to the physical values of luminance that can be observed in the real world), you avoid over- and underexposured parts in the photo

Dark low contrast scenes become colourful, rich in contrast and brilliant with the HDR technique.

Accordingly rendered HDR images can show finest colour gradations generating impressive plasticity and a natural look of the scene. Revealing clear structures and patterns where traditional photography only show dull surfaces.

Fig 13.2 Tone mapped HDR image of a gate in an old castle showing the foggy atmosphere on a cool winter day. The following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 8 - Bracketing with 7 single shots, 1 EV Difference. The single shots of the bracketing were taken in jpeg format

Let me show you the strengths of the HDR technique with the following examples: The photos in Fig. 13.2 and 13.3 are from the old castle ruin „Hohenbaden“ which was built in the middle ages and is located above the famous spa town Baden-Baden in the Black Forest. Whereas the first photo in Fig. 13.2 is from a typical low contrast scene, the photo in Fig.13.3 is showing a high contrast situation. The misty low contrast atmosphere in Fig. 13.2 emphasizes the mystic scene of the old building. The soft green of the leaves as well as the yellow light of the latern contrast the very fine green and blue hues of the scene that generate a plastic effect and visibility of the details. The HDR image was rendered to create a realistic effect in the final picture. The image in Fig. 13.3 is the result of an HDR Panorama. Caused by the direct sunlight, the scene comprised a high dynamic range which could be completely captured only with the HDR technique. A balanced exposure without under- and overexposed areas in the photo could be achieved. Although the castle ruin was photographed against the light, I was able to make the interesting structures of the old walls

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Fig 13.3 Sunset in the Black Forest nearby the old castle ruin â&#x20AC;&#x17E;Hohenbadenâ&#x20AC;&#x153;. For the panorama-photo in Fig 13.3 the following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 5,6 - 5 Auto bracketings, each with 7 single shots , 1 EV difference - RAW format.

visible. The colours in the fore-, middle- and background show fine colour gradations that generate a good plasticity of the scene. Even close to the sun no overexposed areas can be seen. The photos in the Fig. 13.4 to 13.9 were taken in an old lost factory in Rastatt in Germany. The old building with partly rotten window frames and ramshackle doors, mirrorings and other old stuff provided lots of interesting scenes for photography. Like for common photography for HDR Photography you have to consider technical aspects and other things like image structure, pictoral design and image detail. Additionally the image processing of HDR images, the tone mapping, is a very creative and challenging process. Because of the high amount of data in a 32 bit format HDR image you have the opportunity to make use of all the tonal values stored in the image and redistribute them in a way you prefer. It needs a little practice to work with the HDR software programmes to achieve the result you imagined.

Fig 13.4 Rendered HDR image of old stuff in an old lost factory For the photo in Fig. 13.4 the following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 8 - Bracketing with 7 single shots, 1 EV difference

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Especially scenes from lost places allow a broad range of variability of image processing, from a real look to a painterly effect with exaggerated details and/or colours.

Fig 13.5 Lost Places: Old, lost factory in Rastatt. For the photo in Fig. 13-5 the following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 8 - Bracketing with 7 single shots / 1 EV difference

In the Fig. 13.4 to 13.6 HDR images, which were tone mapped with focus on the detail rendition are shown. The surfaces and structures of the tiles, walls and floors as well as all the rubbish lying around are clearly pointed out by increasing the detail contrasts with the programme Photomatix Pro 5.0. Additionally the objects in the brightest and darkest areas of the picture can be seen. Due to the high amount of tonal values stored in a 32-bit HDR image the enhanced detail rendition is possible even in the tone mapped 8-bit jpeg format. If an original photo in a jpeg- or RAW format has already over- and underexposured areas, you cannot work out details with image processing. There are no data available in these areas. High contrasts generate in the traditional digital photography areas in the image, where subtle details diminish. In this case the camera sensor has an insufficient dynamic range. Although the photo might be beautiful it doesn‘t show the real scene. With the HDR technique you can show realistic images like never before. Finally it is a question of the tone mapping to achieve such realistic effects with HDR. The typical „HDR-effect“ with an artificial look like in Fig. 13.4. is just a result of the image processing with a tone mapper. The tone mapping can be done up to your personal taste. The scene in Fig. 13.7 is showing a typical high contrast situation. A bracketing with 9 single shots was used to obtain the required luminance range of the scene. Often a bracketing with 3 shots is not enough to capture the dynamic range of a scene.

Fig 13.6 Lost Places: Old, lost factory in Rastatt. For the photo in Fig. 13-4 the following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 8 - Bracketing with 7 single shots / 1EV difference

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Fig 13.7 Typical scene with a high contrast range: the view from a dark hall into the bright sunlight. For the photo in Fig. 13.7 the following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 8 - Bracketing with 9 single shots / 1 EV difference

The number of shots in the bracketings must be increased accordingly. Not all modern digital cameras offer automatic bracketings with 9 single shots. In this case the bracketing can be done manually1. A stable tripod is absolutely necessary. The image in Fig. 13.8 and Fig. 13.9 are examples for the realistic tone mapping of an HDR, which is close to the human perception2. The fine colour hues generate a high spatial depth. Combined with a suitable image structure you can enhance the impression of three-dimensionality enormously. The next photos in Fig. 13.10 and Fig. 13.11 are from a factory built in the 18th century, which is still in work. The old building style and the traditional equipment conveyed the impression of having been taken back into the previous century. A flash could have destroyed the charm of the dark halls. An HDR image was generated with a bracketing out of 7 single shots some of them with several seconds exposure time. Thus it was possible to show the details of the dark hall and of the bright windows as well. Finest colour gradations can be seen in the photo in Fig. 13.11. Only the blank screws in the middle of the image hint at the live in the factory. With the naked eye the workplace beyond the window appeared very dark. The windows generated a backlight situation. It is not possible to catch such a range of exposure values within a single exposure with common digital photography.

