What's new in HDR Imaging?
Releases, tech demos, rumours, papers.
Essential HDR 1.0 released
July 18, 2008
The program formerly known as "Project Wukong" has been released today as Essential HDR.
I've no idea why they would drop a kick-ass code name like Wukong, maybe the guys from Imaging Luminary aren't real Ninjas after all... But they are certainly nice people: You can download the demo version for free (called community version), which is essentially a demo with a bottom frame watermark and 1 megapixel size restriction. Even better, the first 1000 copies are on sale for 30% off ($48.99 instead of $69.99). Usually, it's not my style to hush-hush news out here, but I figured you might want to take advantage of this launch deal...
Quick 5-minute-review
Essential HDR is an HDR generator and tonemapper. It has a global and a local tonemapping operator. The local TMO (Detail Revealer) is the big selling point. According to the developers it is a new algorithm that produces less artifacts (halos, over-saturation) and runs at a decent speed (multicore support). I can wholeheartedly agree: this is indeed a very powerful tonemapper. Without much fuzz I got a very natural images, the preview is pretty accurate, and it is super-easy to use. For control freaks there might be too few sliders, but I find it very intuitive.
The overall interface is kept simple and it blends right in with other Windows Vista applications. There is no Mac version, but it runs fine on Boot Camp or VMWare Fusion (which is what I made this screenshot on).
One thing that bugs me, is that it cannot save OpenEXR images. You're stuck with Radiance for saving your HDR image, which has less color precision. Not so cool.
Comments
Erik Reinhard comments on "Flickr HDR"
July 10, 2008Erik Reinhard can truly be called the Godfather of tonemapping. Not only did he develop some of the most successful tonemapping algorithms, he also inspired numerous software makers by writing the book that is considered the HDRI-bible: "High Dynamic Range Imaging: Acquisition, Display and Image-Based Lighting". This technically detailed book laid the groundwork for almost every HDRI software we have today. For example, Photomatix's Tone Compressor as well as Picturenaut's Photoreceptor are based on his code, Artizen and QTpfsGUI have some tonemappers named after him.
In other words, Erik Reinhard knows a great deal about tonemapping. It's his baby.
And it bothers him that the three letters HDR are often associated with a certain look. There is no such thing as an "HDR look", and if you read my Handbook you should be well aware of this fact. HDRI is a tool, not a particular look (page 168 to 170). Nevertheless, surreal and impressionist images, that happen to be made from HDR images via excessive tonemapping, are calling lots of attention on flickr. I wouldn't go as far as naming these images "wrong" (although it is definitely wrong to still call them HDR). It's a matter of taste, and people without taste make tasteless images. That simple. It's always been like that, way before the advent of HDR imaging. The dangerous part comes in, when a particular tasteless use of a tool is getting so much spotlight, that it starts to become synonymous of what you can do with this tool. Dangerous, because it makes HDR look like a toy, whereas it really is a seriously powerful tool for making better quality images.
So that was my comment on Reinhard's comment on Flickr. Feel free to comment in this.
In other words, Erik Reinhard knows a great deal about tonemapping. It's his baby.
And it bothers him that the three letters HDR are often associated with a certain look. There is no such thing as an "HDR look", and if you read my Handbook you should be well aware of this fact. HDRI is a tool, not a particular look (page 168 to 170). Nevertheless, surreal and impressionist images, that happen to be made from HDR images via excessive tonemapping, are calling lots of attention on flickr. I wouldn't go as far as naming these images "wrong" (although it is definitely wrong to still call them HDR). It's a matter of taste, and people without taste make tasteless images. That simple. It's always been like that, way before the advent of HDR imaging. The dangerous part comes in, when a particular tasteless use of a tool is getting so much spotlight, that it starts to become synonymous of what you can do with this tool. Dangerous, because it makes HDR look like a toy, whereas it really is a seriously powerful tool for making better quality images.
So that was my comment on Reinhard's comment on Flickr. Feel free to comment in this.
Late July update
July 5, 2008My apologies for the delay. I've been tied up last week shooting a massive amount of HDRIs on location for an upcoming pilot. Although the images are classified, I can tell you that the Sigma 4.5 is incredible! Now it takes me under 30 seconds to shoot a full blown HDRI pano, which means the director doesn't hesitate to call me into action. Pretty sweet, thank you Sigma!
