HDR dilemma, never seems to work well for me

andrewilley · Mar 28, 2015

Over the years I've taken a number of bracketed RAW exposures at Disney (especially night-time shots) for later HDR processing. But no matter how hard I try, I can never seem to get results I'm happy with (using Photomatix). I find white balance is especially difficult to get right from raw images. In almost all cases, I find I'm happier with the results I get from a fairly basic Photoshop or Lightroom adjustment of the correct-exposure raw file.

Could the assembled experts here maybe give me a few pointers as to how they go from their bracketed raw images to a final HDR image (in terms of common Photomatix adjustment levels, etc)?

If anyone wants an example, the following is an image I made using Adobe Camera-RAW processing from the middle-exposure of a bracketed three-image set (6 sec, 20 sec and 30 sec shutter speeds), without any HDR work:

[Link to full-sized TIFF]

However I can get nowhere near to what I'm looking for in Photomatix. Anyone got any suggestions, or maybe could have a play around with my source files and see if they can do better? Or is there not enough exposure range in the source files perhaps?

[Link to source raw CR2 file]

[Link to source raw CR2 file]

Andre

havoc315 · Mar 28, 2015

I always fix white balance, lens corrections, etc, first in light room. Then sync the images so they all have the exact same WB. And then I export to photomatix.

andrewilley · Mar 28, 2015

Ah, that's a good idea! I was assuming it was best to give the full-range untouched RAW files directly to Photomatix, but I could pre-process them a little as you suggest and create low/mid/high exposure TIFFs for Photomatix. Would 8-bit TIFFs be OK, of should I use 16-bit, or another format? (I don't think Photomatix supports Adobe's sidecar XMP metadata files does it?)

Andre

PythonFan888 · Mar 28, 2015

I don't know if this final product is close to what you had in mind:

havoc315's suggestion is spot on. I did some initial adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw - White Balance, Lens Correction, Clarity, Vibrance. (Similar adjustments can be made in Lightroom.) Sync the 3 images then save as TIF.
I then loaded the bracketed files into Photomatix and applied my usual Tone Mapping settings - nothing too over the top. I then saved the resulting TIF file.
I do final processing in Photoshop CC - Noise Reduction, 3rd party filters, etc.

boBQuincy · Mar 28, 2015

White balance set to 2000 in Photomatix. Saturation probably too high.

SkaGoat · Mar 28, 2015

havoc315 said:
I always fix white balance, lens corrections, etc, first in light room. Then sync the images so they all have the exact same WB. And then I export to photomatix.

I do it the opposite way, I put the bracketed RAWs into Photomatix, export a 16-bit .tiff and put it back into Lightroom, and then do white balance, and all other adjustments after.

Have you tried setting your white balance on camera before you take the shots?

andrewilley · Mar 28, 2015

PythonFan888 said:
havoc315's suggestion is spot on. I did some initial adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw - White Balance, Lens Correction, Clarity, Vibrance. (Similar adjustments can be made in Lightroom.) Sync the 3 images then save as TIF.
I then loaded the bracketed files into Photomatix and applied my usual Tone Mapping settings - nothing too over the top. I then saved the resulting TIF file.
I do final processing in Photoshop CC - Noise Reduction, 3rd party filters, etc.

Thanks, your image is great and the colours are just what I'm looking for especially the greens and stone colours, I'll give that a try.

boBQuincy said:
White balance set to 2000 in Photomatix. Saturation probably too high.

Was that importing the CR2s directly into Photomatix? It still has the rather tungsten yellow cast that I was getting, even after adjusting white balance and color temp in the program.

SkaGoat said:
I do it the opposite way, I put the bracketed RAWs into Photomatix, export a 16-bit .tiff and put it back into Lightroom, and then do white balance, and all other adjustments after.

Have you tried setting your white balance on camera before you take the shots?

When shooting raw I don't worry about setting manual white balance on the camera, I normally just leave it on auto and adjust it later in Photoshop as needed. I'll give your method a try too - lots of great ideas here which is just what I was looking for.

Thanks everyone, any other thoughts?

Andre

PythonFan888 · Mar 28, 2015

andrewilley said:
Thanks, your image is great and the colours are just what I'm looking for especially the greens and stone colours, I'll give that a try.

You're welcome. Good thing you shot RAW - we got better results with white balance adjustments, removing the yellow color cast, and giving the leaves and grass a nice green hue.

The Photomatix FAQ actually clarifies the issue of converting/adjusting RAW files prior to exporting to Photomatix.

QUOTE:
Do I need to convert bracketed RAW files to TIFF before using Photomatix?

The answer depends on your needs and preferences. It is better to first convert your bracketed RAW files, and then load the converted TIFF or JPEG files in Photomatix, in the following cases:

You need lens correction
You need fine control over white balance adjustments
Chromatic Aberrations in your photos are particularly difficult to correct
You are more interested in Exposure Fusion than HDR/Tone Mapping

I've done it both ways depending on the situation.

andrewilley · Mar 28, 2015

PythonFan888 said:
Good thing you shot RAW - we got better results with white balance adjustments, removing the yellow color cast, and giving the leaves and grass a nice green hue.