For more informations refer to chapter 2

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Fig 13.8 Using fine colour hues and image structure to generate spatial depth with HDR. For the photo in Fig. 13.8 the following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 8 - Bracketing with 7 single shots / 1 EV difference - RAW format

With HDR photography it was even possible to reveal the details of the spiderwebs in the backlight situation. Compared with the images in Fig. 13.4 and 13.5, where the exaggerated local contrast led to artistic effects, the photo in Fig. 13.11 was tone mapped rather naturalistic. The goal for the image processing was to generate the look of the final image as natural as possible. Since the working place beyond the windows was really very dark, the contrast of the scene became so high, that the windows in the rendered HDR image kept overexposed.

Fig 13.9 The realistic look of the scene can be achieved with the appropriate tone mapping of an HDR. For the photo in Fig 13.9 the following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 8 - Bracketing with 7 single shots/ 1 EV difference

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Fig. 13.10: Rendered HDR image of an old factory hall For the photo in Fig. 13.10 the following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 8 - Bracketing with 7 single shots / 1 EV difference

n Fig. 13.12 a still life in an original waggon of the Orient Express is shown in a backlight situation. In the rendered HDR image you can see the fine pattern of the window glass and the pattern of the small table beyond the window. The light situation was rather similiar to the scene shown in Fig. 1311. Altogether the situation in the waggon was a bit brighter and no over- or underexposed areas occured. Regardless of the exposure times the tone mapped HDR always come out more blurry then their original exposures. This is caused by the tone mapping process. Therefore it is generally necessary to sharpen the 8-bit or 16-bit images after the tone mapping with a common image processing programme.

Fig 13.11 Rendered HDR image of an old workplace. For the photo in Fig 13.11 the following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 8 - Bracketing with 7 single shots / 1 EV difference.

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Conclusion HDRI photography can be used for nearly all themes of photography and also in the photographic documentation. Using selected examples the intension to write this chapter was to show that especially difficult scenes like Lost Places with backlight situations, many details, structures and dark corners can be shown impressively with the HDR technique. Thereby the HDR image processing is playing a decisive role whether the final images appear more painterly, surrealistic or natural.

Index directory Lost places castles painterly scenes surrealistic scenes natural scenes backlight situation spatial depths

Fig 13.12 Rendered HDR image of a scene in a waggon of the Orient Express. For the photo in Fig 13.12 the following camera settings were used: - ISO 200 - Aperture 8 - Bracketing with 7 single shots / 1 EV difference.

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HDR-Panorama with Photomatix and Adobe Photoshop CS6 from Matthias Gessler This chapter is dealing about panorama-photography with the HDRI multishot technique. The intension to write this small chapter was not to describe in detail how to make a panorama-photo generally. It will have its focus on how an HDR-panorama is photographed and how the single shots can be merged into an HDR image. For the HDR-Panorama it was necessary to make the following shots: With 5 shots the whole panorama-scene could be catched. For a simple panorama you can shoot the photos with the camera hand-held. You must keep in mind that the photos are slightly overlapping, so that the software programme can merge the single photos together without problems. For an HDR panorama you have to use a tripod preferably with a panoramic head. Each of the 5 shots were taken as an autobracketing out of 7 stops. Here, it is very important to reduce blur caused by camera shake. Altogether the panorama shown in this chapter required 35 shots.

Fig 14.1 Auto-bracketing from one of the shots for the panorama; stop 1-4 Fig 14.2 Auto-bracketing from one of the shots for the panorama; stop 5-7

Since you have to take quite a lot of photos for the final HDR-panorama image, it is recommended to use the batching-tool of Photomatix for the processing of the images. For the automatic batching process the 5 panorama shots and its bracketings must be stored in one folder. It is important for the batching that from each of the 5 shots of the panorama a bracketing of exactly the same number of stops has been taken.

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Fig 14.3 Photomatix Pro 5.04 has a feature to batch bracketings

Start Photomatix and select the option “automatisation” in the upper menue. Then select “Batch Bracketed Photos”. A new window opens that show the files on your computer. Select the respective folder with the bracketings. In the batching-tool of Photomatix you can select how the HDR images shall be tone mapped. You also have the option to save a 32-bit HDR image before the tone mapping. This is quite useful, because if you want to work out the HDR image with another tone mapping, you already have the original 32-bit HDR image instead of merging a new one out of the bracketing.

Fig 14.4 Screenshot of the Photomatix Pro 5.04 - features for batching. Here you can activate the options for saving the 32-bit HDR-images.

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After the batching process of the bracketings of the 5 panorama photos you have two image formats from each panorama photo: the 32-bit HDR format and the tone mapped 8-bit JPEG format. After the batching process the results are saved automatically from Photomatix in the folder “PhotomatixResults”.

Fig 14.5 The results of the batching-process saved in the folder “PhotomatixResults”: 32-bit HDR images and tone mapped 8-bit jpeg images.

If the automatic tone mapping was ok you can merge the 8-bit jpeg images to a panorama. For that you may use a tool from Photoshop CS6 called “Photomerge”. With this feature you can automatically merge the panorama.

Fig 14.6 Uploading the photos for a Panorama - photomerge in Photoshop CS6.

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Open Photoshop CS6, click at “file > automatise > Photomerge”. Then the window in Fig 14.6 opens. With the option “browse” you can upload the images that should be merged. There are different options for the layout of the panorama. The layout “automatic” does usually generate a good result. The automatically merged HDR-Panorama has generated one level for each image. These levels must be reduced to one level: in order to flatten the image click at the menu “level > reduce to background level”. That’s all. The levels are now reduced to one level. Finally the panorama can be cut accordingly with the crop tool from Photoshop.

Fig 14.7 Cut the HDR-panorama with the crop tool of Photoshop.

Generally it is important for a Panorama to hold the camera horizontal when you take the photos. If you don’t keep the camera horizontal, converging lines could occur in the images. This kind of distortion does impede the optimal merging of the panorama. As already mentioned a sturdy tripod with a ball head and a panorama plate is an essential tool for taking panorama photos. The next step could be to optimize the panorama with Photoshop-tools like tonal correction, brightness and probably with the color balance.

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Fig 14.8 Optimize the panorama with the tonal correction tool.

Fig 14.9 Optimize the panorama with the color balance tool.

