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11/17/2008 04:44:58 PM · #126 |
To follow up with what Raish posted, maybe our perception of a landscape is a combination of our visual and other senses. For instance the picture I posted above doesn't even come close to matching the scene in my mind-even with quasi-HDR and tonemapping. When it was taken, the cool fog, screeching gulls and dew laden branches assaulted my senses, all 5 of them. My attempt at capturing the scene seems very 2dimensional in contrast to the real thing. Maximizing the color and details is my attempt to create 'my' reality.
Plus, I always enjoyed a good cartoon.
Paul, I can be lazy too, and I find a tone map layer can be much easier than using curves and masking. I've recently processed an an upcoming entry, with and without HDR/tonemapping. The non-tone mapped version is pretty hard to tell from the TM version but it took more time to complete. |
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11/17/2008 05:06:36 PM · #127 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by raish:
I'm not sure the camera falls so very far short of the human eye. I'm not sure it doesn't either, but I think what you're saying is that it falls a fair way short of human perception. |
I think most digital cameras have a dynamic range of 7 stops or less ... I think the human eye is capable of something more like 12-16 stops. |
But...
an eye includes lens and adjustable aperture (those things are pretty much p&s)
I suppose it would be down to the light sensitivity of the retina.
And there's a difference between the rods and the cones...
Eenteresting - thanks. |
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12/04/2008 01:20:03 AM · #128 |
Originally posted by chromeydome:
Originally posted by Thaddeus_Smith:
yes, i use shallow DoF and black/white ..what's your point? |
My point is simple: you use techniques to achieve the effect you wish, to express your vision. Others use techniques that differ from yours, to achieve the effect they wish. So why so judgmental? |
Well, in response to the question "why so judgmental?" one would think that the obvious answer is that by asking somebody to numerically rate your photograph that you are INVITING judgment. It seems silly to me to ask for somebody's opinion and then ask them why they are being so judgmental.
DPC is ALL ABOUT being judgmental. That's the whole idea. |
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12/04/2008 02:30:24 AM · #129 |
Originally posted by scarbrd:
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Now, I can hear the shouts of "That doesn't look ANYTHING like what the camera recorded!" but that's not an accurate assumption, or in any case it doesn't take a few things into account; primarily, that when I am shooting RAW my default camera settings are "low" everything ΓΆ€” contrast, saturation, sharpness, everything. So all my images, as first displayed in the RAW converter, look very flat, soft, and washed-out color-wise. Now, I COULD set crisper parameters in-camera, and then the colors and contrast of the original (as displayed in the converter) would be much closer to what the HDR image achieves, but the thing is that the HDR merge itself adds color saturation and contrast both to the image, so I'm used to working from this flatter rendition because I know where it is going to end up.
R. |
I'm a little confused. I don't have my camera here so I can't see the settings, but I thought RAW was the image as captured by the sensor. No sharpening, no color adjustment, etc. If you can make those adjustments in camera, aren't you defeating the purpose of the RAW format? |
I lost track of this thread. What Gordon said a little further on is correct; by setting everything to minimum, and by setting desired WB, I get thumbs that are easy to view and images set to a very workable starting-point for my processing flow.
R.
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12/04/2008 02:31:32 AM · #130 |
Originally posted by scarbrd:
So, this bit about adjusting the RAW in camera to flatter, less contrasty is just for the camera display? It really does not effect the RAW at all.
Bear - is this the way you understand it, or I'm I still missing something? |
Correct.
R.
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12/04/2008 02:55:39 AM · #131 |
Originally posted by mpeters:
Robert--if you have time, i'd love to hear your synopsis of the Zone system, especially as it relates to current technologies. Even within the zone system, weren't you limited by the dynamic range of the film or transparencies? |
Zone system never worked for transparencies, really. It relies on pushing (increasing time) or pulling (decreasing time) the processing, and doing this with color transparencies introduces some fairly substantial color shifts.
Now, with B/W negative materials, the dynamic range is basically infinite; they can record the entire range between black (transparent) and white (opaque), and an incredible number of shades of gray between. However, the negative is merely an intermediate step between the seeing and the print; the print is the end product. And basically the print can only capture 7 or 8 stops of exposure range, depending on the paper itself. Matte papers have a more limited range, glossy papers a wider range, basically. Now the papers are also available with different contrast emulsions, or with variable-contrast emulsions, so you can match the paper to the negative for a desired result.
However, no amount of contrast manipulation with the paper can give detail where none exists on the negative, whether by extreme underexposure or extreme overexposure, nor can any amount of dodging or burning recover these empty areas. It's no different in conventional printing, in this respect, than it is with Photoshop. So the goal of Zone System is to give precisely the desired exposure to the darkest areas of the scene in which you wish to preserve detail, then measure by how many stops the brightest areas in which you wish to preserve detail exceed that exposure, and then to process the negative so that the range between them becomes 7 stops, basically. If the original scene is "flat" you will push the processing, and if it is "contrasty" you will pull the processing.
It works by taking advantage of a physical propertyy of the silver halide emulsion, which is: the lightly-exposed areas (the more transparent areas) of the negative reach their fullest development very early in the processing, and no further amount of processing will increase the density in these areas. The heavily exposed areas (the more opaque parts of the negative) take quite a bit longer to reach their fullest development, and push-processing will actually build up additional density in these areas, so that a metered zone 6 becomes and actual zone 7 or 8, for example.
So, in a nutshell, the process involves "previsualization" of what the finished print will look like, careful, precise metering and careful, precise processng to produce a negative that matches this visualization, and then skilled printing with local area control to produce the finished product.
Originally posted by mpeters:
How is HDR a modern day application of the zone system? Thanks. |
If you think about it, it's pretty much the same thing; you make a RAW exposure targeting the highlights, one targeting the midtones, and one targeting the dark areas, then you combine the best of all 3 (or however many you make) exposures into a single print. This is the digital equivalent of zone processing, where you end up with a negative correctly exposed for the dark areas and yet not overexposed for the bright areas. Just so, with HDRI we end up with a single "exposure" that is neither underexposed at one end nor overexposed at the other.
All this can be done manually, BTW, and sometimes it's better done that way. Doc Achoo prefers manual merging to HDR programs a lot of the time. I've done it myself when I have issues with moving things (like clouds or waves) within the image.
Finally, to address the issue someone was raising about "cartoonish colors" a ways back, that's not an inherent flaw of HDRI as a process, nor even of tone mapping (which can be used on its own though it is designed as the final component of the HDRI workflow). HDRI is no different from any other Photoshop tool; it can be pushed to ridiculous extremes for graphic effect. But done subtly, it's a transparent process; you wouldn't know it was used unless you were told.
I happen to like some of the very dramatic renderings I can pull via Photomatix, but even I am using it a lot more subtly than I was at the beginning.
Hope this answers your question...
R.
Message edited by author 2008-12-04 19:20:24.
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12/04/2008 07:13:32 PM · #132 |
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