HDR_Projects_Photo_Handbuch_Translation DE into EN.indd
Contents
1. Revert to restore point Information windows With these three buttons you can open the program information window the window for the EXIF data and the histogram window 2 3 2 Image area toolbar Preview mode here shown as on In preview mode your image will be downsized to 1 megapixel and all calculations are performed with this smaller image size in order to enable you to work in real time without any waiting times no matter how large your original image is Real time calculation mode here shown as on lf real time calculation mode is activated all the changes you make will be immediately calculated into a new final image If this mode is not active and you make changes to your image the button re calculate will be available Re calculate This button triggers the calculation of a new final image with the current settings HDR projects photo Show border pixels The button show border pixels is only available during Tone mapping post processing Yellow or red pixels indicate brighter areas while blue and violet pixels indicate darker areas Note that further editing of these two areas might cause a loss of detail in the image Original resolution view Use the button Original resolution view to set the zoom factor to 100 One pixel on screen will then be equivalent to one pixel in the final image Zoom control With the zoom control you can smoothly regulate the zoom factor between 10 and 1000 in2. HDR projects photo The option cumulative allows you to display a summarised histo gram This may be helpful when you are trying to take a closer look at the brightness control within an image oo HDR histogram N Note By left clicking on the histogram you can transfer it to the image area and watch and analyse it in a higher resolution Interface style Here you can choose from four variants of the whole interface purple dark gold dark grey default setting and light grey Frame colour You can choose from two modes for the frame colour which will be displayed around your image Grey card The grey card is the classic grey value of photography with a fixed brightness value of 18 Automatic ambient colour frame The automatic frame colour mode is a special feature of HDR projects It automatically calculates in real time and displays the optimum frame colour based on your current final image Restore window defaults With this option you can reset the interface configuration to the default settings 12 Program amp interface 2 1 4 The Settings window g Settings Program Program location T Projects Exposure bracketing Single images Final images External programs 2 j External image processing B Photoshop CS6 B Lightroom 4 Photoshop Elements 11 Gamma conversion 3 Gamma value Show HDR gamma in HDR image Language 4 Display language EN English w The program needs to be restart
3. Start by selecting a source directory containing the single images HDR from a single image and or the exposure bracketing These files can also be mixed the automatic exposure bracketing detec tion will sort them for you With the include all subdirectories option you can not only search through the selected folder for images but also through all the subfolders and their respective subfolders This is called recursive file search Note Please take into account that searching through a folder with many subfolders might take some time Therefore it is best not to select C as the folder that you want to start searching through 5 1 1 Allocation Automatic exposure bracketing detec tion The allocation and automatic exposure bracketing detection takes care of sorting through images for you You can choose from several modes Automatic allocation The automatic allocation uploads all images and finds those images that belong to an exposure bracketing In this process the luminance and image congruence are taken into account which ensures a very accurate automatic detection As you can see in our example below HDR projects has correctly identified and allocated the 20 exposure bracketings that have been uploaded Note The separate elements of the exposure bracketing area will be explained in detail in chapter 6 4 Exposure bracketing 20 Activate all exposure bracketing Deactivate all exposure bracketing Remove single images
4. interface 2 1 1 1 The Projects submenu The Projects submenu is a special feature of HDR projects With this feature you can create project files hAdrproject that let you save all the changes that you have performed in one exposure bracketing at any time With this option you can open Open project overwrite Save pro ject and save projects under a different name Save project as Note Projects take up a significant amount of space on your hard drive nevertheless they allow you to quickly load and continue an unfinished project 2 2 2 The Edit menu With the Edit menu you can switch between three different modes Edit exposure bracketing s and Tone mapping post processing F 2 2 3 The View menu With the View menu you can add or remove additional windows change the frame colour for the image area and reset your configura tion of the interface to the default settings Information windows contol In this window you can find context NS sensitive information about your current work area at any time Exif information window cowo E The EXIF information for the cur rently selected image of the exposure bracketing will be displayed If no image has been selected the EXIF information for the master image the centre image will be displayed HDR histogram conto H In the HDR histogram you can individually activate or deactivate the distribution of luminance and the colours red green and blue