Due to the merging process tone mapped HDR images always come out more blurry then their original exposures. Thus for HDR images the sharpening at the end of the image processing is a very important step. The highpass-filter from Photoshop is a quite efficient tool for sharpening. With the value â&#x20AC;&#x153;4â&#x20AC;? the results are usually good.

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Fig 14.10 Sharpening of the Panorama with the Highpass-filter from Photoshop.

And now the finished HDR-Panorama:

Fig 14.11 HDR-Panorama: Sunset in the Black Forest nearby the old castle from Baden-Baden, Germany.

Keyword index Batching HDR-Panorama Panorama plate Photomerge

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Pseudo HDR By Luigi Tolotti HDR (High Dinamic Range) is a technique allowing the extension of the dynamic range of the camera by shooting a sequence of photos of the same scene setting up different exposure values (usually from three to nine shutter clicks between full light and shadow) and merging the shots during the post-production phase. For many reasons it isn’t always possible to make all the necessary shutter clicks to get an HDR image of the highest quality For instance, when a subject is in rapid movement or we lack the time to set up all the shooting parameters, or we don’t use a tripod, etc. In these cases we can increase the dynamic range of a single shot and obtain an image with a wider extension of dynamic range that we will define Pseudo-HDR. To get the maximum of Pseudo-HDR we need to process the image starting from a RAW format file. The ensuing elaboration in the post-production phase will follow different ways. For instance, by the ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) we can handle the exposure parameter increasing and decreasing it to better control highlights and shadows thus getting more images of the same scene by means of a ‘pseudo-bracketing’. The images will be merged together subsequently by using one of the HDR processing programmes. In the following cards are described some images allowing a comparison between the accepted HDR processing and pseudo-HDR. The elaborations were obtained using the ‘Photomatix-Pro’ programme, a software specifically created for HDR images. The process is quite simple as it is sufficient to upload a single raw file, select one of the presets automatically offered by the programme (you can modify the parameters by moving the cursors of light, intensity, range, contrast, white point, etc.) and the result appears immediately thus making the operation particularly intuitive. I want to underline the fact that this software enables wide degrees of personalization and the resulting images can have either a more dramatic or softer effect according to the individual taste. All photos were obtained by employing a Nikon D800 camera. The best results with Pseudo-HDR will be achieved starting from images got by using high-performance sensors, preferably full-frame, that allow the attainment of satisfying images in spite of their being over- or underexposed of a number of ‘stops’.

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Here below some photographsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s examples (from 1 to 8) where are shown first the complete photos and then the magnification of photoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s particular areas (LHD, HDR - where are specified the number of taken photos - and Pseudo HDR) to observe the photographic definition.

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Another interesting operation in the field of Pseudo-HDR is working on analogue materials like a negative film or slide. It is enough to get three or more files from the negative or the slide with the various bracketing exposures required by HDR and then proceed onto the elaboration as for the images got from the digital camera. For instance, the negative can be photographed (see card no. 9) utilizing a tripod, a digital camera endowed with macro lens and a base with a surface lit from behind where the analogue transparency is laid. After the usual series of shots typical of HDR (see card 9a) everything will be merged as already explained (see card 9b).

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HDR Photography in Art-Therapy by Marina Ramos and Susana Jesus HDR Photography for people with special educational needs “Photographs are footprints of our minds, mirrors of our lives, reflections from our hearts, frozen memories that we can hold in silent stillness in our hands — forever if we wish. They document not only where we have been, but also point the way to where we might perhaps be heading, whether or not we realize this yet ourselves…” Judy Weiser Report of a practical experience Introduction We decided to expand the HDR technique to people that usually would not be able to learn it with the goal of using that technique as a therapeutic activity. In the begining, we weren’t sure of the results we could achieve. We already attended some workshops in Art Therapy and had developed an interest in this field, mainly in Phototherapy. We followed the work of Judy Weiser, a world specialist in this área, so this was the perfect opportunity to develop an experience in Phototherapy. Art Therapy According to The British Association of Art Therapists “Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses art media as its primary mode of expression and communication. Within this context, art is not used as diagnostic tool but as a medium to address emotional issues which may be confusing and distressing. Art therapists work with children, young people, adults and the elderly. Clients may have a wide range of difficulties, disabilities or diagnoses. These include emotional, behavioural or mental health problems, learning or physical disabilities, life-limiting conditions, neurological conditions and physical illnesses.” Phototherapy For us, Phototherapy is one of the most interesting fields of therapy, putting photographic techniques as a mirror of our interior visions and our exterior perceptions. The capacity that a photograph can have to change the perception that someone has about a subject and to help to heal a difficult or unresolved personal issue, seems amazing to us.

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According to Judy Weiser, Therapeutic Photography & Social Action Photography techniques are done for the purpose of:

increasing self-knowledge, awareness, and well-being improving relationships with family and others activating positive change reducing social exclusion assisting rehabilitation strengthening communities enriching intercultural relations lessening conflict bringing attention to issues of social injustice sharpening visual literacy skills enhancing education expanding qualitative research and prevention methodologies producing other kinds of photo-based healing and learning.

HDR Photography in Art-therapy In our research we were not able to find any specific information about the application of the HDR photography in art-therapy. Nevertheless, we wanted to make this experience with mentally disabled people because of the particular characteristics of a HDR photography result. Its peculiar colors, with sometimes surreal and naĂŻf effects, could have an impact in capturing the interest and attention of this particular group. The fact that the HDR photography is dependent of the use of a postproduction technique with the use of computer, was a very positive point. This particular group was very enthusiastic about having to use a computer, and the ease of use of Photomatix programme was perfect to encourage them to finish the work. Pratical Application Our project was to apply the experience of making an HDR photography to people with special educational needs, in this case mentally disabled people from Crinabel, the social institution we chose to work with. The six users indicated to us by Crinabel come from the Occupational Activity Centre and this group have from 24 to 33 years of age, and they have different mental disabilities, like global development delay, mental retardation (fetal distress + hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy), cerebral palsy, mental disabilities; fetal alcohol syndrome; microcephaly; tetralogy of Fallot, hyperactivity. The photography and HDR in particular can promote the capacity for self-awareness, strengthening aspects such as self-concept of the participants. Contrary to the technical challenges of an HDR photography, with 5 or more different exposures, the use of tripod, in this particular case, 226 HDR Photography - A Practical Guide