What did we miss in the meantime?
Unless you're living under a rock, you should have already read about this amazing camera. It's Nikon's answer to Canon's D5:
Sounds like a sweet package to me.
Read more on dpreview.com's hands-on preview or Ken Rockwell's commented preview or Nikon's official spec sheet / brochure.
Actually, this is a compact lens/camera combo, most certainly for surveillance purpose. But if the price is right and this baby runs at a decent frame rate, this might be a cool gizmo for making interactive panoramic videos.
From the example pictures on the japanese Future Creations Lab site it looks like the resolution is 1600x1200 pixels, which would be just fine for the web or capturing environments for CG lighting.
At least it's good for making headlines at Wired.com.
As regular reader of this blog you certainly expect a new Flickr Gallery and sIBL of the month. Well, you got 'em.
I have also something very special for you: a video tutorial on how to create your very own sIBL-set. I'd love to make more of these screencast videos in the future, so comments and suggestions are very welcome.
What did we miss in the meantime?
Nikon D700 coming in late July
- Full frame 12.1 MP FX sensor (same as D3)
- 5 fps to 8 fps (slower than D300 and D3)
- 51-point AF (same as D3)
- Sensor cleaning (unique)
- Pre-order price on Amazon: $3000
Sounds like a sweet package to me.
Read more on dpreview.com's hands-on preview or Ken Rockwell's commented preview or Nikon's official spec sheet / brochure.
Olympus develops 360° mirror lens
From the example pictures on the japanese Future Creations Lab site it looks like the resolution is 1600x1200 pixels, which would be just fine for the web or capturing environments for CG lighting.
At least it's good for making headlines at Wired.com.
Site update
As regular reader of this blog you certainly expect a new Flickr Gallery and sIBL of the month. Well, you got 'em.
I have also something very special for you: a video tutorial on how to create your very own sIBL-set. I'd love to make more of these screencast videos in the future, so comments and suggestions are very welcome.
The other HDR books reviewed.
June 23, 2008Done reading the HDRI Handbook? Can't get enough of HDR? Lucky you, because there happen to be two new HDR books out, both written by photographers for photographers.
Am I right guy to write reviews for competing books? Well, I'm certainly biased, and you should keep this in mind. Proceed with caution. But I also know the subject in and out, so I can evaluate the information given in these books with confidence. After all, I see these books as complementary readings, rather than competition.
Here's a list of topics covered in neither one of them, thus exclusive to the HDRI Handbook:
OK, now this is out of the way, and I will avoid mentioning my own book from now on. Instead, I will try to give you the most objective reviews possible. In fact, when you want to dive deeper into tonemapping, I do recommend getting one of these new books!
But which one to get?
Freeman is a seasoned writer, with plenty of beautiful books on travel photography under his belt. His style is straight forward and to the point, never boring or repetitive. He can put complicated matters in simple words that actually make sense; this man is a professional with words. His photography is just as professional, he's listed in agencies all over the world.
Layout, print quality and binding are all great - 160 pages of excellence. Most topics are presented as double-page essays, that are clearly headlined. This enables quick browsing for a topic of interest, and invites for non-linear reading sessions.
The book starts with explaining the limitations of 8-bit LDR imagery, scene contrast and human perception. I love the way Freeman describes our perception of images (which is more of an acquired skill) and how he links in Gestalt theory. There are several severe implications that apply to our judgement of tonemapping results, which he responds to by creating some categories for HDR scenes to be treated differently. For example, a continuous gradient (like a foggy landscape) need a different treatment than scattered bright lights (i.e. nightshot). This chapter is a great training for your photographer's eye, and worth the admission alone.
Capturing and creating HDRIs is very comprehensively described in almost every HDR-capable software, highlighting some specific advantages of each. In boxes you'll learn about some special Photoshop tricks like stacking and pre-alignment, even manual ghostbusting techniques. I love the special case he makes for the quality gain you can get from Photosphere's unique flare removal, as well as the page on color management.