5. use the toolbar or the file menu As soon as you have chosen a single image or an exposure bracketing the HDR preparation window will pop up automatic ghosting correction automatic alignment of the image You can find a detailed description of these steps in chapter 3 or in the information section within HDR projects In most cases the de fault settings are sufficient to achieve good results As soon as you confirm the settings by clicking on the arrow Apply settings the importing process and the preparation of the image with your chosen settings will start After import and preparation of the image is complete you will see the dialogue for the HDR parameters HDR projects photo Quick guide Setting up the HDR parameter Tone mapping and Post processing The screen will now be divided into different areas This screen is divided into the following areas Exposure bracketing Default settings Toolbar Toolbar HDR preview Tone mapping preview HDR algorithms Tone mapping and Post processing effects Information on the currently selected area Information on the currently selected area You can now edit single images from the exposure bracketing section Select one of the default settings on the left Preset that fits to the on the left for example by changing the exposure excluding an motif on your image Landscape in our example The default settings image from the HDR creation or editing the global
6. AZ DSC 0142 3 4 7 JPG 6 M 24 41 HDR projects photo Single images The option Single images sorts every image into a single exposure bracketing This mode is especially suited to working with bracketings that were taken during the shooting of a film 2 image to 9 image groups f you have taken HDR films or if you are sure that you only have exposure bracketings with the same number of images in your folder you can select this option The file names of the final images will be created one after the other in order to make it possible for you to use the edited images in a video editing software In our example the image sequence of 402 images has been sorted into 134 exposure bracketings each containing three images Exposure bracketing 134 Activate all exposure bracketing Y seq3_00064 5 2 Results In the area Results you can determine where to save the final images from the batch processing To do so click on the button Target direc tory or enter the target folder directly into the text field 5 2 1 Format You can choose from 8 different formats for the Format of the final images You can pick between jpg and tif two 8 bit LDR formats and three 16 bit HDR formats Jpg images will always be saved in the highest possible quality and TIF files will be saved without compression and with no data loss Furthermore you can select the PNG format and Open EXR Portable Floatmap and Radiance RGBE for further
7. DSC03642jpg A m EE m j a el e 2 7 2 2 4 CA i OSes Y 0Sc03643 jpg Y 0Sc03643 jpa 28 HDR creation Above the actual exposure bracketing you can find default settings for global weight With these default settings you can choose from seven algorithms for an automatic setup of the global weight Equal sets all global weight control panels to the middle position Every image from the exposure bracketing will be treated equally e Luminance sets all global weight control panels to a value that corresponds to the average brightness luminance of the bracke ted image e Congruence sets all global weight control panels to a value that corresponds to the average congruence of the bracketed image in comparison to the master image e Luminance congruence sets all global weight control panels to a value that corresponds to the average brightness of a bracketed image in relation to the average congruence towards the master image Note If you choose the default setting congruence this may result in a slight improvement of ghost images in some exposure bracketings 3 3 The work area of HDR algorithms You can find the HDR algorithms together with the parameter cont rols on the right of the interface An HDR algorithm is a mathematical code that determines the weight see the weight view in the exposure bracketing of the single bra cketed images per pixel Every algorithm affects the final HDR image in a differen