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we decided to simplify the procedures of the capture; the cameras were prepared before by us, with the right iso and in the automatic programme. Otherwise, they would not be able to execute the photographs. Also we decided to minimize the use of tripod, because of their physical difficulties. We only made an experience of a real HDR photography, with 3 exposures and the use of tripod, with each one of them. When shooting, specially a fake HDR photography, because of it’s ease of use and simplicity, each participant is to materialize his gaze on the photographed object and may subsequently be faced with his own look and work it digitally. This aspect is highly beneficial for the participants in the double sense of having access to their own perspective on things, before and after working it in the computer. Very important in achieving this, is the ease of use of Photomatix, because it makes it possible to develop a certain degree of autonomy in the choices of the final results. The strong colors and high definition of HDR photography and the presets of the Photomatix programme, with a wide variety of choices that are very easy to use, help to capture the attention and interest of this group of people. The participants end up being vehicles and creators of their perception, giving it known to others, which is an important mean to connect them with others. The Project The starting point of our project was the possibility to provide a specific learning experience to a group of people that usually don’t have access to it, and the HDR technique could be a very useful tool to achieve this. So we decided to make an applied programme to the group characteristics, according to each member`s physical and intellectual habilities, simplifying all the procedures, and creating a good atmosphere that could increase their self-confidence. We created two stages in this programme, the first one worked more like a test, and to create a bond between us and the rest of the group. In the second one, we obtained a more consistent and regular photographic result, and we were able to introduce the use of the tripod to make a real HDR. The pratical sessions consisted in two photographic walks in the neighbourhood near our school and Crinabel institution and than two post production sessions with Photomatix programme. The participants took pictures of the people, the streets and the architecture of this typical area of Lisbon. Inspite of the physical difficulties of the participants, all of them were able to make an real HDR Photography with a tripod and 3 different exposures. However without our help they woudn’t be able to use the tripod and they really didn’t understand the purpose of HDR Photography - A Practical Guide 227

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doing 3 exposures. We noticed they were a bit impacient with the need to use the tripod and do 3 different photographs of the same subject. During the second post production session we got the impression that they were little aware of the diferences between a real and a fake HDR, and the source of interest for them was the presets they could choose to finish the images. Most of them chose quite discrete results in the presets, but some of them were bolder about their choices comparing to the first session. Some examples of HDR results from the participants Carina Rocha

Diogo Martins

Hugo Almeida

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João Cruz

João Farinha

Victor Gouveia

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Conclusions from Rita Alexandrino – Crinabel therapist According to Rita Alexandrino this project has been extremely important since it allows them to make a relatively simple and very creative activity, a task where there are no limits or requirements. They make the task spontaneously, without thinking whether it is or isn´t well done, wrong or right, providing freedom and choice, something which most of them don’t have in their life. They were very enthusiastic about the project: first they were running around the garden, then they took photographs, which is something very personal, and finally, there is the fact that they could use the computer to modify those pictures. Every day they asked her when will they go to a photo session again. However, the cognitive limitations they have don´t let them use the experience in their daily activities. With the difficulties they have, they were able to create a unique and personal piece, by which they can be proud of. They feel competent, free to make art and have fun. Some of these young people feel frustrated in their daily lives, because they are not as independent as the “normal” people, and this project has helped them to feel better, more capable and independent. She thinks they will all leave here with their self-esteem strengthened with more positive thoughts, and with greater positive experiences. They see in art an escape from the routine, something that gives them freedom, power, with no rules or restrictions. She also uses art in her daily work, as a music therapist, and therefore can testify what arts can do for their personal development and selfesteem. In conclusion, she thinks this project has benefited the students, since it: Provides new experiences, Increases self-esteem, Improved self-concept, Develops social contact (developing personal and social skills), Encourages the taste and the decision-making capacity, Increases attention and concentration, Promotes learning strategies, Develops abstract thinking, Helps motivate, Improves communication, Reduces the competition, Develops memory, Promotes satisfaction and well-being, Enhances personal growth in general.

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Conclusions of our experience in this project Contrary to what we expected it was quite easy to work with this group of disabled people. They were very easy to deal with and enthusiastic about the project. Although we had a few sessions with them there was a bond created between us. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crucial to simplify all the procedures, from the capture to the post production, in order to focus their attention in a more intuitive choice in all of this stages. Having said that, we feel that in order to make them independent and autonomous in the making of HDR photographies we should have certain conditions:

more regular photographic and photomatix sessions because they need constant and frequent monitoring to learn how to do it.

more individual attention in order to attend their own preferences and needs.

we find that these sessions were a playful experience, agreeable to them, but not completely effective as a learning method, because only a few of them were able to work more autonomously. As a final comment we would like to say that for us was a very rich and achieved experience, that had a strong impact on both of us and in Crinabelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s participants. For us and for our students, it was a very new, unusual and rewarding experience, and we learned a lot from it.

Webgraphy https://phototherapy-centre.com/ http://www.baat.org/

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HDR Photography – a critique by Richard Jack In this Chapter we examine some of the discussions and arguments relating to HDR photography which can be found online and in the media and attempt to elicit the views of the key stakeholders involved in the Vir2Cope project in relation to those criticisms. It is clearly the case that few issues in photography cause so much discussion, disagreement and argument than HDR photography and its application in ever-increasing areas of our everyday life, from advertising, fashion, landscapes, buildings to portrait photography and many more. A huge number of blog posts, online articles and images, both good and bad, can be quickly accessed via a search using the acronym HDR. As with all innovative techniques there is inevitably a range of views of HDR photography. There are those who think that HDR produces images which are variously described as ‘unreal’, ‘surreal’, ‘unworldly’, ‘cartoon-like’ or ‘grungy’ ... and those who think to the contrary, that HDR produces excellent images with dynamic range which is un-achievable with traditional photography and which much better represents what the eye, or more accurately, the brain ’sees’ in real life. The views can be broadly reduced down to the following:

What HDR photographs look like in comparison to traditional photographs. Some like it, some loath it. Why do we need HDR at all – is it just a gimmick, a fad? We managed without it in the past. It takes too much time and effort to do, both in terms of shooting and processing the images. The human input element is reduced and computers are doing all the work so it’s not real photography... any photo can be made to ‘look good’. It’s a digital image not a photograph. It’s simply compensating for the limitations of the camera.