More than half of the book is dedicated to tonemapping (about 100 pages). Tool-centric mini-manuals come first, explaining the parameters of Photomatix, Photoshop, FDRTools, QTpfsGUI, and EasyHDR. Freeman then goes into problem solving mode, and elaborates on halo control and naturalness. Personally, I do share his views about overprocessing, but after all this might be a matter of taste. Freeman briefly taps into panorama stitching with Realviz Stitcher (now Autodesk Stitcher), which is in my opinion the weakest part of the book. The rest is filled with a great variety of workflow case studies. Each case study explores something new - like selectively blending multiple tonemapping results in Photoshop, using HDR for portrait shots or maximizing image quality by pre-processing the source images. When Freeman finally suggests tonemapping strategies for the HDR scene categories, as established in the first chapter, he closes this book with an elegant story arc.
McCollough does know about naturalness as well, but he doesn't limit himself to it. For him it's all about the impact of a photograph. His book taps into all kinds of creative tonemapping techniques, exploring exaggerated looks and eye catching imagery. With many full-page prints and 5 portfolio galleries of excellent photographers from the flickr community, this book has also coffee-table qualities. The longer you browse, the more you will see you own level of acceptance shift. On first look some images might appear overdone, but on closer examination they turn into powerful pieces of art. In this way, McCollough's entire book is training tool for your creative eye.
The book starts with a brief introduction about sensor limitations and examples of scene dynamic range. I love the fact that he uses EV spans throughout the book, it makes the subject so much more approachable. A very short skid on file formats and image encoding is immediately followed by a closer look at RAW formats. He concludes, that you can get the same quality in your HDR image by shooting in JPEGs, which I absolutely agree with. Nevertheless, he does explain later on how to create HDRs from RAW files, what you can tweak in pre-processing and what you shouldn't touch. There is also some advice on using point-and-shoot cameras, so he really takes care of making HDR accessible to everyone. This entire introduction chapter is very hands-on, and stripped down to the essentials.
Tonemapping takes up the rest of the book (about 120 pages). Tools of the trade are Photomatix, FDR Tools, Dynamic Photo HDR, Artizen and Photoshop (preference given in that order). Most images throughout the book are accompanied by a box with the tonemapping settings - just simple listings, but they turn out to be an awesome reference. Where Freeman classifies types of HDR scenes, McCollough classifies the typical problems of tonemapping: Halos, noisy shadows, grainy skies. My favorite is tone reversal: when local contrast enhancements are driven so far, that regions we would normally perceive as brighter turn out darker than the rest of the image. Super-dramatic skies that appear darker than the ground are one good example, a phenomenon you see all over flickr. Tone reversal finally defines this hard-to grasp quality, that is right on the dividing line between true-tone mapping and creative expressionism.
When McCollough highlights the architectural applications, it becomes clear that he is very capable of creating a natural look. A rather interesting idea is explored in flash merging: multiple exposures are blended together, each one with the flash from different directions. Technically, this is more of an exposure blending technique than HDR, but nevertheless very cool and effective. Panoramic HDR photography is kept on a conceptual level. Instead, McCollough experiments with tonemapping single RAW images (with surprisingly great success), graduated ND filters, macro- and black-and-white photography. The book closes with some quick tips on specific subjects, like portraits, night shots and snow.
I can still remember pitching my first book to several publishers in 2004. The response has always been discouraging: "There is no market for this kind of fancy stuff." Today it's a different story. HDR has become big, and although I was fortunate enough to get the first consumer-level book on HDRI out, I see no reason for it to stand alone. The demand for more teaching material only underlines the point, that HDRI is now a well-established field of photography. More books on this topic can only benefit the industry as a whole. Maybe camera makers will finally listen and respond with better bracketing options or maybe even HDR-capable sensors. That's why you need to keep the ball rolling: nurture this new market of HDR material, show them that this is a topic you care about - order at least one of these new HDR books!
Order Michael Freeman: Mastering HDR Photography
(recommended for pro shooters, emphasize on image quality and natural tonemapping)
Order Ferrell McCollough: Complete Guide to HDR Photography
(recommended for creative minds, looking for inspiration and hands-on guidance)
Preface
Am I right guy to write reviews for competing books? Well, I'm certainly biased, and you should keep this in mind. Proceed with caution. But I also know the subject in and out, so I can evaluate the information given in these books with confidence. After all, I see these books as complementary readings, rather than competition.
Here's a list of topics covered in neither one of them, thus exclusive to the HDRI Handbook:
- 32-bit image editing
- manually tonemapping in Photoshop
- shooting and stitching fully spherical HDR panos
- lighting in 3d applications
OK, now this is out of the way, and I will avoid mentioning my own book from now on. Instead, I will try to give you the most objective reviews possible. In fact, when you want to dive deeper into tonemapping, I do recommend getting one of these new books!