8. editing in web based editors 42 Batch processing 5 2 1 1 Batch processing with re sort mode The re sort mode of the batch processing helps you to sort through your exposure bracketings and images on your hard drive Select a source directory containing unsorted bracketing images and activate the option re sort mode in the Results area Then select a target directory into which the bracketed images from the source directory should be sorted Use this function with care as it will re sort the image files on your hard drive The files will be cut from the source directory and pasted into new folders based on the exposure bracketing they belong to 5 3 Processing settings With the Processing settings you can select the settings for the HDR creation and the tone mapping HDR default settings The HDR default settings offer three to four default settings per HDR algorithm Simply select the default setting you would like to use from the list Tone mapping The tone mapping default setting contains all the de faults from the tone mapping post processing area including your custom made default settings Custom This means you can create a custom setting before batch processing and then use it with several exposure bracketings at once As soon as you have chosen the HDR default settings and the tone mapping all the pictures in the preview will be re calculated which means that you always have a preview of what the results of your l
9. exposure bracketing Warning Only images with an identical resolution can be pasted into an existing exposure bracketing Delete image Removes the picture from the bracketing 5 5 Progress bar The Progress bar informs you of the progress of the exposure bracke ting allocation This can vary depending on the number of allocated pictures If the current process is complete you can find a hint above the progress bar that tells you what step to perform next 5 6 Direct start button The button Start on the bottom right has a special function the direct start If you have set everything up before selecting a source directory you can give the order to start the batch processing before the exposure bracketing is complete HDR projects will automatically start with the batch processing as soon as the allocation of the expo sure bracketings is complete The Start button will be marked as already pressed and the calcu lation starts automatically as soon as the progress of the exposure bracketing allocation reaches 100 5 7 Preview during processing During batch processing you will receive detailed information of all the processing instances You will receive information about the HDR calculation the tone mapping and the saving process for every image in the batch proces sing Additionally the remaining calculation time will be displayed This information is an estimation based on the time needed for those exposure bracketings that
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11. image and indica tes its strength in a percentage A value of 0 leads to no pixels with noise being deleted while a high value will denoise the HDR image strongly The latter automatically leads to an image with less sharpness 30 HDR creation e Smoothing Smoothing influences the weighting matrixes that emerge from the HDR algorithms It indicates the smoothing of images depending on image resolution in a percentage A value of 50 means that the weight matrixes will be smoothed over with an expansion of 50 of the resolution using a Gaussian blur If you take a look at the windows in this example you may notice that the content of the windows will be displayed better with a harder smoothing upper picture HDR smoothing is a very strong tool that you can use to optimise your HDR images Unfortunately finding the best smoothing value cannot be performed automati cally using mathematics because it depends heavily on the user s individual taste Note A smoothing value of 0 no smoothing at all is only viable for the algorithms Entropy and Luminance distance The algorithms further down are only suitable for HDR creation without smoothing in a few special cases 31 HDR projects photo e Night daytime With this option you can adjust the HDR algo rithm to an image taken at night or during the day Due to mathematical reasons this option cannot be used for the Average algorithm Halo adjustment This option dea
12. in greyscale representing the different brightnes ses This preview is calculated in real time as you move a control point Mask curve In our example you can see es a mask curve This curve influences the intensity of an effect here Colour inten sity on the different brightness areas in the image If you drag one of the points towards the bottom the pixels of the corresponding brightness will be less affected by this effect and vice versa You can find a box with default settings on the top right as well In our example we have chosen the default setting Shadows For the colour intensity in our example this means that an increase of 150 will be calculated completely for very dark pixels and pixels with about 30 brightness will only be affected by half and so on The preview in the mask curve shows the effect s intensity from black no effect to white full effect in real time while you modify the curve 39 HDR projects photo 5 Batch processing HDR projects Batch processing allows you to automatically process multiple exposure bracketings You can access this feature via the Extras menu or using the shortcut Control B The Batch processing window is subdivided into the following areas Source file Results Processing settings Exposure bracketing Progress bar JPEG 8 Bit jpq YZ DSC_0158_59 60_JPG eE am I Z DSC_0017_8_9_JPG 40 Batch processing 5 1 Source file
