Category Archives: software

Unified Color releases new HDR Tools

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For me personally, the new batch processing of HDR Expose 2 is excellent.  And to be able to process multiple versions in batch mode (presets) makes it all the more useful.

The localized dodge and burn is also a much welcomed addition.  Some images do fine with macro tonemapping, but many images benefit by being able to localize exposure tweaks and the dodge and burn tool is a great addition.

I think John Omvik does a great job touching on the major features of both Expose 2 and in this youtube video (link below):
http://youtu.be/dEwFCIPRrFk

HDR Express quick take

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Today Unified Color released HDR Express.
http://www.unifiedcolor.com/hdr-express

It might seem like a watered down version of HDR Expose / 32 Float… and that would be true in terms of the tools to use in the user interface, but the underlying code is revolutionary in HDR Express (in terms of Unified Color’s family of HDR apps).

If you download the trial today and test it out… and you own HDR Expose / 32 Float, then your first reaction will be “bugger“.  Because you’ll want that wicked fast, halo free quality in HDR Expose / 32 Float.  Here’s the good news… unified color just put their own Expose/32 Float apps on the endangered HDR species list.  They have no choice now but to get the underlying code from Express into HDR Expose / 32 Float as fast as they can.  Its pretty obvious.  They have to. And when they do, those apps will be much better than they already are now.

My brief take away bullet points would be…

PROS

1.  HDR Express is easily 2 to 4 times faster than HDR Expose and/or 32 Float.

2.  Halo free tonemapping without the waiting times in HDR Expose / 32 Float.

3.  Dynamic Range Mapping by default (Express is idiot proof and auto tonemaps the range you feed it)

4.  Simple to use thumbnails to choose from over to under exposed starting points.

CONS

1.  Still does not allow me to pull in as much dynamic range as using my proprietary approach.

2.  HDR Express was built for beginners and lacks all the extra (and useful) tools available in HDR Expose / 32 Float for high end tonemapping.

3.  No batch processing (if its there… I missed it).

Last Call for HDR Training

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Last call for HDR Training for Real Estate and Architectural Photography.

This offer expires December 1st!

Shooting and editing for real estate and architectural interiors is a whole different beast than landscapes and non-commercial work.  The list of gotchas is long, here’s the short one.

You know the culprits… mixed lighting, massive dynamic range scenes most HDR apps choke on, reflections and glare, shooting directly at glass/windows/mirrors where flash is not an option, regaining window frames from massive back lit situations where light wrap causes loss of detail, shooting real estate with live talent in frame (no strobes), and on and on goes the list of fun shooting interiors.

I’ve been getting emails asking if they missed the launch of my HDR Training for Real Estate and Architectural Photography.  You didn’t miss the official announcement… it’s getting closer, but right now only those in the initial beta group are getting the training videos.

Why is it taking so long to get the training finished? Simple,… because I am a working photographer.

Yes, it has been coming along slowly thusfar, but it is about to kick into high gear.  I’ve cleared the decks for December.  I am ONLY creating training during the month of December.  The official launch of the HDR Training and when the site will go live is now targeting January (URL to be provided at time of launch).

The training I’m providing allows you to have access to me to ask questions via email and even via phone if we can match our schedules.  Ditto via skype for out of the country english speaking folks.  Hence why this training is not dirt cheap.

In fact one of the training videos already created and available for download now was created because one of the photographers in the beta group asked me to show how to incorporate live talent with HDR for an architectural interior product shoot.  It is possible that one of your questions might end up turning into a video tutorial as well if I think it will benefit the group.

I’ve gotten emails from a few of you asking if you can join the beta now even though all the videos and training are not fully complete. The answer is yes, BUT only if you understand that there is no concrete date as to when all the videos will be done. The target is by the first week of January.  Currently there are over two hours of training finished and available for download.  They are 1280×720 hi quality H.264 movies for viewing on a computer.

Once all the videos are done it will encompass everything I do from capture to post.  What is complete and available now are a handful of techniques that will be used in the full workflow/pipeline.

