Recently I was invited by Mike Miriello who runs the  Real Estate Photography Podcast to speak about HDR and Real Estate Photography .  I appreciate the time and effort it takes to plan and produce podcasts and I thank Mike for his time.  I didn’t intend to spend as much time as I did focusing on exposure fusion / blending, but ended up doing just that.  If you have an interest in exposure fusion using Enfuse (which usees Enblend and Hugin behind the scenes) then this podcast will introduce you to the concept.

In a part of the interview, Mike has me discuss the workflow I employed for a few images he selected from a few samples of my work. Hence the reason he chooses a video podcast format.  He gave me the option to hand select images to discuss in depth and the workflow employed, but I opted to let him choose because I figured it might be more interesting to be surprised with his selections.

One of the four images he selected was from a private gallery link I emailed him.  The image he chose was (to me) a throw away shot I would NEVER put on my website, but it resulted in a side bar that led to me discussing a technique I use to correct for difficult lighting techniques. A win/win.

Even though it is over an hour long I feel like I barely scratched the surface regarding various HDR workflows and we never got around to discussing traditional merge to HDR workflows.  Like I said, if you are interested in exposure fusion, this may interest you.

The blog post on his website is HERE and I will attempt to embed the podcast below.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Carl Olson of 16 x 9 Cinema who runs the Digital Convergence Podcast. He interviewed me about HDR photography, HDR Video and in the process I also explained a little about how I got started and a bit about my typical workflow.

The podcast where I discuss HDR – HDR Video is linked on his blog HERE.

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Show notes & his iTunes feed is on his blog and I’ll repost that and shownotes below as well:

AAC (iTunes) version here: Digital Convergence Episode 5

RSS Feed: Subscribe to the 16×9 Cinema Digital Convergence Podcast

Subscribe in iTunes here: 16×9 Cinema Digital Convergence Podcast

Links from the podcast:

My Website: Digital Coast Image

Michael James on Twitter: HDRphotography

Jay Burlage – HDR filmmaker (Michael James cites Jay as a leading source of information on the OpenMoco project and creator of gorgeous time-lapse cinema. Check out Jay’s video below.)

Jay Burlage on Twitter: MiLapse

Jay Burlage’s YouTube Channel: MiLapse

OpenMoco – Open-Source Photographic Motion-Control

Promote Control

LR/Enfuse – Enfuse for Lightroom

Red Epic / Scarlet

HDR tutorial requests about my high dynamic range imaging workflow have come in via email (my photography site email) for a couple of years now. Again a couple more last night, but this time through the form on this site that I finally “fixed”.

So my question is… what do you need help with the most? Use the Contact Me page to send me what area you need help in the most whether it be HDR Capture (camera settings), choosing a camera for HDR Capture, HDR Post Production like HDR in Photoshop or HDR in other apps, Tonemapping, or otherwise.

In 2006 when I first heard about HDR there was very scarce information online to work off of.  HDR Tutorials were geared towards grunge looks and I was seeking to provide my clients nearly photo realistic looks for real estate work. Back then there were very few players in the market for applications and I decided to just use Photoshop from Merge to HDR – to tonemapping – to final tweaks.

Late last year weather turned bad here for weeks so I took some time to peek around the net and even some books at Barnes and Noble just to see what was out there in terms of HDR Tutorials and HDR Training.  I was amazed to see so many “gurus” or folks posting tutorials either slamming Photoshop for HDR work or quickly moving folks on to Photomatix because the sliders are easier to work with for beginners.  The slider issue I understand totally, but the steering away from Photoshop for HDR work I don’t get at all.

For example, one of the many things I like about using Photoshop for HDR is it is a complete high dynamic range pipeline from raw to final output.  That and you can view the entire exposure range in pieces simply by opening up multiple windows of the same view.  You navigate to the top menu to WINDOW>ARRANGE>NEW WINDOW and presto, another window of the same file you are working on opens in a new window.  If you just merged to HDR here in 32 bit space in Photoshop, then this second window has another exposure slider at the bottom to change at will that has no impact on the file, it is simply for viewing purposes.  You use the slider at the bottom of that new window to adjust the exposure range of the image you want to view in that one window.

That slider  is NOT some kind of adjustment layer, it is just for viewing purposes.  So you can open multiple windows, place the exposure slider to various under/over exposed settings so that as you make changes to the document here in 32 bit space, those changes update in each window.  This way, you can make local or global changes using various adjustment levels over either parts of the image or the entire image and see the results across the ENTIRE exposure range via viewing the multiple windows you’ve opened.