But which one to get?
Michael Freeman: Mastering HDR Photography
Freeman is a seasoned writer, with plenty of beautiful books on travel photography under his belt. His style is straight forward and to the point, never boring or repetitive. He can put complicated matters in simple words that actually make sense; this man is a professional with words. His photography is just as professional, he's listed in agencies all over the world.
Layout, print quality and binding are all great - 160 pages of excellence. Most topics are presented as double-page essays, that are clearly headlined. This enables quick browsing for a topic of interest, and invites for non-linear reading sessions.
The book starts with explaining the limitations of 8-bit LDR imagery, scene contrast and human perception. I love the way Freeman describes our perception of images (which is more of an acquired skill) and how he links in Gestalt theory. There are several severe implications that apply to our judgement of tonemapping results, which he responds to by creating some categories for HDR scenes to be treated differently. For example, a continuous gradient (like a foggy landscape) need a different treatment than scattered bright lights (i.e. nightshot). This chapter is a great training for your photographer's eye, and worth the admission alone.
Capturing and creating HDRIs is very comprehensively described in almost every HDR-capable software, highlighting some specific advantages of each. In boxes you'll learn about some special Photoshop tricks like stacking and pre-alignment, even manual ghostbusting techniques. I love the special case he makes for the quality gain you can get from Photosphere's unique flare removal, as well as the page on color management.
More than half of the book is dedicated to tonemapping (about 100 pages). Tool-centric mini-manuals come first, explaining the parameters of Photomatix, Photoshop, FDRTools, QTpfsGUI, and EasyHDR. Freeman then goes into problem solving mode, and elaborates on halo control and naturalness. Personally, I do share his views about overprocessing, but after all this might be a matter of taste. Freeman briefly taps into panorama stitching with Realviz Stitcher (now Autodesk Stitcher), which is in my opinion the weakest part of the book. The rest is filled with a great variety of workflow case studies. Each case study explores something new - like selectively blending multiple tonemapping results in Photoshop, using HDR for portrait shots or maximizing image quality by pre-processing the source images. When Freeman finally suggests tonemapping strategies for the HDR scene categories, as established in the first chapter, he closes this book with an elegant story arc.
Conclusion: This book is all about image quality.
Freeman uses HDRI primarily to overcome sensor limitations, his focus is on naturalness and brilliant photography in the traditional sense. I called this tonemapping style "the invisible art of true-tone mapping"; I practice it myself, and I know that it is in fact is very hard to withstand the temptation of tonemapping too hard and keep it subtle yet effective. It requires skill and a sharp eye. If you're a professional photographer, maybe in real estate or commercials, this book will teach you both.Ferrell McCollough: Complete Guide to HDR Digital Photography
McCollough does know about naturalness as well, but he doesn't limit himself to it. For him it's all about the impact of a photograph. His book taps into all kinds of creative tonemapping techniques, exploring exaggerated looks and eye catching imagery. With many full-page prints and 5 portfolio galleries of excellent photographers from the flickr community, this book has also coffee-table qualities. The longer you browse, the more you will see you own level of acceptance shift. On first look some images might appear overdone, but on closer examination they turn into powerful pieces of art. In this way, McCollough's entire book is training tool for your creative eye.
The book starts with a brief introduction about sensor limitations and examples of scene dynamic range. I love the fact that he uses EV spans throughout the book, it makes the subject so much more approachable. A very short skid on file formats and image encoding is immediately followed by a closer look at RAW formats. He concludes, that you can get the same quality in your HDR image by shooting in JPEGs, which I absolutely agree with. Nevertheless, he does explain later on how to create HDRs from RAW files, what you can tweak in pre-processing and what you shouldn't touch. There is also some advice on using point-and-shoot cameras, so he really takes care of making HDR accessible to everyone. This entire introduction chapter is very hands-on, and stripped down to the essentials.