What is being shot this week is …. what I take  to a shoot, do at a shoot (and why) and then I show you various workflows to edit in post. For post production, I’m showing various workflows that work on both Mac and PC.  It is important to reiterate that the training I’m offering here is ongoing… as in perpetual. I say perpetual, but a more accurate statement would be that the training will continue until I no longer need to implement a hdri pipeline simply because in 10yrs it will probably all be done in camera and in one shot anyway.

Until then, I can promise you that you’ll always have my best imaging pipeline for High Dynamic Range Imaging.  What I’m teaching will either slightly alter in the coming months or change completely.  That means in the future I’ll need to create new videos to replace the current ones as I improve my workflow or find cool work arounds.  Hence the reason this training is not dirt cheap.

As hot as HDR is currently and is getting, .. it virtually guarantees that new apps will appear or existing apps will get updated.  I test the heck out of them and many of the companies creating them invite me to their betas so I usually have an opinion or a leg up on the apps when they release.  I’ve found little workflow enhancements that you probably have not implemented yourself that will give you better results for editing in a HDRI pipeline. Some of what I’ve shown in the videos have already helped those currently in the beta group despite some of them being very experienced in HDR.

My current preferred pipeline for post production changed dramatically a couple of years ago and new ones have emerged as well.  I have a few post production workflows I’ll be showing.  One of which I use for what I call “quick turns“ where a realtor needs pics turned quickly and I have automation steps in that workflow.  (This is a video that releases in about mid December).

Another workflow is going to show my pipeline for HDR Timelapse sequences shot for architectural interiors.  And another two pipelines showing my highest level of quality for magazine level submissions.  Many of my approaches are specifically geared for dealing with the nightmares of shooting architectural interiors.

“Been there done that“.  I’m not bragging, just saying I’ve suffered more than you!!!

I’ve been shooting real estate using a high dynamic range imaging pipeline exclusively since 2005. I’ve run up against all the problems you likely already have yourself, or haven’t had the displeasure of experiencing yet. You don’t need massively expensive gear, but technique and post production are key.

I’m incredibly anal and I tinker with apps and new approaches all the time.  Always looking for a more efficient pipeline.  A few photographers that thought they had settled in for a workflow they created have either completely changed gears or implemented the tweaks I’ve shown them once I revealed some workflow enhancements.  You’ll see.

I had nobody to learn from when I started with HDR, I just tinkered with every app there was and found ways to get commercially viable images.  I never found anything online about HDR because in 2005 there wasn’t anyone using it exclusively for real estate.  So I never knew some folks had created dos and don’ts and rules about bracketing.  I would just test things out without fretting about what you are or are not supposed to do or how to treat RAWs or files in post.  I would just think about what I needed to do to best exploit the scene and best compress the dynamic range down.

The video training is currently distributed via temporary download links from YouSendIt, etc. You just click the link and download the hi res videos to your computer for viewing.  Eventually all of these will also be online once the website is live. The site isn’t online yet and as such neither is any online payment system.  So if you’d like to join the beta, you can send me a check, pay via paypal, pay me by sending me an Amazon Gift Card, or pay via visa/mastercard through my business merchant account (either with a form I’d email for you to fill in and fax back or I could take your credit card info over the phone).

The emails I use for PayPal and Amazon are not the same as the one you’d email me to join the beta.  So start by sending me an email asking about payment options to digitalcoastimage@gmail.com

———————————————-

To join the training with the rest of the beta group now, is $499.

The price for the same training when officially launched will be $750 per student (that’s not a typo).

I’ve already found that the amount of time I spend answering emails and phone calls warrants the tuition to be as such. And it is worth repeating again.  The training is ONGOING.

DXO Optics Pro v6.5

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DXO Optics Pro v6.5 was released today. The HDR  effect they hyped and apparently added to v6.5 is a complete joke. I can’t believe a company so committed to RAW processing would reduce themselves to a gimic filter like single shot HDR and then have the balls to attach “HDR” to it.