Yes, your version looks very nice - and that's exactly why I specifically shot RAW of course. Did you just use the main White Balance Temperature & Tint sliders (I used 2500 / +41 on my somewhat over-saturated non-HDR version) or also adjust the saturation levels in the HSL tab?

Andre

PythonFan888 · Mar 28, 2015

andrewilley said:
Yes, your version looks very nice - and that's exactly why I specifically shot RAW of course. Did you just use the main White Balance Temperature & Tint sliders (I used 2500 / +41 on my somewhat over-saturated non-HDR version) or also adjust the saturation levels in the HSL tab?
Andre

Just The White Balance slider. I usually make saturation adjustments in PS CC after the tone mapping step in Photomatix.

andrewilley · Mar 29, 2015

I've just given it a try by creating three matched TIFFs in Photoshop (with just 2400 / +39 temperature settings and some lens correction, everything else on defaults) and then importing those into Photomatix. I still find the tone mapping settings unwieldy, but after a lot of trial and error I came up with:

That was using the following Photomatix settings:

It's definitely better than my previous attempts anyway. I'd be curious to know what values @PythonFan888 used though (both initial Photoshop colour temperature setting, and Photomatix values) so I can see what other areas I might want to experiment further with. Your image looks a lot more "serene nighttime", while mine is still a bit oversaturated I think, looking at the finished result.

Andre

PythonFan888 · Mar 29, 2015

andrewilley said:
...I'd be curious to know what values @PythonFan888 used though (both initial Photoshop colour temperature setting, and Photomatix values) so I can see what other areas I might want to experiment further with. Your image looks a lot more "serene nighttime", while mine is still a bit oversaturated I think, looking at the finished result.

I used a color temperature of 2400 in ACR.

I'm using Photomatix Pro 5.05 so the settings are a little different:

Strength 75
Saturation 40
Tone Compression 0.7
Detail Contrast 2.0
Lighting Effects - Medium
Smooth Highlights 100
White Point 0.002
Black Point 0.000
Gamma 1.00
Micro Smoothing 30
Saturation Highlights 0
Saturation Shadows 0
Shadows Smoothness 75
Shadows Clipping 0

These are close to my "baseline" tone mapping settings. I usually tweak them a bit depending on how the image looks.

I then saved the tone mapped image as a 16-bit TIFF file and opened this in Photoshop CC.

I remember applying a curves adjustment layer because I wanted to tone down the slightly blown highlights. I was also bothered a little by the overly bright blue of the sky so I applied some selective darkening.

I also remember applying a few 3rd party filters:
Nik DFine 2: Noise reduction
Nik Color Efex Pro 4 - Cross Processing and Tonal Contrast - 2 of my favorite filters. I liked the results when I applied these so I used them for the tone-mapped image. The Tonal Contrast filter has a setting that allowed me to bring down the saturation quite a bit.
Nik Sharpener Pro 3 - Output Sharpener

There's usually a lot of variation in my HDR workflow. It all depends on the original bracket and on what I want to bring out in the final image.
Hope this helps.

andrewilley · Mar 29, 2015

I hadn't realised that version upgrades are valid within the same licence key, so I've just installed Photomatix Pro 5.0.5. And boy, is it more responsive than v4 - I can now see results pretty-much live as I move the sliders, whereas 4 would take 5-10 seconds to catch up.

Andre

nbaresejr · Mar 29, 2015

andrewilley said:
Over the years I've taken a number of bracketed RAW exposures at Disney (especially night-time shots) for later HDR processing. But no matter how hard I try, I can never seem to get results I'm happy with (using Photomatix). I find white balance is especially difficult to get right from raw images. In almost all cases, I find I'm happier with the results I get from a fairly basic Photoshop or Lightroom adjustment of the correct-exposure raw file.

Could the assembled experts here maybe give me a few pointers as to how they go from their bracketed raw images to a final HDR image (in terms of common Photomatix adjustment levels, etc)?

If anyone wants an example, the following is an image I made using Adobe Camera-RAW processing from the middle-exposure of a bracketed three-image set (6 sec, 20 sec and 30 sec shutter speeds), without any HDR work:

[Link to full-sized TIFF]

However I can get nowhere near to what I'm looking for in Photomatix. Anyone got any suggestions, or maybe could have a play around with my source files and see if they can do better? Or is there not enough exposure range in the source files perhaps?

[Link to source raw CR2 file]

[Link to source raw CR2 file]

[Link to source raw CR2 file]

Andre

I am wondering how you came to get the exposure times you took? I cant figure out what you were going for with times of 6, 20 and 30 sec. If the middle exposure was a base exposure (0) a -2 would be 5 sec and a +2 would be 80 sec. your 30 sec exposure would only be +0.5. This would throw off the final image because the brackets are not set correctly.

I am guessing you used the Auto Bracketing feature which does not allow the camera to time longer then 30 sec. To do the exposures correctly you would have to set the camera to bulb mode and do the math in your head and then take each image. It took me 3 disney trips to figure this out correctly and now my HDR images are much better.

