HDR PhotoStudio 2 Review will be coming as soon as I make my run through other HDR/Tonemapping apps, but just a few review comments:

1. It handles color/saturation/hue very well for HDR/Tonemapping.
2. I like that it has a Photoshop plugin so that PS can open their proprietary .bef file format.
3. If you don’t read the manual or watch their YouTube videos, you’ll waste valuable time.
4. White balance, color tuning, saturation & noise reduction are all VERY useful tools in the pipeline.
5. Recipes will come in handy when I get back to playing with the app (think presets).

This is a quick follow-up post with three images I merged to HDR then tonemapped in HDR Studio Pro 2.  I’m still new to the software so I’m sure I could have done a better job on these, but the only way to learn these apps is to get face time and just tinker (after reading the manual!!!).  I always finish off by exporting 16bit tiffs and then do spot removal and/or final tweaks in Photoshop CS3.

The shots are too large to post on the blog (1200 pixels wide for the landscape shots) so I’ll give you the gallery link I uploaded them to.

IMAGE GALLERY of shots edited in Unified Color HDR PhotoStudio 2

First up to bat for testing out HDR/Tonemapping aps is HDR PhotoStudio 2 (see blog post from this morning below).

Just a first run using it.  It is so very different from any other HDR/Tonemapping app I’ve used.  The color fidelity is tremendous.  It took me an hour to really figure out how to tame the app.  At first the windows/highlights were blown out and I could not figure out how to clamp down the exposure.

Full review once I have run it through its paces.  Here’s a sample from my first attempt using it.

I often get emails asking about which app to use for merging to HDR and/or which app to use for tonemapping.  That’s not an easy one to answer given I use various apps in my pipeline for various reasons.  It really varies (slightly) on what I’m shooting.  Pools, Interiors, Exteriors, etc.  My answer may change soon so I’ll let you all know once I’ve played with the new Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro tools and other apps I’m going to test/try again.

I won’t be reviewing all the apps out there, but I am about to explore the various HDR/Tonemapping options for mac/pc over the next 30 days.  For selfish reasons.  I want to see if there is a better way to do what I do right now to get better results.  Better for me is faster, more natural or both.

I’m happy with my current workflows (yes I have more than one).  But I know a lot of releases of various applications have occurred over the last 1-2 years.  Even though I keep an eye on what is out there I don’t test and play with all of them.  I’m about to start doing just that now to see if I can refine or improve my current somewhat proprietary/unique post workflow.

I definitely get the feeling that folks think I hate Photomatix Pro.  I don’t hate it folks, I just struggle with the amount of saturation and hue issues it creates during the merge/tonemapping process.  It is a very stable app and probably the best app to use for artistic and surreal images.  But something else about it makes it a no go most of the time that I don’t talk about much…

Photomatix Pro will CHANGE the pixel dimensions of your image depending on what camera you are using.   This makes it impossible for me to then bring in one frame from the capture later and overlay it in photoshop if I want to mask in something.  They don’t match.  Photomatix Pro does some kind of voodoo in the merge/tonemapping that causes the image to grow in width.  Now it’s only a couple of pixels, but it is just enough that even if you use Photoshop to try and align images…  they never will.  Because the pixels are added on one axis, not both.

Now if you have a camera like an origianl 5D or otherwise, you may not have experienced this issue.  With the D3 and other cameras I have… this is a problem for me.  It adds pixels on one axis when I save images from tonemapping.

Even with that downside, I have used Photomatix Pro and have delivered nearly 1000 commercial images using it.  If you wrestle with the sliders long enough you can get decent results for commercial work.

This gallery is from one shoot… not the whole shoot, just a handful from the shoot.  They were all merged/tonemapped in Photomatix Pro.  Probably more saturated than a lot of my work, but that was why I moved away from this app a few years back.  This particular builder liked the look he saw from another builder’s website that I had used Photomatix Pro on, so he asked for the same “results”.  So be it.  I also shot many other properties for him after this one.  So much so that he put up a new website last year and pretty much every gallery on the site I shot for him.  His website  is linked below as well.

PHOTOMATIX PRO EXAMPLES (GALLERY)
11 tonemapped images from one shoot (1200px wide)

Builder’s website (nearly entire site I shot for him)

Today I edited the HDR Timelapse sequence of the Las Vegas sunset.  I had shown one frame from the sequence over the weekend and posted a larger version previously as well.  This is one single tonemapped edit from the HDR Timelapse sequence. (Video link to Vimeo below).