Tell me how this is different then their past attempts to clamp highlights and raise shadows! All they did was rename what they have already been providing in their past software!  Unreal.

Until today, Adobe was a sure thing for worst HDR implementation in software.  DXO just took them off their pedestal.  With only a month and change left in 2010 I doubt anyone else can release a more outdated approach to HDR then DXO’s single shot HDR crud (sooooo 2003 approach).  Congrats to DXO on taking over the #1 spot for the HDR  F.U.B.A.R. award, well done.

What an insult to the High Dynamic Range Imaging community.  What a joke. I love how they try to justify this as an effect or look.  For gods sake, its 2010 already.  Get with the program.

Hey DXO, HDR is not a look.. and it’s not an effect.  It’s an imaging pipeline which begins ONLY with bracketing shots.  Until we get sensors that can capture beyond today’s current medium format and DSLR capabilities, there is no such thing as HDR with a single capture.

HIGH

DYNAMIC

RANGE

IMAGING

It’s a friggin’ pipeline, not an effect.

Someone at DXO.com should submit their resignation immediately for this marketing disaster.

Unified Color HDR Express

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Unified Color announced their entry level HDR application today which is HDR Express.  I am covered up creating training for my soon to launch HDR Training for Architectural Photography so I’ll simply link over to where I co-blog at HDRlabs.com for you to find other news Christian has linked up such as his review of Dolby’s Professional Reference Monitor the PRM-4200.

Nik HDR Efex Pro Review

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Nik Software HDR Efex Pro is easily one of the more feature rich HDR options available today. I tested pretty extensively through each beta phase and pre-final release candidates and here are the major pros and cons I’ve experienced thusfar. (Nik’s official download/purchase date is Oct. 11th)

PROS

  • I am obsessed with Nik’s patented U Point® technology to add control points to target very specific areas in an image.  In HDR Efex Pro this means you can dial in exposure to specific points of the image in 32 bit space that can’t be done in other apps.  You can adjust contrast/saturation, etc., (the same sliders which are available for the entire image) as well as adjusting the tonemapping method strength for that precise region of the image you are targeting… this is my number one favorite feature. What used to have to be done with multiple layers in photoshop with multiple tonemapped versions of a scene can now be done in HDR Efex Pro using control points.
  • A large number of TMOs (Tone Mapping Operators) to choose from. Not only do you have a slider that adjusts the strength of the tonemapping operator,  you can chose from different tonemapping operators and each gives you slightly different results with some more aggressive than others to deal with night scenes and others more natural to deal with landscapes, commercial work, etc.
  • Tons of presets to get you started. Categorized and named to give you one click looks as a starting point. And you can create your own presets as well.
  • You can select brackets from LightRoom, Aperture, Photoshop CS3/CS4/CS5 or Bridge to launch into HDR Efex Pro.
  • You can select (from Photoshop interface) to have HDR Efex Pro to be opened as a smart object so on the return back from Tonemapping, it remains in 32 bit space as a layer in Photoshop.  This means it can be relaunched again with the settings just made still intact so you can change them. If you copy that layer and relaunch you can make changes and then upon return from HDR Efex Pro you can choose to compare/contrast the versions in the layers palette and even mask in parts of one to the other.  The options are endless.
  • You can use prior images you had saved to 32 bit formats to open and tonemap in HDR Efex Pro.
  • The image you get in the preview window while tonemapping is what you are going to get when you hit save. Other apps don’t always give you an accurate preview image, but HDR Efex Pro is very precise and the preview window is very accurate.

CONS

  • Highlights turn grey and lose fine detail as you pull down exposure in very high dynamic range scenes. This is mostly a problem for extremely high contrast scenes such as architectural interiors (Highlight rendering was improved from early beta versions, but still needs improvement to be useful for architectural interiors).
  • Lacks a white balance tool to accurately correct for color. It only has a Warmth slider which of course is basically yellow/blue, but lacks magenta/green and cyan/red controls to correct for color casts. This is most relevant if you merge directly to HDR rather than make tweaks first in LightRoom/Aperture and then merge those tiffs to HDR Efex Pro.
  • HDR Efex Pro still has trouble rendering reds even in the v1 release (reds are still over saturating and clipping in some images, but Nik is working on it)
  • Still issues with crashing in 32 bit versions of Photoshop (CS3/CS4) as of release.  Nik is stating official support is for 64 bit applications and that 32 bit support is to be worked on further.  That said, it does work for me in PSCS3 and CS4 with some occasional crashes from time to time.
  • No batch processing. Not a deal killer, but would be a great feature to add in future releases.