13. A 10 3 3 2 Parameters of HDR algorithms saciescacecedevszcucetsscicoedisl civatonsiasonccuantussustoun wiieacenidalvesassisiastansetal 30 BMA TRS RV E WU A A E E A A AE E A AN EA 10 A Tone mapping pOSt procesSiNg scsssssssscscssscccsessssessssssesscecsersssessseseneeees 32 2 1 1 1 The Projects SUBMENU esisrnssnisrnrresesiiieniisiinesinsieninisisiaiin 11 A1 Default seting serpip ves dances n E E NE E 33 2 1 2 The Edit Men ssessseseseesssesssessecssscessessseosseesssesscessesoseesseessseoseeoseeesstosscosstoseeesstesstosseesseesssesseesseeese 11 4 2 Tone mapping expert MOde ssesessseessseessseessesessseessesesssseoseseossseoseseosseeoseseossseosssesssseosesesssseess 34 212 INe VIEW MENU icerisine iesieta risna ts ai E iE EE A EEA 11 l 4 2 1 Tone mapping algorithms ssseessessssseessesessseesseeessseeosesessseeoseeessseeoseseosseeoseseossseosesesssseosesrosseeess 35 2 1 4 Th Settings WINDOW icccisicacsctsiseanrenieansenmeiaaunomneneswennananeunenamuedives 13 4 2 2 Postprocessing MWET S cancicmadvarmnnnnmeticiamunnonnunnananaaaniabamanodin 35 21 5 The lnfomaton MeN essre a A A 15 4 2 3 Selected effects esssssssssessssssesssssseseesssssseeeessssseereessssseeressssseeeresssssreorssssseeessssseseeossssseressssssrerees 37 PPAR EKADI O o E EEA 15 aa 4 2 3 1 Parametrisation eee ee en eee er earner 38 PETS 0 11 8 fc enter IA T E T EE I A T nr ee errno eee eee werner eee 16 Pon BN la 0 2 oc EE EE Mean tee n
14. HDR projects photo USER MANUAL FRANZIS HDR projects photo Table of contents 1 HDR projects Quick guide i ssasadssissesssastasnsevesoenivistisonaynievviendesvsnssersonbinsserasatenes 4 sa T AIGOTIEMIMS sccsssesssssssssssiasssssascsasccsscnisnsasssncactscetnetssinsssanussuusssssnssesscieseaeasinsasssdassateatnonesti 24 imparting image Toeren a D 4 3 1 5 Automatic Ghosting COrECTION seressereensneeneeneemeetneeneeetetnntnnetneeneennntenenntntette 25 Setting UP the HDR parameter ccscccccsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssesssssssssesssssssssessssssssssesssssssssesesessen 6 3 2 The work area exposure bracketing o sreeseesrnrenremeerneeneeeeernnennetneeeeneenntnntnntnenette 25 Tone mapping and Post processimGpessssssesssssssststuesistsnssisstinssiesistiesiastassissiesie 7 3 2 1 Synthetic eto aute bracketing iMages ss sesssssssesessesesseeesseeesseeesseeesseeesseeroseersseeesseersseeessee 27 Saving the final Mage g 3 2 2 Global weight amp Exposure valUe ssssessssessssesssseessseessseessseessseesssesssseessseessseessseessseesssessssees 28 3 3 The work area of HDR algorithMS s sssssesessseessssseessssesssssceesssesesnsssrosssseerossreenssseeossseessssserssss 29 2 Program amp interface ess essseeessseessssceessseesssseesssecessseeessseesssseeossseesssseeosseerssseeesses 3 3 3 1 An overview of HDR algorithms sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssnnssnessseesssnsessnsessssnsensesensen 30 DO MS ae EAE EE EE
15. atest changes will be like HDR preparation The HDR preparation in Windows opens a menu that lets you set the upload options including the colour space white balance image alignment etc Note When you re working with a Macintosh this dialogue will ap pear before the batch processing window is displayed 43 HDR projects photo 5 4 Exposure bracketing preview The exposure bracketing preview gives you information on the exposure bracketings that have been found At the top of the area you can see the number of exposure bracke tings that have been allocated Underneath you will find three but tons that let you globally switch exposure bracketings on and off Activate all exposure bracketing Activates all allocated exposure bracketings for calculation default setting Deactivate all exposure bracketing Removes all allocated exposure bracketings from the calculation Remove single images Removes all exposure bracketings that consist of a single image You can use this option if the software has miscalculated an exposure bracketing due to a very bright or a very dark image 5 4 1 Allocated exposure bracketings Every exposure bracketing that has been found has a large variety of functions to choose from With the option on the top left you can deselect an exposure bracketing from the calculation or select it again The file name for the target file will be created automatically In our example you can see that the file