In an attempt to gain some objective data on these issues it was decided that a questionnaire would be developed in two sections. The first part of the questionnaire adds some comparative data to a survey that was carried out in Croatia in 2011. The responses for each question are considered in turn and our findings are compared to those of the initial survey. In part two we consider the responses of Vir2Cope Project stakeholders to 15 statements relating to HDR photography and the views listed above.

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Chapter 17 ‘Study on knowledge and use of HDR photography techniques by professional photographers and amateurs in Croatia’ This survey was carried out by Maja STRGAR KURECIC, Darko AGIC, Lidija MANDIC, and Ante POLJICAK, from the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the University of Zagreb. Over 100 responses were received from both professional and amateur photographers in Croatia. As the title suggests, the aim of the initial survey was to find out the opinions of Croatian photographers regarding HDR photography, and to see if they use it, and if so, how they employ it. Permission was sought and received from the authors and the findings of our much smaller sample group make an interesting and hopefully valuable contribution to the discussion raised by the initial survey. The Vir2Cope project questionnaire was aimed primarily at those who had taken part in the project in some capacity, either as a project partner, or as a learner. We received 18 responses to this first part of the questionnaire, the majority of whom are amateur photographers.

Seven professional and 11 amateurs responded.

All but one of the respondents were fully aware of what the HDR technique involves. This person had some understanding – responding ‘roughly’.

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KEY A Internet B Books & magazines C Fellow photographers D Photo Club E Expert lecturers

It is interesting to note that in the Croatian survey, books and magazines were the most popular, whilst only 5% responded that Expert lecturers were the source of their learning. This is no doubt due to the fact that the Vir2Cope Project offered those involved in the project, actual expert help and guidance using the blended learning process mentioned elsewhere, resulting in a 61% figure.

Our findings reflect those of the Croatian study in that the exact same % was found for the most popular option: ‘I use this technique occasionally’ - 44% in both studies. This would seem to indicate what is often stated as ‘best practice’ - that the HDR technique is best used in appropriate settings and not all the time.

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KEY A Architecture B Landscapes C Portraits D Advertising E Documentary F For every subject G Other

Again our findings match those of the Croatian study very well in that the top three are Landscapes and Architecture, followed by Advertising.

There is a major disparity in the finding of the Croatian study compared with the Vir2Cope Project findings in that, of the Croatian photographers only4% found it more realistic, compared with 38.9% of the Vir2Cope respondents. The most popular category of all for Vir2 Cope was ‘More realistic’ – also the second most popular for the Croatian photographers. It must be pointed out however that the Vir2Cope version allowed respondents to select more than one option. (The average was 2 selections per person) A total of 35 responses from 18 respondents.

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Chapter 17 7 What is your opinion about HDR Photography? (16 responses)

HDR is a powerful tool even for non artificial looking fotos but you must know the limits for using it. “A fool with a tool is still a fool” I highly appreciate HDR Photography and I enjoy it, because it has a high creative potential and many advantages. Image Processing of HDRs can be time consuming, but there are means to shorten it like batching... It’s a kind of art, I mean more than photography. Exciting and attractive, I can add more from my feelings and taste. But this technique needs larger IT sense and skills. First we had black and white photography, then there was color photography and now we have HDR-Photography:-) HDRPhotography gives you all possibilities you need for a wonderful realistic or magic photo. You can catch the light, all details in the brightness and the shadows, the colors with 32-bit depth (that’s more than human eyes can see) and you get more plasticity ! The photos look like reality or if you want like a fairy tale. I love it, but I am still in the beginners phase It’s very interesting in itself and a (satisfying) challenge for a photographer who can transform the image at his/her pleasure (bracketing and post-production) A solution for the limitations of camera technology I´m not a fan of most HDR because does not feel real to me. I like the different way to change the look of a picture. I like the more hard changes loke Scott 5 it is just great A well done HDR photography looks very nice. I have tried this technique but not using it in my work because it seems unrealistic. It is a good tool/technique that a photographer must know When done with subtlety and careful thought, the resultant image can be stunning and an improvement on the ‘original’. When done without these things images can be quite the opposite. The new technique, it belongs to the future It is very useful when there are high contrasts

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Chapter 17

These responses speak for themselves. It is interesting that the two comments which could be classified as the most negative both mention the lack of reality: ‘it does not feel real to me’ and ‘... ‘it seems unrealistic’ Part 2 – Vir2Cope The second section of the Questionnaire was designed to elicit a reaction by asking respondents for their opinions on a series of 15 statements, most of which have been taken from photographic websites. For simplicity and ease of completion for respondents, the same scale was used for all 15 questions to allow respondents a range of possible agreement from ‘I don’t agree at all’ to ‘I agree completely’

In the discussion which follows the intermediate categories are assumed to roughly equate to: 1 2 3 4 5

I don’t agree at all I disagree I neither agree nor disagree/ I have no fixed view (Mid-ground) I agree I agree completely

These are briefly analysed in this next section and referenced where relevant, in the critique. In this case there was one fewer response than to the questions in the first section of the questionnaire – 17 respondents

It is encouraging to note that none of the respondents noted that HDR should never be used, but interesting that one agreed and four had no fixed view. However 12 of the 17 selected either that they did not agree at all or disagreed.

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This question resulted in an almost classical ‘Normal distribution curve’, with most people favouring the midground with fewer strongly disagreeing, whilst the remainder fell into the ‘agree’ category.

Again this elicited mainly ‘middle of the road’ responses indicating perhaps that most people do not really have a strong view on smartphone cameras and their increasing use of in-built HDR functionality. Clearly this may well change with time as the technology improves.