I’ll have another review with more example images at some point in the next month or so, but below is a shot of Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas to showcase a few issues I’m bumping into. In other apps I was able to pull down highlights without them going grey as fast as happened using HDR Efex Pro.  I liken this to going “muddy grey” and it attracts attention to the lack of detail in them as well.  Also, the reds are saturating and clipping using HDR Efex Pro on images with more orange/red hues, whereas other apps are not experiencing these issues with the same image. I love the control points, but the fact that HDR Efex Pro isn’t rendering highlights completely clean (yet) when tonemapping high dynamic range scenes makes it difficult to pull windows for architectural interiors.

Click to view 1200 pixel wide version

I’m very pleased when editing landscapes and more artistic scenes with HDR Efex Pro.  Until I find a workaround or until Nik improves the rendering of bright highlights compared to other HDR apps I won’t be using it for architectural interiors.

HDR and Hard Drives

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If you just started bracketing for HDR, you’ve no doubt you are starting to think more about storage and hard drives.  Here’s something that just happened and I’ll share it in case you didn’t know yourself and hopefully save you the pain I just went through.  It’s logical, but I missed the logic myself.

Don’t buy 2 or more identical hard drives (exact same model) from the same company at the same time.  If the company received a batch of bad drives from the manufacturer, then you’ll be buying into that bad batch (this just happened to me). So either buy a variety of drives at once from one wholesaler or buy the same drive from multiple sites.

Lesson learned the hard way for me.  I lost my main OS drive a couple weeks ago.  I quickly ordered two highly rated hard drives from Newegg.com and had them rushed out to me.  I used one as new OS drive and one as new data drive (internal).  Both failed in the first week of use.  Lesson learned.  I should have bought two different drives at once as a bare minimum.

I have been told that most drives will either fail in the first 100 hours or after several years. I had heard various take offs of the early failures, but this is the first time it ever happened to me personally.  Never a new drive, its always been after I beat the heck out of one for years.

Good news is that when I tweeted this mishap, I found out about Macsales.com from a few folks who took the time to email me.  Because I’m both PC and Mac based I had always used Newegg for purchasing computer parts, but I’ll now try OWC out as well.

THE REAL RAW

I’ve ripped through close to 40 hard drives in about 5 years.  All but six drives are still alive and working.  They are mostly retired to USB external enclosure kits I’d put together and house them in for data retrieval once I’ve nearly filled them up as internal drives in either my MacPro or PCs. In the land of HDR, you’ll rip through hard drives.

For me personally, the true raw file is the merged .HDR/.EXR/.PSD(32bit) file.  This may shock some of you, but for all my architectural shoots I destroy the raws about a month after the shoot is delivered.  I usually do the following…

Merge all brackets and save as a 32 bit file.  I lean towards .EXR, but if I did the merging in Photoshop I’ll first save a 32 bit .PSD file and then save as to a .EXR file.  I do all my tonemapping and editing and about a month after the finals are delivered, I delete the RAWs from that shoot and keep only the finals the client got and the .HDR/.EXR/.PSD(32bit).  Those 32 bit files are my “real raws” which I can go back and reprocess again and again.

Sometimes I’ll keep a middle exposure RAW just as a reference file, but not always.  When shooting interiors even the middle exposure is not very worth while as a single raw because you’ll still have deep shadows and blown out highlights in that same file no matter how much you edit it in LightRoom or Aperture.

