Showing posts with label photomatix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photomatix. Show all posts

Monday 7 December 2009

Cloudy morning at Bau Rouge beach - HDR

Cloudy morning at Bau Rouge beach - Provence
Cloudy morning at Bau Rouge beach - Provence


An image from September, just finished to process.
Done from 3 exposures with Photomatix.

Same place and same day that this one and this one.

Note : My tips for HDR landscapes are here.

Thursday 3 December 2009

Playing with tonemapping on a tif file and a real HDR seascape

Mediterranean storm at Gigaro beach
Mediterranean storm at Gigaro beach


When i processed the image of my previous post i wanted it to look natural.
The result was what i wanted but after a few days i found it really too flat for my eyes. So i processed the 48 bits tif file in Photomatix to add a little of tonemapping.
You can see the result just above. I prefer it to the previous image.

Just under, you can find a real HDR version of the same scene, also done with Photomatix but from 3 exposures.

Mediterranean storm at Gigaro beach

Monday 30 March 2009

Saturday 28 March 2009

Notre Dame des Anges, a curious church in Provence - HDR

Inside view of Notre Dame des Anges
Notre Dame des Anges


Notre Dames des Anges is right on the top of the highest mountain around my village. This place is dedicated to a saint who had the power to cure people diseases. The walls are covered with gifts that peoples offered to say thank you or ask for a cure. Not only the walls, some special and bigger gifts also hang on the ceiling. When i did this shot, over my head were a little boat and ... a dead crocodile.

Click on the picture above to see it at a better size or click here if you want to visit the big file with zoomify.

If you often come here, you may know that i like and follow the work of Michelle Basic Hendry an canadian painter. Twitter just told me she had terminated a church painting and wrote about it. If you're right brained, you can beleive that ideas cross the oceans :)

Thursday 5 March 2009

Hesitating

Le Pradet near Cap Garonne - Provence
Le Pradet near Cap Garonne - Provence


I was not totally happy with the previous version of this image. I can't really explain why in english but i would say that today i find it a little too much. So i reprocessed my 3 exposures in Photomatix and finished with this one.

Tuesday 3 March 2009

A rainy morning at the sea - HDR

Le Pradet near Cap Garonne - Provence
Le Pradet near Cap Garonne - Provence


Same scene, no GND filter but HDR from 3 exposures.
I didn't try to keep a similar rendition, this one is darker with more saturated colors.

Wednesday 11 February 2009

In the house of God - HDR

Notre Dame des Victoires - Collobrières
Notre Dames des Victoires, Collobrières


Nikon D200 + sigma 10-20, HDR from 8 exposures done with Photomatix.

Wednesday 28 January 2009

Other church, other dream

Notre Dame des Victoires
Notre Dame des Victoires - Collobrières


Nikon D200 + Sigma 10-20. Hdr from 9 exp. Nef files processed with SilkyPix. Hdr work with Photomatix.

Thursday 22 January 2009

Dreaming in the church

Notre Dame de Pitié
Notre Dame de Pitié


Today i had to go to the post office to send some prints to one client. Coming back i saw that this little chapel was opened and had the idea of this image. As it's less than 100 m from my house it just took a few minutes before i was there with my camera.

Tech : Nikon D200 + Sigma 10-20, hdr from 4 exposures, most of the work done with Photomatix.

Dont miss the large view :)

Friday 28 November 2008

HDR morning on the Mediterranean coast

HDR seascape on the Mediterranean coast
November morning on the Bau Rouge beach in Provence


In an early autumn morning, it's very rare to see somebody on this place but when i shot there in the summer, tourists start to arrive from 7 am.
I love to be there.
It's a wild place when you feel into the sea. It's not easy to come when the weather is too strong but it's not impossible and just on the right there is a little cave where i love to stay during the storms looking at the waves splashing.

This photo was done with 2 exposures blended in one HDR image and tonemapped with photomatix.
I've kept it natural, maybe i'll post a more crazy version in the next days.

Sunday 16 November 2008

Birth of a new day - HDR version

Birth of a new day, HDR version with Photomatix 3.1
Birth of a new day, HDR with Photomatix 3.1


This is the same image that the one shown in this post, but for this version, the two exposures where processed with the newest version of Photomatix.

I really don't want to write a review of this new version of the most popular HDR software. I had these images to process, i had just read that a new version of Photomatix was available so i have updated my setup before processing my files.
If you look at the Photomatix website, you will see that the list of updated and new features is long but i was specially interested by this one : Option to reduce chromatic aberrations / color fringing added to "Generate HDR options" dialog. I have to say that i wasn't impressed by this new tool.
My most usual workflow for the HDR job is the following :
  • First processing of the raw files with Silkypix.
  • HDR generation and tonemapping using Photomatix.
  • And sometimes, tweaks on the resulting 48 bit TIF file.

Usually, i use the SilkyPix tool to reduce chromatic aberrations during the raw processing. This time i first tried to process the raw files without doing anything about chromatic aberration and give a test to the new Photomatix tool. I was not very convinced by the results ... So i reprocessed my raw files, asked SilkyPix to reduce chromatic aberrations and processed the resulting files in Photomatix without checking the CA reduction option. I found the new result better than the first one.