Today I had a real estate shoot cancel, so I got a bunch of past real estate shots edited and then took some time to piece together the Las Vegas Sunset HDR Timelapse.  Because I chose to merge to hdr and tonemap that one single image over the weekend (above) using Photomatix Pro, I thought I’d use Photomatix Pro again for the entire sequence.  What the hell.  Its not for a client so a little over saturation won’t matter here.  I made a few mental mistakes in the pipeline because I generally use other apps, but the results are O.K. for government work  :)

This was the capture/post flow:

Nikon D3  + Nikon 85mm f/1.4D shot through my hotel window on a tripod utilizing the in camera HDR Timelapse (You can combine a timelapse with bracketing in the D3).  I chose to go with a 7AEB with 1EV steps and the camera was firing off that bracket every 15 seconds.  Of the 7AEB I killed off the final over exposed image of each bracket.  I felt adding that latitude would brighten the image too much.  So each merge to HDR was 6 shots spaced 1EV apart.  The total number of tonemapped shots was 90.  Basically covering a span of  22 mins 30 seconds worth of time during the sunset. Both the Merge to HDR and Tonemapping was done in the batch feature of Photomatix Pro.  I then took the tonemapped images into Final Cut Pro for time and color treatment before exporting for YouTube & Vimeo.

Because I shot this sequence in portrait mode, I opted to make slight color correction differences to two versions and post one video with both playing together.  I should have pushed on image a lot harder to show variation.  Now that I’ve watched it online it seems very subtle.

I also simultaneously shot a HDR Timelapse a foot away from the D3 with a Canon T2i in horizontal mode as wide as the kit lens will go (18mm for that EF-S, but on a crop body).  I shot for a full hour with the T2i.  About 15 minutes prior to setting up the D3 and the same after the D3 exhausted the compact flash I had in it.  It will be interesting to see those results versus the D3.

I’m no expert when it comes to compression/encoding.  I can only say that the video looks a hell of a lot better in FCP than online!

Vimeo 720p Version LINKED HERE (opens in a new window)

Here’s a daytime shot from the trip to Vegas. A 3 AEB capture with a Sigma SD14 merged to HDR in Photoshop CS3 and tonemapped with CS3. A larger version is linked below this blog sized image.

LARGER SIZED VERSION LINKED HERE:
http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/vegas/sd14-hdr.html

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The Sigma SD15 will be shipping within  a month.  I’m very excited about this new release. The Sigma SD15 is basically a Sigma SD14 with a new processor that has a much larger buffer and a new 5 AEB capture mode which makes the SD15 a serious contender for HDR capture given it is retailing at $895. I have not yet tested the SD15 and don’t know if the new processor makes it better shooting in certain shooting conditions, but for daylight shooting the SD14 is an amazing tool with a very large dynamic range (sensor).  Also, the SD14 – SD15 is a non-bayer pattern sensor which records RGB on every pixel.  It makes an AMAZING camera for those who like to convert to Black and White.  Lastly, the software that comes with the camera has a slider in it that acts like none-other application I’ve used. It is essentially a built in tone mapper of sorts which makes editing single shots extremely useful for utilizing the sensor’s capabilities. (warning: Apple has no support for processing sigma raw files through iPhoto or Aperture 3)

I’ll review the SD15 once I get mine (I pre-ordered mine when it was first available for pre-order).

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Another quick HDR capture I chose to tonemap via Photomatix Pro
(Those two images will likely be the last I run through Photomatix Pro for some time. I’m just not thrilled with the way it handles color and has more than subtle hue shifts that cause saturation/hue issues)
http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/vegas/test-50mm.html

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I have a lot to share regarding NAB and HDR, from cameras to software. For now just a quick peak of one frame of a sunset HDR Timelapse sequence. I haven’t processed the sequence yet, I just grabbed one frame to quickly process (Nikon D3 + Nikon 85mm f/1.4D set to AEB).  I decided to do what I never do…  use Photomatix Pro to get a saturated and more surrealistic looking tonemapped image for feel.  Because that’s how I feel about Vegas.  Warm and glowing.

I got a ton of shots, but didn’t shoot as often as I had thought because of a few time consuming reasons. I had food poisoning one night/day as well as both speaking briefly in the Post Pit at NAB and also spending two days trying to see all there was to see at the NAB Show itself (which is so big, that words fail to describe).

More to come next week, but I have back to back to back shoots lined up with builders this week for properties that have to be shot right away.  Its torture not being able to process the Vegas stuff right away, but all in good time.

Another quick HDR capture I chose to tonemap via Photomatix Pro
(Those two images will likely be the last I run through Photomatix Pro for some time. I’m just not thrilled with the way it handles color and has more than subtle hue shifts that cause saturation/hue issues)
http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/vegas/test-50mm.html

More to come soon…

I’ll be speaking briefly about HDR and HDR Video at NAB via an invite from Mike Seymour of FXguide.com.  It falls under their time slot in the Post Pit at the NAB Show. If you plan on being at NAB, come say hi  :)

Tuesday April 13th, 4pm – 4:30pm.  Lots of topics going on at the Post Pit Mon-Wed linked here:
http://www.nabshow.com/2010/education/post_pit.asp

I’ll be in Vegas from Friday April 9th (land 5pm) and leaving Friday April 16th (afternoon flight).  A “Work-cation”.  I’ll be shooting far too much and often to consider it a vacation.  But this is what workaholic geeks do in their spare time!