Now contributing on HDRLabs.com

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I am pleased to announce that I will be contributing over at HDRLabs.com as a co-blogger. Christian Bloch (author of The HDRI Handbook) has invited me into his world of “HDR Nuts” as he calls it. I choose to view us as pixel warriors or digital knights. Regardless of the geeky analogies, the truth is we are all fighting the war on exposure and trying to defeat the same enemy.  It is a challenge for photographers, cinematographers and VFX artists alike.  I’m thrilled to be a part of the site and hope to make a positive impact in the months and years to come.

I do not plan to abandon this blog.  I will likely mirror many of the posts over at HDR Labs here and I’m sure there will be times I want to discuss non-HDR information that might just be basic photography gear or such, and will post those here rather than clutter HDR Labs blog.

Many of you have also expressed interest in some form of training from myself and I have actually been working on a few projects at once so I’ll share what is going to emerge in the weeks and months ahead.

I have just crossed the threshold of having shot roughly 14,000 HDRs that I tonemapped into final JPEG/TIFF formats for commercial delivery for clients (mostly incredibly high dynamic range real estate scenes).  Because of this extensive experience with tackling exposure day to day for going on 5 years now, I have a unique view of HDR from a production pipeline point of view.  I’ve also shot and edited well over 1000 landscapes which were bracketed, merged to HDR and tonemapped, “for fun”.  I’m quite familiar with the dos, don’ts and work arounds relating to HDR Capture and Post Processing.

That said, a few things are in the very early stages of planning for eBooks, Video Training, Workshops and/or One on One Training.  These are the concepts I’m working on:

  1. A beginner’s guide to HDR from my vantage point (from capture to final edit).  I’ll cover the best HDR apps to merge to HDR and tonemap (on both the PC and the Mac).
  2. Advanced techniques for going beyond basic tone mapping and extensively tweaking RAW images as a 1st step BEFORE merging to HDR.  Also, how to utilize layers in 32 bit space in Photoshop “BEFORE” moving on to tonemapping or luminance blending techniques. How to sweeten and further enhance tonemapped TIFFs in Photoshop for perfect color clarity and color balance of mixed lighting and/or final exposure issues.
  3. A workshop specifically aimed at Real Estate and Architectural Photographers (either group workshop or one-on-one training). I won’t be teaching basics or staging. The focus will be about how to either shoot exclusively with only available light in a HDR post production pipeline or how to integrate HDR along with your flash / continuous lighting frames taken to enhance lighting and add a new touch to your work. I will open pandora’s box and show you all the tips and tricks I use from capture through post production.

Oloneo PhotoEngine 64 bit

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Just announced this morning is the second update to Oloneo’s PhotoEngine public beta.  However, this update includes 64 bit support if your system supports 64 bit programs (the download is for both 32 bit and 64 bit systems in one installer).  I was on the 64 bit private beta and it was ROCK SOLID for a beta. Not a single crash despite throwing a few dozen large brackets at it and lots of tonemapping tweaks.

Oloneo reports (and confirmed by users in forums) that it runs well on a dual core Mac using Parallels Desktop 5.

===> DOWNLOAD LINK AND RELEASE NOTES HERE <===

Oh, did I mention yet how FAST this app is?  ;)

HERE’s THE LINK to the review I did when it first released the version 1 beta (in case you missed it).

Unified Color 32 Float

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Unified Color Technologies Announces 32 Float™

New Plug-in Provides Complete 32-Bit Color Editing Functionality To Photoshop Users

32 Float = Full Press Release HERE

So what you say?

So this $99 plugin ($79 intro price) will allow your Photoshop CS3 – CS4 – CS5 to have tremendous HDR capabilities.

If you are happy with your current version of Photoshop and didn’t upgrade to CS5 to get the HDR Pro plug-in, you can now add high end HDR editing to your Photoshop CS3 or CS4.

If you bought Photoshop CS5 and are underwhelmed at the tools in photoshop’s HDR Pro, then you can add more functionality to CS5 with 32 Float from unified color.

I was not given access to an early edition so I can not comment on it or rank it yet.  Once I do get a chance to use it I”ll either update this post or add a new one in the feed.