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Somewhat predictably this statement brought one of the most positive agreement results of all 15 statements in this section of the questionnaire with 9 giving it the highest agreement rating and another 5 the second highest, and the remainder in the mid-ground.

Again, this question gives further evidence for most peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s view that HDR is all about subtlety and refinement and not overdoing the more striking, and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;over the topâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; settings which can easily be achieved within the software, but perhaps should not be employed to too great an extent.

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This question is interesting in that the responses show the greatest range of all15, with at least two people in each category, slightly favouring a higher degree of agreement with the statement. It would be fascinating to compare the professional photographers’ response with those of the amateurs who, I would suggest, are likely to be the photographers who take their images and then apply a range of different settings until they see what they think is impressive. The professional has a deeper insight as they take the photograph, due to greater previous experience and have the final image they hope to achieve in mind.

This question addresses the usefulness of pseudo-HDR with most agreeing with the statement that a single image can be sufficient for good results. It also gives further evidence for the ‘keep it subtle’ argument.

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The ‘staircase’ of increasing agreement to ‘I completely agree’ shows that most agree with this statement quite strongly. It also implies perhaps that in time more people will come around to seeing the value and potential of HDR.

There is a general agreement that this is indeed the case but there are several possible explanations for this being the case. It seems that some people are ‘on a mission’ to find negative things to say about HDR photography and presumably trawl through the internet looking for images which fit the description above to support their case. It could also be of course that there are quite simply more poor HDR photographs produced than good ones – something which is actually inevitable!

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This is the only statement which produced an equal number of agree and disagree votes, six for each. However, three people strongly agreed, tipping the balance in the favour of agreement and further supporting the ‘being discerning, perceptive and subtle produces the most impressive results’ argument.

Unsurprisingly this contentious comment elicited the highest response rating of ‘I don’t agree at all’, nine respondents – more than all others combined. HDR is not the panacea which will rectify every poor shot, particularly with reference to composition. No amount of HDR processing will ever turn a poorly composed photograph into a great one.

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Chapter 17

One of the comments often made about the benefits of HDR photography is that it allows the viewer to look into the shadows and see the detail/textures in the darker areas of the picture. Although this statement does not directly address this issue, it does look at it from the ‘traditional’ viewpoint and examines people’s views of shadow in photographs. As can be seen from the results there is definitely a tremendous agreement that areas of darkness in photographs may be just as important, or even more important, than areas of light.

The time required for HDR photography is clearly an issue for many people with most agreeing strongly or completely with the statement, nine versus four, with four in the mid-ground. Auto-bracketing and the ability to use the multiple shutter release feature certainly helps speed up the process but there is always going to be a time factor to consider with HDR photography.

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This was the only statement which elicited no ‘mid-ground’ responses at all. Every respondent had a view on whether a great HDR photo would be a great non-0HDR photo anyway - and there was an almost equal balance of agree/disagree responses, 9 disagree and eight in agreement.

This final, summarising statement is interesting in that only one person was in the mid-ground, with the remaining respondents all either agreeing or agreeing completely with the statement. It stresses the importance all photographers put on the human input required to produce a photograph. The statement does not actually distinguish between the two major aspects of producing a photograph, the initial shooting of the photo and then the subsequent processing of that image using computer software. It might be assumed that many respondents were considering the final processing aspect, rather than the former, in their evaluation. If that is the case then even when the computer seems to be doing ‘all the work’, it is not an automatic process and hopefully never will be. The photographer has to make myriad decisions which affect the final image produced even when using sophisticated software such as Photomatix Pro. Without human input to the process at every stage, photography would become a sterile and pointless art form. That human input means that inevitably there will always be HDR images produced by amateur and professional alike which will fit both the ‘horrendous monstrosity’ and ‘beautiful image’ categories indicated in the statement.

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One would like to think that the professional, with perhaps many years of experience, knowledge, understanding and skill would produce many more pictures in the latter category than the former, but that does not mean that the amateur photographer cannot also produce beautiful HDR images. Modern digital cameras and processing software mean that even amateur photographers have the opportunity to achieve excellent results and with suitable learning and opportunities then this is achievable. In Conclusion The Vir2Cope project has grasped this challenge and not only ‘spread the word’ about HDR photography but has developed a pedagogy which allows this knowledge to be disseminated more widely and efficiently through its innovative applications of Blended Learning. ‘The shock of the new’ is an expression which was used as the title of the definitive book on 20th Century modern art and in many ways the term applies today in relation to HDR photography. Like innovations in every art form, HDR photography and no doubt other future photographic techniques, will always stir up controversy and discussion, but without them, the World would be a less stimulating and interesting place in which to live.