As for your other questions set the white balance and lens correction in Lightroom on the 3 individual photos before sending them to photomatix. Once in Photomatix i usually start with the Natural setting and adjust from there. After getting it to my liking i import it back to lightroom for final adjustments.

Here is one of my most recent images. Its a 5 bracket shot. -2, -1, 0, 1, 2

Entering Tomorrowland by Nick Barese, on Flickr

nbaresejr · Mar 29, 2015

I just downloaded the files and here is my best shot at it

.

andrewilley · Mar 29, 2015

Yeah, I was trying to figure out those shutter speeds too! I would normally just set the camera on auto bracketing, so -2, 0, +2, and I guess the camera just wouldn't go beyond 30 seconds without bulb mode. For bracketing, I normally keep the aperture and ISO locked, and just change the shutter speed, so I must keep an eye on that in future.

What bracketing values do most people use incidentally? And three or five shots?

Andre

elmoandzoey · Mar 31, 2015

andrewilley said:
What bracketing values do most people use incidentally? And three or five shots?

You'll probably hear a lot of different opinions on this one. Some say 3 is enough, others will tell you everything less than 7 is not even worth it. In reality, I'd say you need to evaluate your source and check your histogram. If you take 3 shots at -2, 0, +2 and your histogram is nowhere near the left at -2 or near the right at +2, that bracketing sequence could be a bit better if you extend it to say -3/+3 or even -4/+4. In situations where you have a stark contrast between dark and light (e.g. night shots), you may need to go beyond +2/-2. Since that's a wide range to 0, you should take shots in between, say at -1.5 or 2.0 intervals.

Handheld I shoot -2, 0, +2 since my camera only allows 3 shots in Automatic Exposure Bracketing mode. People will tell you, don't shoot HDR handheld - I've done a lot of HDR handheld like that and I've gotten some great results. On a tripod, I check the histogram and then set my camera accordingly. Most of the time, 5 brackets at 1.5 or 2 interval is enough. I once did a -4 to +4 shot at 1.0 intervals which resulted in 9 shots - just to see if I could see a difference between the -4 to +4 shot I did at 2.0 intervals (5 shots). Honestly, I couldn't see a difference.

Your example I probably would have done 5 at a wider bracketing. Your brightest shot still has some really dark areas in the pond and the trees.

On a side note, I took a HDR similar shot to nbaresejr's shot of Tomorrowland at -2, 0, +2 (I skipped -1 and 1). I'll try to find it for comparison.

Daisy14'sDH · Apr 15, 2015

elmoandzoey said:
You'll probably hear a lot of different opinions on this one. Some say 3 is enough, others will tell you everything less than 7 is not even worth it. In reality, I'd say you need to evaluate your source and check your histogram. If you take 3 shots at -2, 0, +2 and your histogram is nowhere near the left at -2 or near the right at +2, that bracketing sequence could be a bit better if you extend it to say -3/+3 or even -4/+4. In situations where you have a stark contrast between dark and light (e.g. night shots), you may need to go beyond +2/-2. Since that's a wide range to 0, you should take shots in between, say at -1.5 or 2.0 intervals.

Handheld I shoot -2, 0, +2 since my camera only allows 3 shots in Automatic Exposure Bracketing mode. People will tell you, don't shoot HDR handheld - I've done a lot of HDR handheld like that and I've gotten some great results. On a tripod, I check the histogram and then set my camera accordingly. Most of the time, 5 brackets at 1.5 or 2 interval is enough. I once did a -4 to +4 shot at 1.0 intervals which resulted in 9 shots - just to see if I could see a difference between the -4 to +4 shot I did at 2.0 intervals (5 shots). Honestly, I couldn't see a difference.

Your example I probably would have done 5 at a wider bracketing. Your brightest shot still has some really dark areas in the pond and the trees.

On a side note, I took a HDR similar shot to nbaresejr's shot of Tomorrowland at -2, 0, +2 (I skipped -1 and 1). I'll try to find it for comparison.

I got lazy and didnt read all the responses, sorry

but your source images don't have enough difference in exposure IMHO, perhaps ensure that you use at least 2 stop intervals, always shoot in RAW, make your lens corrections and ensure you match your WB in LR before sending them to PHotomatix. I've built all my presets in PM to reduce saturation, add blacks, and never push it too far that it glows at the edges. Keep shooting when you get a result you like save the preset, you can always adjust them from there....

DIsneyDsgn · Apr 20, 2015

I have a love/hate relationship with HDR processing haha. I always find a cool shot but never happy with it also. I tend to not want things to look too far out there in terms of look and realistic tones/hues so maybe thats it. I say keep trying anyways... I know I still do.

andrewilley · May 6, 2015

I came back to this fresh and tried again, and with the newer version of Photomatix, and pre-creating colour-corrected (ish!) TIFFs from my RAW files (increasing the exposure on that brightest one while I was at it) I settled on this in the end. It's perhaps still a bit warm, but I tend to keep most of the photos on my site on the warm side these days (hey, it's Florida!):

Andre

HDR dilemma, never seems to work well for me

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