Wednesday 9 July 2008

Bold HDR colors

Mediterranean colors at Le Pradet
Le Pradet - Provence large view


HDR photography of course helps with saving highlights and shadows but it also increase greatly the colors informations in the image file. So the photographer can go very far in post processing without altering image quality. Som can think that highly processesed images don't go with quality. That's another and eternal story. You can like it or not. These days i like it.

HDR from 3 exposures, raw process with SilkyPix, HDR and tone mapping with Photomatix and ultimate post processing with Picture Window Pro.

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Strong tone mapping with Photomatix

HDR mediterranean seascape
An other world

Please, don't miss the large view.

In some people mind, HDR images are always associated with some spectacular visual effects. In fact, these effects are not due to the high dynamic range but to the algorithm applied to make the HDR image viewable on a computer display or printable on paper.
The application of this algorithm is tone mapping. Each HDR software has its own tone mapping algorithm(s) and the most popular is certainly the Detail enhancer implemented in Photomatix.
Describing these algorithms would be a intensive (and perharps boring) math course but i can say that most often they :
  • Reduce the global contrast of the image to be able to display the darkest and the brightest parts of the image.
  • Increase the local contrasts to avoid too flats images.

The image above was produced from 3 exposures. RAW files were converted to TIF with SilkyPix. TIF files were converted to HDR with Photomatix. The HDR file was then tone mapped also with Photomatix and the result saved to a new TIF file. The tone mapped TIF was finally reprocessed in PictureWindow Pro to boost a little the global contrast.

Of course, tones and colors are not exactly the real ones but what does it mean ?
Of course the image is not artifact free and there is some little plain white zones in the waves but is it so important within such a photo ?
I'm an old school photographer and i still love the subtle details and colors of more classical photographs but i've also learned to like the visual impact of strongly processed images ...

Friday 20 June 2008

Playing with photomatix and tone mapping

Dusk jewels - HDR mediterranean seascape
Dusk jewels on the Mediterranean coast
During some years i've used the HDR imaging for my corporate work, trying to produce some natural looking images. After, when i started with HDR on my landscapes, i've also tried to increase the dynamic range i could catch without giving some too spectacular effects to the pictures.
Today i sometimes like to push the tone mapping's sliders in Photomatix ...

Large view here or click on the image above :)

Thursday 17 April 2008

Green Africa

Mediterranean landscape
Green Africa - Mediterranean landscape


One shot from yesterday morning just after sunshine.
Made in Provence but the green patch made me think to Africa.

Nikon D200 and Sigma 10-20.
5 exposures converted to HDR and the tonemapped with Photomatix.
Resulting tif file post processed with SilkyPix.

Thursday 10 April 2008

HDR on the beach

Mediterranean storm - HDR landscape
Mediterranean storm

I live 30 km far from the Mediterranean sea but i didn't shot any seascape during the past 3 years. I can't explain why, but that's like it.
From one month, things have changed. When i can find a moment for non commmercial photography, i go to the Bau-Rouge, a wild and rocky beach near Carqueiranne and try to catch some beautiful landscapes before summer when the light will be more difficult and when the place will be overcrowded.

In the begining of march, i was there in a bad weather afternoon. At the end of the afternoon, the weather was more and more bad and a big storm was coming. Just before leaving, i could catch some images like the one you can see above.

To keep all the sky contrasts and to avoid underexposing too much the darkest parts of the scenes, i shot 3 exposures for this image.
I converted the 3 raw files to 3 48 bits tif with SilkyPix. The tif files where combined and converted to HDR and tonemapped with Photomatix.
Then as i wanted a perfect sea with no gosthing effect i've blended the tonemapped image with one of the original tif file and kept only the sky from the tonemapped photo.

Wednesday 27 February 2008

HDR landscape in the Oule valley

HDR landscape in the Oule valleyPaysage HDR dans la vallée de l'Oule


I think i'm going to play a little more with HDR.
I was keeping the 3 shots used to build this photo for 5 months, since my last trip in the Alps. I've just processed them one hour ago.

When i took these photos in october, it was the end of the day, the light was beautiful on the mountains but the valley was in the shadow.
Combining 3 shots allows me to have very detailed and noise free shadows, beautiful midtones and respected highlights on the cliffs.

About the technical things :
  • The 3 shots were done with a Nikon D100 and a zoom Tamron 17-50.
  • The 3 raw files were converted to HDR and the tonemapped with Photomatix
  • The resulting image was saved as a 48 bits TIF file and re-processed with SilkyPix for color and contrast adjustments.
A larger version of this image can be seen here.

Monday 25 February 2008

First HDR landscape

Provence lake HDR landscapeDerniers rayons sur le lac des Escarcets

My recent discovery of the Hidyn Gems blog decided me to make some new tries with hdr for my landscapes.

The lake landscape above was captured with the last sun of the day.
Water was very dark, some grass was lightened and shined while some other was in the shadow. It was the good time to test the HDR thing and little plus : the water was very calm while it had been wavy during all the afternoon.

I used 3 shots to build this image :
  • 1 exposed for the midtones, with underexposed shadows and blown highlights.
  • 1 exposed with +1IL to increase shadows details and quality.
  • 1 exposed with -1IL to preserve highlights details.

The 3 nef files were directly converted to a real HDR image and then tonemapped with Photomatix. The tonemapped image was saved as a 48 bits TIF file on which i did a very few further enhancements in PictureWindow Pro.
In the final image, the shining grass is perfect and also the dark one as you can see with the crops under.

If you want to have a better view on this photo, you can see it larger here.

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