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Bibliography Bibliography Bloch, Christian, 2013: The HDRI Handbook 2.0: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG Artists, Rocky Nook,Santa Barbara USA, ISBN 978-1937538163 Bloch, Christian, 2008: Das HDRI-Handbuch, Heidelberg/dpunkt Verlag, ISBN 978-3- 89864-430- 3. (Orginal: The HDRI Handbook, Rocky Nook, Inc., 2008) Ferrell McCollough, 2008, Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Digital Photography (A Lark Photography Book) Bamberg, Matthew, 2012: Beginning HDR Photography, Boston, ISBN 13-978- 1-133-78877Davis, Harold, 2012: Creating HDR Photos: The Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Photography, New York /AmPhoto Books Freeman, Michael, 2008: HDR-Fotografie/Motive, Aufnahmen, HDRVerarbeitung, Fallbeispiele, München/Markt&amp;Technik-Verlag, ISBN 978-3- 8272-4381- 2 Gulbins, Jürgen &amp; Gulbins, Rainer, 2008: Multishot-Techniken in der digitalen Fotografie: hochwertige Aufnahmen aus Bildserien: Auflösung erhöhen, Schärfentiefe erweitern, Blickwinkel vergrößern, HDRI-Bilder erstellen, Mikrokontraste verbessern. Heidelberg: dPunkt Verlag. ISBN 978-3- 89864-552- 2 , 3-89864- 552-5 Harrop, Thomas, M.S. (2011): An Introduction to the HDR Zone System. Held,Jürgen, 2009: HDR-Fotografie/ Das umfassende Handbuch, Galileo Press/Bonn,ISBN 978-3- 8362-1403- 2 Howard, Jack, 2010, Practical HDRI: High Dynamic Range Imaging Using Photoshop CS5 and Other Tools, Rocky Nook/Santa Barbara, ISBN: 978-1933952635 Heine, Kay-Christian, 2010: Fotografie für Journalisten. O&#39;Reilly Verlag. ISBN-13: 978-3897219793 Kelby, Scott, 2013: Photoshop für Digitalfotografen: Erfolgsrezepte zum Arbeiten mit CS6 und CC. dpunkt.verlag GmbH. ISBN-10: 386490112X Kirchner, Jürgen, 2008, DRI und HDR- Das perfekte Bild. Edition ProfiFoto, ISBN: 978-3826659034 Kontogianni, G. ; Stathopoulou, E. K. ; Georgopoulos, A. ; Doulamis, A., 2015: HDR imaging for Feature Detection on Detailed Architectural Scenes, in: International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing &amp; Spatial Information Sciences; 2/25/2015, Vol. 40-5/W4, p. 325-330. Kurecic, M.S., Poljicak, A., Mandic, L., 2012: A Survey on the Acceptance and the Use of HDR Photography among Croatian Photographers, in: Acta Graphica 24 (2013) 1-2, p.13-18. HDR Photography - A Practical Guide 247

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Leitinger, Robert, 2014: Schritt für Schritt zum perfekten HDR-Bild, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform/Amazon, ISBN 9781502471147 Malyuka, A. A., 2011: Using HDR-technology in Criminal Proceedings, in: Current Issues of Russian Law; 2011, Vol. 2011 Issue 2, p424-433, 10p Mehl, Marc and Bloch, Christian, 2008: Picturenaut, retrieved in: http://www.hdrlabs.com/picturenaut/Picturenaut.pdf National Geographic Fotopraxis: HDR-Fotografie, Hamburg ISBN9783866902268 Navarro, Fructuoso, 2011: HDR Fotografie: Aufnahme, Entwicklung und Nachbearbeitung, München/Addison-Wesley Verlag Nightingale, David,2011. Nightingale, David, 2009: Practical HDR: The Complete Guide to Creating High Dynamic Range Images with Your Digital SLR, London/ focal press. Reinhard, Erik; Ward, Greg; Pattanaik, Sumanta; Debevec, Paul, 2005: High dynamic range imaging: acquisition, display, and image-based lighting. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann. ISBN 978-.0-12-585263-0 Schömann, Andreas u. Manfred, 2012: Full Dynamic Range Tools. Fotografie in einer neuen Dimension, Handbuch, Version 2.6 (+ english version of the user manual 2.6) Retrieved from: http://fdrtools.com/ deu/manual/fdrtools_manual_2.6.pdf (01.02.2016) Schulz, Adrian, 2008: Architekturfotografie. Technik, Aufnahme, Bildgestaltung und Nachbearbeitung. dPunkt Verlag, Heidelberg. ISBN 978-3- 89864-528-7. Sherar, James, HDRI Photography, 2013: An Essential Skills And Workflow Primer (English Edition) Theodor, Jessica M., Furr, Robin S., 2008: High Dynamic Range Imaging as Applied to Paleontological Specimen Photography. Retrieved from: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.330.8429#? (as at 18th of January 2016) Tursun, O.T., Akyuz, A.O., Erdem, A., Erdem, E., 2015: The State of the Art in HDR Deghosting: A Survey and Evaluation, in: Computer Graphics forum, Vol. 34,Iss. 2, p.683-707. Wagner, Rheinhard, 2009: Profibuch HDR-Fotografie - Atemberaubende Bilder mit HDREffekt erstellen, Richtig belichten für perfekte HDRBilder, HDR-Bilder per Software optimieren, München/Franzis-Verlag ISBN: 978-3772364709 Wagner, Reinhard &amp; Kindermann, Klaus, 2010: Meisterschule Digitale Fotografie. Franzis Verlag GmbH, 85586 Poing, Deutschland.

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Watson, J. T. ; Weiland, J., 2015: Documenting Archaeological Mortuary Features using High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging, in: International Journal of Osteoarchaeology; May 2015, Vol. 25 Issue 3, p366-373, 8p Weston, Chris, 2008: Mastering Digital Exposure and HDR Imaging: Understanding the Next Generation of Digital Cameras, Sheridan House/GB Wheatley, David, 2011: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Archaeological Recording, in: Journal of Archaeological Method &amp; Theory. Sep 2011, Vol. 18 Issue 3, p256-271. Westphalen, Christian, 2011: Die groĂ&#x;e Fotoschule. Digitale Fotopraxis. Galileo Press, 53227 Bonn, Deutschland.

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The Authors The Authors Annamaria Castellan, Acquamarina, Trieste, Italy. She is photographer, freelance journalist. In 2002 she founds the Associazione Acquamarina of which she is the president and for which she promotes and spreads photography, art and culture by organizing shows, meetings, events and courses on photography for adults, youths and children. Besides, she spreads and promotes the literacy of the photographic image through the Off-camera experimental techniques. She specializes in photo reportage, in photo portraiture, in nature and landscape photography. Lately she turns to the research on conceptual and informal expression, on traditional and Off-camera technique and on the fine-art feminine portrait. She exhibits her works in personal and collective shows. Some of her pictures are housed in the Archive and in the Alinari Museum of the History of Photography. Photos of hers are part of private collections from South Africa to Berlin, have been published in national and international magazines, anthologies and literary texts. Moreover, her shots have been employed by public administrations in advertising campaigns all over the world. Since 2004 she has been running experimental workshops for children, youths and adults.