Here is a screen capture to understand what I’m talking about.  What you see is nine windows opened and I’ve adjusted the exposure slider at the bottom of each window.  I took that screen capture after I had merged to HDR and before I made my tweaks in Photoshop in 32 bit space.  Once I finished my adjustments and then tonemapped out to a 16 bit TIFF, I made some final tweaks right there in photoshop and the image on the bottom was the result.

Photoshop is VERY capable at creating photo real images as a single application pipeline – from Merge to HDR to final output right in Photoshop.  I would say if Photoshop’s pipeline has a major fault it is that it is TOO GOOD at keeping saturation levels under control and makes creating grunge and technicolor images a more difficult process because it doesn’t over saturate colors and it doesn’t create wacky artifacts like other applications do.

It blows me away when I see “gurus” poo pooing photoshop as being lacking for editing HDR images.  There are so many things you can do right there after merging to HDR waaaaaaaay before you ever go to the menu to choose IMAGE>MODE>16 bit to tonemap it down.  And you can work in layers in 32 bit mode just as you can in any other mode so if you know photoshop well already, then why are you taking your HDR images to other applications, then bringing them back to photoshop when you could just do everything right there in Photoshop?

Give it a chance.

I can’t provide a link to an online tutorial showing how to take advantage of the full capabilities of Photoshop’s HDR workflow because I never found anyone else using it like I do.  I’m sure others use it this way and they are either too busy shooting to create tutorials (I can relate to that) or such tutorials do exist and I never found them.

Like I said, with nobody to turn to in 2006, I just starting farting around in Photoshop and eventually figured stuff out on my own.  Even Photoshop CS4 still has ZERO help files for working this way in 32 bit space, which is probably why so many folks use Photomatix Pro and the like.

HDR PhotoStudio™ Review will have to wait ’til another day sadly.

Despite having 12 gigs of ram, beefy graphics card, etc., etc. I unfortunately fell just shy of system specs to run HDR PhotoStudio because it requires a minimum of an Intel dual-core 2.5GHz, but my MacPro is only Intel dual-core 2.0GHz so I unfortunately won’t be able to review HDR PhotoStudio™ anytime soon.

Having just bought a Canon 5D mark II and about to purchase the $2500.00 Canon TS-E 17mm f/4 Tilt Shift lens, I don’t have the cash flow to buy a new beefy computer to test out HDR PhotoStudio™.  Bummer.  It looks very promising.

HDR PhotoStudio™ Now available for Macintosh!

I’ve been waiting for the Mac version for some time now.  Finally available!  Of course Murphy’s Law… I’m right in the middle of a huge edit and can’t/won’t mess with it to test until later this week, but rest assured I’ll be reviewing this app.  Why do I like this app?.. or at least find interesting?  This paragraph from their website:

HDR PhotoStudio is the only solution capable of creating HDR images that truly unlock the full range of color as perceived by human vision. The software grants complete control over the colors within an image and provides a comprehensive toolbox to address the effects of merging multiple exposures, while simultaneously improving workflow.

Here’s some geeky system/spec info:

Version: 2.15.28 build 4449.
Download size:
Mac OS: 21.9 MB.
Windows 32-bit (x86): 11 MB.
Windows 64-bit (x64): 12.5 MB.

System Requirements:

OS: Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard)/Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard), Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7.
CPU: Intel dual-core 2.5GHz minimum, quad-core, 2.8GHz is recommended for best performance.
RAM: 2GB minimum, recommend 4GB.

LINK = HDR PhotoStudio™ Now available for Macintosh!

More to come once I’ve played with it

If you’ve followed me over the last year on Twitter you know I entered the realm of HDR in 2006 in order to get better results shooting real estate.  Why HDR for real esate photography you say? Simply because real estate photography and shooting interior architecture has been and still is one of the most difficult exposure challenges to solve in the realm of photography.  Consider this…

In many cases a shot needing to be captured to showcase a property needs to capture the exposure range of the interior and the range of the exterior. My question to you would be… “Have you ever shot landscape photography?”.  The reason I ask is because if you have, then I’m sure you’ve experienced the vast exposure range of the bright highlights and the dark shadows in those landscape shots.  Well, the shadow region of that landscape shot in 9 out of 10 images will be brighter than the brighter parts of an image for an interior shot.  Which is why when you need to capture the dynamic range of an interior and exterior for one image, you’ll begin to appreciate why HDR is utilized in real estate photography.