16. ce of parametrisation Simply move the 3 slider in order to change the value that influences the effect to the left smaller value or to the right bigger value Alternatively you can enter your desired value directly via the number field above the slider In our example you can see the parameters for the effect Colour balance which consists of three sliders for the balancing Splines The curve parameters are divided into two types gradation curves that have a direct effect on the images brightness and mask curves that define the intensity of an effect on the different bright ness areas within the image Both types of curves can be modified the same way Every curve Spline has six control points These points with the exception of the outermost points can be dragged horizontally and vertically within the frame 38 Tone mapping post processing Gradation curve In our example you Gradation curve can see a gradation curve that directly co L affects the brightness The diagonal line is the standard status of the curve because it creates the original image If you drag one of the points to the bot tom the pixels with the corresponding brightness will become darker and vice versa In addition you can find a box with default settings for the curve on the top right In our example we have used the default setting overexposed In the background you can see a preview of what the gradation curve will do displayed
17. e full capacity of your graphics card which makes it an effective tool for the creation of HDR images 2 1 Interface HDR projects uses an interface that follows the modern guidelines of an ergonomic user guide and contains detailed tooltips for every button In order to trigger an operation simply left click on the corresponding button Many buttons have context menus that you can access by right clicking on the button Of course you can access many essential functions with hotkeys For example simply press F5 in order to switch to the HDR area and press F7 to go to the tone mapping dialogue 2 1 1 The File menu With the File menu you can open and save HDR images and projects The menu is subdivided into Start With Start you can go back to an empty work screen like the one that appears when you start the software You will be asked if you want to save the current project before it gets deleted from the software s memory Importing images With HDR from a single image you can import a single image By selecting Import exposure bracketing you can import more than one image of a single bracketing The option Expo sure bracketing browser performs an automatic search for images that belong to the same bracketing Save final image Here you can save the current image as your final image any time Projects This option takes you to a submenu that will be explained in detail in the following chapter 10 Program amp
18. e methods have never been used in comparable softwares before 3 1 HDR preparation At HDR preparation you can set the steps for the transformation of your imported images These steps will be calculated after the loading process The transformation steps in detail are Colour space conversion e White balance e Colour noise suppression e Automatic alignment e Automatic ghosting correction Click on the arrow Apply settings on the bottom right of the screen to apply those settings 21 HDR projects photo 3 1 1 Colour space conversion HDR projects lets you choose from nine colour spaces especially for camera raw images The default setting is the Adobe RGB colour space which was defined by Adobe Systems in 1998 Many programs like Photoshop or Lightroom use this colour space If you are not sure which colour space to use just use the Adobe RGB colour space or alternatively the standard RGB colour space 3 1 2 White balance With White balance you can correct colour fog which can be caused by taking a photograph in special environments such as in a room with coloured lighting or outside during the blue hour twilight The balance colour is given as colour temperature in Kelvin usually between 1000 K and16500 K Choose your preferred balance from the default settings or use the colour temperature control underneath the default settings 3 1 3 Colour noise suppression HDR projects provides you with the options
19. ed to take effect Preview mode 5 Preview display 1 00 Megapixels as 6 s Cancel Program location Here you can set the standard locations for importing and ex porting data Projects The default path for project files hdrproject Exposure bracketing The default path for exposure bracketing files Single images The default path for single images HDR from a sin gle image Final images The default path for your final images You don t have to set these default paths but if you do it will simplify the loading saving of your images 13 HDR projects photo External Programs HDR projects can send final images directly to other applications Here you can enter the file exe of the application that you would like to export final images to Gamma conversion Here you can set the gamma value for the development of images for all floating point file formats which are HDR images in the formats hdr and exr Language Here you can set the interface language to German or French You need to restart HDR projects for the language change to take effect Preview mode All calculations in preview mode are performed with a reduced image size in order to speed up the processing You can select a resolution in megapixels on the right or you can choose one of the two default settings optimal or quick The former fits the size of the preview to the display area while the latter uses half of the display area and is primari