Luigi Tolotti, Acquamarina, Trieste, Italy He was born in Trieste in 1966. He attends the ‘Scuola libera dell’Acquaforte of Carlo Sbisà’. Later on, he completes his studies at the Venice International School of Graphics, by attending courses of: photogravure and mixed techniques; paper handmaking; advanced and experimental techniques of engraving, simultaneous-colour printing ‘Hayter Technique’. His twenty-year career has given him the opportunity to develop a wide experience in the field of photography and of the graphic techniques such as engraving, traditional techniques (etching, aquatint, soft wax), experimental techniques (printing with unconventional matrices: wood, cardboard, plastic, etc.), photoengraving, methods of traditional photographic printing, development and printing of negatives.

Ruth Schmelzer, EuFoA, Rastatt, Germany PhD in Geoscience; Studied also History and Political Science in Germany. Holds an MbA. Former lecturer in HEI’s. Manager & trainer in the EuFoA, Rastatt, Germany. In her work as a geoscientist she started to photography with an analogue Nikon F4 mainly for scientific documentation. Meanwhile she practice HDR photography since many yearsand discovered its high value not only for scientific documentation.

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The Authors Matthias Gessler, EuFoA, Rastatt, Germany Studied Fine Arts with focus on analogue photography in Berlin. Vast experience as lecturer at HEIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, teacher, and online trainer in photography and digital image processing. Photoshop expert. Academic leader of the EuFoA, Rastatt, Germany; Since about 2008 when HDRIphotography started to become more popular, he discovered his passion for this highly efficient multishot-technique. He conducts trainings for HDRI-photography.

Mary Gino, Acquamarina, Cortina dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ampezzo, Italy Graduated at the Bocconi University of Milan and teacher of English. Has contributed to the planning and development of Erasmus+ and previous EU projects and developed e-twinning cooperative activities. Has organized Trinity courses and exam sessions, providing training to attendees of Cambridge exams as well. Has participated in many national and international training courses, stages and workshops on education and human rights including the training courses abroad organized by the Veneto Region on the themes of inclusion, education, professional and working validation for migrants, disadvantaged and adult people.

Richard Jack, Crystal Presentations Ltd, UK BPhil(Ed) University of Birmingham. Formerly a Secondary Science school teacher and Educational Consultant and author to Crystal, Richard joined the company full-time 17 years ago as Senior Project Manager. He has always had a great enthusiasm for leisure photography but involvement in the VIR2Cope project has led to a deeper interest in the more technical aspects of digital photography, particularly the possibilities opened up by HDR techniques.

Susana Jesus, ETIC, Lisbon, Portugal Susana Jesus was born in 1979 in Aveiro, Portugal. Finished law school at the University of Coimbra in 2002. She moved to Lisbon in 2004 to study photography. Presently she works in Lisbon as a photographer and teacher.

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The Authors Irma Kanova, PhD, ALVIT, Ostrava/Czech Republic, I have got my very first camera as a birthday present when I was turning 15. I used to take pictures of myself and a friend of mine wearing our self-made dresses and clothes. That is since when our very first attempts of fashion photographers, fashion designer and an artist are dated :-) After that, I have come back to photographing when my daughter Valerie was born. She is my favourite and the most often dressed up model as well as the muse in my own projects. On the basis of the professional, or commercial so to say, photographing I have been working for already three years, now. So far, I have been focused on portraits, family and wedding pictures. My own outputs and creations is mostly dedicated to the fashion and art. I often also published on websites of Italian PhotoVogue, where I have been an active contributor for 2 years. I have also been awarded by an International Award of photography competitions. You can see my photographs in printed version, as well as in online magazines all around the world.

Gabor Kohlrusz, University of Pannonia, Veszprem/Hungary; Got his degree of Information Technology and Pedagogy in the University of Pannonia. He is working as a lecturer and IT administrator at the Faculty of Business and Economics. Gabor has key role in the support of the faculty’s online training activity. His photos are part of the faculty’s marketing activity both in printed and digital materials that led him to the realistic applications of HDR photography.

Dagmar Pokorná, ALVIT, Ostrava/Czech Republic, I started to photography when I was 10 years old. My father was lending me his camera along with a noble note, to be very careful. It was a camera Flexaret with a reversed viewfinder and so everything I wanted to capture was showing up upsidedown. Also it used to be very popular to také pictures on roll film dimensions of 6x6cm size with the maximum of 12 shoots. It was a different way of thinking what to capture those days, mainly because of You needed to decide what settings was needed at the moment. However, if everything was going according to a plan and pictures were taken, the process was continuing in the bathroom, which was temporarily transferred into a darkroom. That is where we used to bring up black and white photographs for oursulves, as well as for our dearest ones. As the life went on, I changed many cameras, but I will never forget the first one I had. Nowadays, I use camera Canon EOS 6. I like wide angle lenses, but I do not avoid fixed lens either.

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I travel very often and it is an obligation for me to have the camera always default and ready. Mainly, I photograph nature, country, and architectures. Marina Ramos, ETIC/EPI, Lisbon/Portugal, Marina Ramos was born in 1969, in Lisbon, Portugal. Training in Marketing and Advertising and Photography. She lives in Lisbon, where she works as a teacher and photographer.

Katalin Szeili Szalai, University of Pannonia, Faculty of Business and Economics, Hungary Graduated at the Budapest Business School and the Corvinus University of Budapest. After ten years of work experience as an economist, she joined the University of Pannonia, Faculty of Business and Economics in 2013. She is the head of communication of the Faculty (previously head of marketing). Her involvement in the VIR2Cope project resulted in a special interest in the use of HDR photography in marketing activity.

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Over a two year period an international group of professional photographers, experienced amateur photographers and beginners worked together on the subject of HDRI Photography. An intensive exchange took place which included the use of Blended Learning, a mixture of presence meetings and real time online-conferences - webinars. The different qualifications and skills of the persons involved contributed to a unique knowledge pool, which led to interesting creative synergies. An unusual mixture of new ways, practical tests and approaches in HDRI Photography is summarized in this book. It provides stimulating reading for all people involved in pictorial representations such as art, scientific documentation, public relations and media or art therapy, who could profit from the huge potential of the HDRI-technique. The transnational cooperation was made possible through the European funding programme ERASMUS+.

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