Here is a link to a recent shoot I just completed for a builder.

http://www.digitalcoastimage.com/comps/ws/index.html

That day was one of those incredibly hazy days with a ton of glare.  The kind of glare that makes you squint badly when you are outside even when not facing the sun.  It seems to spill everywhere and bounce off of anything and everything.  Well, that light was blazing in through windows into the rooms pictured.  Even when rooms with ample window coverage allow light into the room it doesn’t fully solve the contrast ratio issue.  HDR to the rescue.

Can flash be used? Yes. Always? No, not always.  Sometimes rooms are so tight or full of mirrors and using flash isn’t just a pain, but nearly impossible because of reflections and the inability to even get the flash units into a room let alone try and keep them out of frame.  There is definitely a place for flash and I do use it from time to time for specific uses ( especially this issue YouTube Video LINK ), but because many of my shoots are for rental companies I don’t always have much time to shoot units and a run and gun style works best.  Basically bracketing and moving from room to room quickly and then editing via HDR/Tonemapping in post.

Back to the topic I started…. if you think it is difficult to capture well exposed shots shooting landscapes and you’ve never attempted to shoot interior architecture / real estate, then you haven’t experienced PAIN yet!  LOL!  Seriously.  Until you’ve attempted (regularly) to shoot real estate in daylight hours (not sunrise/dusk, but bright daylight), then you haven’t yet found out why HDR is so important and useful for architectural / real estate photography.  Because that is when you will find out the dynamic range from highlights to shadows indoors with no window in frame can be wide enough by itself and difficult enough to capture by itself that when you add an entirely new brightness range of outdoors into the mix, the reality of what digital sensors can capture becomes clear.

Again, flash can and does present itself as a solution.  But with reflections, shadows created by flash units, etc… flash is not always easy or realistic.  That said, HDR isn’t always the best option either.  It just so happens that HDR is what saves my butt in 90% of my shoots.

I’ve actually been surprised at how many photographers have emailed me inquiring about learning what I am doing.  I don’t know if it is because of the economy that photographers are looking to add real estate to the mix or if they just haven’t used HDR in their workflow before.  My challenge is that I remain so busy shooting and editing with my client base that I haven’t seen the need or the time to consider tutoring others or creating training. But I have noticed the interest level nonetheless.

The challenge is that I can’t teach what I do on a phone call or through an email and I have had to turn down even those who were offering payment for either or email/phone support.  Maybe in 2010 I’ll find some time to either create training or possibly do some kind of workshop, but as of now I’m (thankfully) looking at a very healthy shooting schedule this winter and spring.  Summer is usually my slowest time of year being I live in a summer beach town and when rentals are 100% occupied, there is less to shoot

I found this little known fact out first hand when I was first experimenting with different tone mapping operators a few years back.  I was testing out the various softwares that will take your bracketed shots and “Merge to HDR” to create either a .hdr or .exr.  Turns out the act of merging to a High Dynamic Range Image using bracketed images, can be and IS unique amongst the various apps on the market.

The process the application goes through to merge to hdr  is not as standardized as I thought it would (or should be) and is slightly differently with various apps (done under the hood with their code).  Hence the reason that merging raw files to save in one app and then opening that .hdr or .exr in another app could and can does lead to different results than just using that 2nd app to merge and then tonemap the same files.  One would think that it should be a standardized formula that would lead to the same .hdr / .exr.  But as it turns out… different chefs make different dishes despite starting out with the same ingredients.

So the next time you are planning to use an application to provide automation (merge to hdr for dozens of folders) using one app, then tonemapping those .hdr / .exr saved files in a totally different app… you should know what the tendency of the original app you are using to merge “tends” to do (create).  Color, saturation, etc…

Just a little HDR tip to close out the 2009 year.

I received another email about HDR Darkroom and a 1.2 release of the mac beta.  Here is the landing page for the download and specs.

http://www.hdrdarkroom.com/download.htm

I never posted about the 1.0 version of the Mac Beta because I never received an answer back from the developer about why it wouldn’t load on my macs (despite meeting the required specs).  Unfortunately the same is true for this 1.2 update.  I have only bothered to try and load it on my macs. It still will not load on either my MacPro or iMac running (both running 10.4.11).

I’ve submitted another email to the developer about the inability to launch the program and I will report back once the problem has been solved.  I realize it is a relatively new app and likely a small dev team so I am willing to at least mention it here on the blog despite the app not loading and the developer being non-responsive to previous support requests.