20. ese eon ere ecto 16 5 Batch Processing ssssssssscsssssssssssccsssssssssssssssessssssssssssessessssssssessssssssesseasssseesees 40 E Image area TOODET ianiai aiia i By US MEn es cass gaps cenemnn soa crstane E E EEE 41 E E E E rear SD 5 1 1 Allocation Automatic exposure bracketing detection ssesessssessssessssessssessssessssessssees 41 PRAAL EEE TOA EAE NE A VAA aa S A I asec ponies E T A OA ne A A A EN 20 se iioditinathe mieti m 5 2 RESUIES siiani eiaeiiai oaea a aiii aaea eiia ia iaaa adi 42 JO MOQIYING NE TINTON TAC cscisssicssicsiicescnsadasionosctaneen snes cespsaa snensenscexsnaucaplanoneasncanbncseasncatsieneaveretsaceneuaeatactss BPS cence seas ccc sate cites cecenotigrateesnscecloensesblsase cass ttenscetenetecncstuestesn ses uisinpes 42 Oe AOR Crea Oene eiar Ne er Oe ee 21 5 2 1 1 Batch processing with re sort MOE sssssssssssssesssseseeeaseeeusetonsorassetansttassttanstensstensstansstasss 43 3 1 HDR preparation ccccccsssssscsssssssesssssssssessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssesssssssssesssssssssessssssssuessessen 21 3 3 PFOCESSING SETEINGS ssrvssessccsssssesessensnssseossssnsscsesssonssosesssessssosscsssnssesscstonssessestonssesestennsessssenunsseeett 43 3 1 1 Colour space COPIOUS O N 22 5 4 Exposure bracketing preview E L a E E T 44 3 1 2 White balance ceccccccccccccccccccccceccccecccceccececcccececcececceseccesesbesesbesesbesesbasesbebesbusesbeesbesesbuseseesesceseseeceeeseses 22 5 4 1 Allocated exposure Drac
21. final HDR image Dark pixels indicate that this area will have a lesser influence on the final HDR image 26 HDR creation The weight matrix helps you to determine how strongly the HDR result will be influenced by a certain area of an image from the expo sure bracketing By clicking on the minus button below the weighting colour the cor responding image will be deleted from the exposure bracketing 3 2 1 Synthetic exposure bracketing images Synthetic exposure bracketing images are a special feature of HDR projects You can use these images in order to fill up gaps in the ex posure bracketing This method can be used among other things to create HDR from a single image Whenever you upload a single image two synthetic images will be automatically added with one of them having a shorter exposure and the other having a longer exposu re When you upload a bracketing with two images one additional synthetic image will be added This way you will always have at least three images in every exposure bracketing at your disposal With the button synthetic you can transform a real Y vsc_0147 3G image into a synthetic one At the bottom of the work area exposure bracketing you can find the a button called add synthetic image With this button you can add another synthetic image to your bracketing The image with the designation Master image will always be used as your output image Note Synthetic images can also be used t
22. g the software you can find the main toolbar at the top left of the screen but you can drag it to another location if you like If you have imported an exposure bracketing the toolbar looks as follows Edit View Extras Information Tf Boa B Oo Start Closes the current project after asking if you would like to save it and returns you to an empty start page Save project Saves the project under the current name If you have not given a name to the current project the function Save project as will be used instead Editing modes The button with the three images and the wheel lets you switch between HDR and Edit exposure bracketing at any time Detailed information on this mode can be found in chapter 5 Clicking on the colour palette button will start the tone mapping and post processing mode Save final image This button opens the window where you can save the current image If you are currently in the HDR area the HDR image will be saved If you are in tone mapping post processing mode the 16 Program amp interface image that has been treated with tone mapping will be saved Open final image in external program Starts the external software stated in the program settings and uploads the current final image into this software Create restore point With this you can create a restore point for the current state of your work before you make significant changes to the settings calculation values
23. hree filters will be automatically applied to the HDR image one after the other and will result in a final tone mapping image In order to temporarily deactivate an effect simply click on the check box in front of the effect name Double clicking on an effect will remove it from the list In the list of effects you have selected you also have a context menu with numerous options In order to rearrange the order in which the effects appear in the list you can simply drag amp drop them within the list Note The sequence in which the effects appear in the list can have a major influence on the resulting image 37 HDR projects photo The image on the left has significantly less detail inside the archway If you use the Brightness Contrast Gamma effect first on the image you will darken the areas that are already dark and cause brightness breaks the following tone mapping cannot compensate for this Compare with the image on the right where a tone mapping has been conducted beforehand The details in the archway are a lot more visible 4 2 3 1 Parametrisation You can change the parameters of single effects in the panel below the list of your selected effects The parameters of your currently selected effect will be displayed here There are different types of parameters Sliders Splines Colours amp Pipette Positions and Lines Some effects may have up to eight parameters Sliders Sliders are the simplest form Colour balan