Tonemapping takes up the rest of the book (about 120 pages). Tools of the trade are Photomatix, FDR Tools, Dynamic Photo HDR, Artizen and Photoshop (preference given in that order). Most images throughout the book are accompanied by a box with the tonemapping settings - just simple listings, but they turn out to be an awesome reference. Where Freeman classifies types of HDR scenes, McCollough classifies the typical problems of tonemapping: Halos, noisy shadows, grainy skies. My favorite is tone reversal: when local contrast enhancements are driven so far, that regions we would normally perceive as brighter turn out darker than the rest of the image. Super-dramatic skies that appear darker than the ground are one good example, a phenomenon you see all over flickr. Tone reversal finally defines this hard-to grasp quality, that is right on the dividing line between true-tone mapping and creative expressionism.
When McCollough highlights the architectural applications, it becomes clear that he is very capable of creating a natural look. A rather interesting idea is explored in flash merging: multiple exposures are blended together, each one with the flash from different directions. Technically, this is more of an exposure blending technique than HDR, but nevertheless very cool and effective. Panoramic HDR photography is kept on a conceptual level. Instead, McCollough experiments with tonemapping single RAW images (with surprisingly great success), graduated ND filters, macro- and black-and-white photography. The book closes with some quick tips on specific subjects, like portraits, night shots and snow.
Conclusion: This book is for the creative type of photographers.
If you consider your photographic captures as mere material for creating a piece of art in digital postprocessing, you will find a lot of inspiration here. By the way - McCollough also publishes several great tutorials on HDR in his blog.Closing thoughts: The current state of HDR photography
I can still remember pitching my first book to several publishers in 2004. The response has always been discouraging: "There is no market for this kind of fancy stuff." Today it's a different story. HDR has become big, and although I was fortunate enough to get the first consumer-level book on HDRI out, I see no reason for it to stand alone. The demand for more teaching material only underlines the point, that HDRI is now a well-established field of photography. More books on this topic can only benefit the industry as a whole. Maybe camera makers will finally listen and respond with better bracketing options or maybe even HDR-capable sensors. That's why you need to keep the ball rolling: nurture this new market of HDR material, show them that this is a topic you care about - order at least one of these new HDR books!
Order Michael Freeman: Mastering HDR Photography
(recommended for pro shooters, emphasize on image quality and natural tonemapping)
Order Ferrell McCollough: Complete Guide to HDR Photography
(recommended for creative minds, looking for inspiration and hands-on guidance)
One-shot panoramas
June 15, 2008Fisheye lenses are awesome in delivering pristine quality. Just got the new Sigma 4.5mm for my Nikon D200, and now I get a full pano done in 3 shots. But that's about the end of the line. Some stupid law of physics prevents lenses to show more than 180° FOV.
That's why mirror balls are still in fashion for getting these quick-and-dirty HDR environment images done. Problem with mirror balls is: they're a royal pain to handle, the shoot requires a complicated 2-tripod setup, and they have a blind spot behind them. Also, you see the photographer's reflection in the center - so that's yet another useless spot.
Students from the Linköping University have figured out a smart setup, that overcomes these problems. They cut out a hole where the photographer's reflection is, and put in a lens to picture what would have been hidden behind the mirror.
Read the full paper here.
Let's see how long it takes until this idea turns into a product. Maybe next Siggraph? Photokina?
Similar mirrorball-on-a-stick lenses are the Kaidan 360 OneVR, the 0-360 Panoramic Optic, the VRi SurroundPhoto, the EGG photo306°, but none of them are this advanced. Yet. They might work great for real estate tours on Craigslist, but for VFX work we demand it to be more awesome. According to this reference page most of these current one-shot systems are even made of plastic.
That's why mirror balls are still in fashion for getting these quick-and-dirty HDR environment images done. Problem with mirror balls is: they're a royal pain to handle, the shoot requires a complicated 2-tripod setup, and they have a blind spot behind them. Also, you see the photographer's reflection in the center - so that's yet another useless spot.
Students from the Linköping University have figured out a smart setup, that overcomes these problems. They cut out a hole where the photographer's reflection is, and put in a lens to picture what would have been hidden behind the mirror.
Read the full paper here.
Let's see how long it takes until this idea turns into a product. Maybe next Siggraph? Photokina?
Similar mirrorball-on-a-stick lenses are the Kaidan 360 OneVR, the 0-360 Panoramic Optic, the VRi SurroundPhoto, the EGG photo306°, but none of them are this advanced. Yet. They might work great for real estate tours on Craigslist, but for VFX work we demand it to be more awesome. According to this reference page most of these current one-shot systems are even made of plastic.
