Comments on: Exposure Fusion: What is it? How does it Compare to HDR? How Do I Do It?

By: Sebastian Nibisz

Sebastian Nibisz — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:25:40 +0000

I recommend the SNS-HDR. This tool is better than Enfuse.
http://www.mmj.pl/~snibisz/SNS-HDR/SNS-HDR.zip

By: johnp

johnp — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:25:01 +0000

Paul the Pentax K7 can develop in camera HDR using 3 bracketed shots. Still need a tripod though.

By: paul pacurar

paul pacurar — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:39:45 +0000

a treasure for any photographer; extreme color / tonality range situations are very very usual. My concern is about how these tools can properly blend several HAND HELD shots (slightly moved or/and rotated). I will test. So, until the invention – if will that be – of a new HDR camera sensor*, these tools are of great help for us!
——–
*at least a sensor which prevent highlights and color clipping

By: johnp

johnp — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:44:23 +0000

I have found the (free) average exposure blending in Photomatix an excellent substitute for dodging and burning light/dark areas in a single photo or other methods of correcting exposure in parts of an image. I save two or more duplicates of an image using levels to lighten or darken each one and then open them all in Photomatix. I feel it blends the images to produce an image much better than can be achieved otherwise and is simple to use. It helps though if the original image has no blown highlights or shadows.
I have had less success with blending my bracketed images however unless a tripod is used and there is no movement at all within the bracketed images. Any movement will result in some blurring in the image. Rather than export bracketed images to Photomatix I do still bracket them in camera but only select the best exposed image to work on and delete the rest. It saves space on the camera card as well.

By: photo restoration retouching

photo restoration retouching — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:15:46 +0000

hdr techniques in my opinoin are overused and also usually overmanipulated. This method seems to be a more realistic approach

By: Lucian

Lucian — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:26:49 +0000

I believe the term HDR lost its original meaning, as it was used in the name of the tools meant to extend the tonal range. It doesn’t matter how you extend the range, manually (ie: photoshop), blending the bits together, or using a tool (sorry for yet another confirmation). I used to do it myself before knowing what HDR is, just playing with photoshop; then I heard of HDR and I started to put notes on my photos ‘hdr-ed’, and use various (free) tools, but never got the result I liked … so went back to photoshop.

I like this article because it clarifies things, bringing a new (for me) terminology: exposure fusion. Not linked with a tool, but rather describing a process. In comparison, HDR defines the expected result, higher range. So different perspectives only.

on RAW: people tend to use a tripod and bracketing; but actually, unless if too much noise in the photo, from same raw save with different exposures one can obtain the same results as with bracketing …

2 examples:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlucian/3300511324/ with bracketing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlucian/3276512366/ from same raw file …

Cheers,

Lucian

By: Studiophototrope

Studiophototrope — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:00:44 +0000

I believe that much of the perceived “problem” with HDR images is the lack of understanding that the final result is the choice of the photographer. Once HDR software creates the original radiance file from the bracketed series, the Tone Mapping process leaves the “look” of the final output entirely in the photographer’s hands. The resulting hyper realistic image, or over baked image, or something in between is not a product of the software and thus, not a product of bracketing exposures to obtain a wide latitude of exposures. It’s the product of the *decisions* made by the post processor.
Painting HDR’s with a broad, negative stroke, does a disservice to the concept and process of high dynamic range.
What Photomatix and other HDR software does, can and has been done manually in Photoshop [as pointed out by mrt in his response] without ever using HDR software. Now, the creative process starts when one uses HDR software in conjunction with Photoshop masking/post processing to create the desired result.
I believe the HDR “debate” is what has become the problem.

BTW…
“Lets set things straight from the start, Exposure Fusion is not a kind of HDR…..In short, EF takes the best bits from each image in the sequence and seamlessly combines them to create a final ‘Fused’ image.”

If you really want to “set things straight”, you just defined HDR…. Exposure Fusion **is** high dynamic range imaging, as Guille says, “It’s a no brainer”.
Best regards,
Louis

By: ziad chatila

ziad chatila — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:16:41 +0000

Interesting technique. Does not seem to accept RAW images though.

By: Heather Rankin

Heather Rankin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:15:53 +0000

Jumping in …. I live in the Lake Powell area of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona with astounding views in every direction. While I am still rather ‘new’ to all of this, HDR photos work lovely here. It’s taken some time to figure out that ‘less is more’ in so many of them. I’m a real estate agent and my clients are very happy with the photos we end up with.

Halo’s are the biggest problem I’ve run into shooting an indoor scene with HDR’s. I’ve taken to shooting at mid-day with natural lighting (if possible) and have had wonderful results.

Thank you so much for the explanation here. I use Photomatrix and am excited to try exposure blending. I am photographing giraffes today at a local preserve so this is a great chance to try both formats.

Cheers!

By: Fredshome

Fredshome — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:03:52 +0000

I don’t know but this mostly seems to me to just be “HDR done right” and then toned down to a displayable dynamic range.

I can easily compute an image from a series of shots with a range spread over 32 bits per colour which cannot be displayed but which will definitely be “HDR” (although a fairly unusable one).
Or for a more typical example, HDR has been thoroughly misused when its purpose was originally just to get the correctly exposed bit from a series of shots and then blending the whole series together to get something that actually worked as a single image.
Then people found that by playing with tone mapping they could get amusing results (which are amusing for, roughly the first five shots) and now HDR suddenly became synonymous with ugly overdone crap.

So after all maybe at this point a new name is needed. Let’s get rid of HDR and use exposure fusion.