Until I can get a response from the developer I will continue to use Essential HDR on my PC http://www.imagingluminary.com which is currently the gold standard for realistic tonemapping.

Essential HDR is also in beta testing on the Mac and I will report when it is available and out of beta.

I’d be interested in getting some feedback on what topics you would like to see discussed regarding HDRI.  Please send me questions you have about High Dynamic Range Imaging. It could be camera or hardware related for capture or software related for post processing.  Either leave a comment on this blog post (which will post when I get to it and approve it) or you can email me using my email address provided at the bottom of my web page on http://www.digitalcoastimage.com

I might not be able to address every single request, but I will definitely attempt to do so.

-Michael James

Last night I posted a gallery link showing 12 images from a recent shoot.  Half taken with a Sigma SD14, half with a Nikon D3.  Shots 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10 were taken with the SD14 and shots 4, 6, 8, 9, 11 and 12 were taken with the D3.

I could have shot the entire shoot with either camera… so why the split?  Well, that day there was a pretty intense glare off the gulf and I wanted to use a circular polarizer for most of the water shots.  You can’t use filters on the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G lens.  It has a protruding round end on the lens and doesn’t take filters.  It does extremely well handling glare (amazing actually), but I can’t get a circular polarizer on it.  Hence why you’ll notice that almost all the shots with water in frame were with the SD14 + Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 DC EX + Circular Polarizer.

The one balcony shot I took with the D3 was a south west view.  So with the sun situated off a bit to the southeast, the glare for that shot was milder than any other angle.  Also, I wanted to go a full 14mm for one balcony shot to give the potential rental customers a sense of space out there on the patio.  I can’t get that wide on the SD14.  The SD14 crop factor is 1.7 so the 10-20mm acts like a 17mm at the widest point (10mm x 1.7 factor).  I’d have preferred to have been able to go a bit wider, but I sacrificed width in order to get better exposures and with the filter, make the gorgeous Emerald Coast water (here in North West Florida) stand out.

Using a Circular polarizer creates its own issues of course, but I was willing to work around those sky density issues in photoshop in order to improve the image hitting the sensor.  It really helps big time with darkening the sky and a side benefit is it reduces the glare off the water.  I knew if I used the filter I could get away with only a 3 AEB with the SD14 because the filter was in effect reducing the difference in exposure of sky to ground.

For several of the interior shots I needed the width of the D3 for certain shots (definitely the bathroom shots).  I’d probably have just shot the whole thing with the SD14 to not have to mess with different post production workflows.  If I’m shooting for an architect or builder I don’t normally go as wide as 14mm, but I needed it for this shoot.  The rental companies want every single room no matter how small and as such, 14mm comes in handy for bathrooms and small bedrooms (and bunk beds in rooms).

Rental companies and realtors just want shots turned quickly so I generally skip merging to HDR and tonemapping for these shoots.  All 12 shots were using my alternate method of achieving (compressing) a high dynamic range into a narrow one.  “Exposure Blending”.

I’m told that Photomatix has the Enblend (or similar) code baked into it and if you use it’s exposure blending feature rather than tonemapping, you should get decent results.  The process is to feed it your multiple exposures and the code does some fancy math and then blends the exposures together to give a more balanced exposure.

The BIGGEST reason to use exposure blending over a merge to HDR, then tonemap approach is that you can actually BLEND various shots of natural light, flash, etc… to be blended into one final image.  I’m realizing now that it would take many paragraphs to walk you through this and I don’t have the time.

In fact I have just a few minutes to finish up this post.  I’m against the clock here to finish an edit and I’ll be up most the night to complete it and meet a deadline.  So I’ll bullet point some of the apps I used.

For the SD14 shots I used the provided software Sigma Photo Pro which is their raw converter.  To date their converter does the best job converting their FOVEON sensor raw files (X3F).  And it has one slider that is SICK!  It is like a tonemapper.  It is a fill light of sorts, but it is actually acting like a tonemapper.  I’d have to show you to have you understand.  Anyway… Once I tweak the SD14 raw files I then export 16 bit tiffs and then use the open source “Enblend” software.  Then finalize edits in Photoshop.

For the D3 I use LightRoom, make tweaks, then select those exposures and go FILE>ENFUSE using the Enfuse LightRoom plugin and it spits out a 16 bit tiff that I also finish off in Photoshop.

I expected to go a bit further in detail, but have to get back to editing this last shoot!

~~~ POOF ~~~