24. ightness balance tempera Greyscale conversion ture Gradation curves e Rotation and zoom Blurring e Lights and shadows You can add an effect by double clicking on it or via the context menu right click Add effect Adds the effect to the list of filters Show all effect groups Shows all six effect groups Now you can see all the available effects All effect groups off Hides all of the six effect groups Filter enhancers on off De Activates filter enhancers Geometry effects on off De Activates geometry effects Exposure effects on off De Activates exposure effects Colour effects on off De Activates colour effects Blurring effects on off De Activates blurring effects Artistic effects on off De Activates artistic effects Display panorama effects only Shows only panorama effects 36 Tone mapping post processing 4 2 3 Selected effects gt gt Expert mode standard lt lt The list of the effects that you have Tone mapping 5 selected is the core of the tone mapping and post processing area B yon barwn selected 3 3 Here you can manage all of the post GY Gradient tone mappinc processing and the parameters for eisean a act every single effect Post processing filter 52 52 Y Automatic black white point In our example we have an effect chain of three different filters Average exponent tone mapping median noise suppression and automatic black white point These t
25. ketiNgdS csssscssssssssscsssscsssscsssecsssscsssecsssscessecsssecssscsssecsssecassecssencess 44 3 1 3 Colour noise suppression OE EE EAE ENIAN TEER ENEE EOE AAEE E ANEA AEN E 22 5 5 Progress oTe I EA E EE S E AEA 46 3 14 Automate a ANAM anessen a ii 22 2 0 Direct Start DUTON ssa R A 46 3 141 Shiftand automatic cropp iNe 23 3 7 PFEVIEW during PFOCESSIG sessissascsussssasceassesicassonssesssadenstustsessntstasulaslussbissiesidecsciisssbscaseansesinationiiti 46 3 1 4 2 Turns shearings movement ssessssessssessssesssseessseessseessseessseessseessseessseossseessseessseessseesssessssees 23 HDR projects photo Quick guide 1 HDR projects Quick guide In order to quickly achieve good results the following four basic steps are all that you need to know Importing images Setting up the HDR parameter Tone mapping post processing Saving the final image If you want to learn more about the possible settings of HDR projects please skip to chapter 2 There you will also find some tips amp tricks that will help you to improve your final image Importing images Here you have the following editing steps for the HDR preparation e choose a colour space In order to import a single image HDR from a single image an expo sure bracketing multiple images or a project file hdrproject simply white balance drag and drop them into the program window You can alternatively e the degree of colour noise suppression
26. ls with a typical problem of HDR creation you can see visible halos appear at the transition to the sky The image on the right has a halo adjustment of 85 which lets all halo effects disappear Due to mathematical reasons this option cannot be used for the Average and Entropy algorithms 4 Tone mapping post processing After having created and adjusted your HDR image the next step is the tone mapping that you saw during HDR preparation local tonal value compression combined with the post processing of the image HDR projects offers you different algorithms in the tone mapping section and a variety of post processing effects including different default settings 32 Tone mapping post processing 4 1 Default settings With the default settings you can achieve a nice result with a single click of the mouse The default settings are separated into eight ca tegories six of them being theme based from Landscape to Artistic plus the two options Custom and All After you have decided which category to use choose one of the default settings by simply clicking on the corresponding preview image These previews are miniatures of the HDR image and are being calculated in real time which means that you get a first impression of the effect from the tone mapping on the final picture while you are browsing through them natural standard Natural standard Very natural image without too many effects Only an expert can
27. ly used for the real time animation mode in the post processing module O Restore settings to standard values Left clicking this button will reset all options in this window to the default settings 14 Program amp interface 2 1 5 The Information menu In the Information menu you can directly access the HDR projects homepage which will be loaded onto your standard web browser The option Help will open via the external PDF viewer used on your system By clicking on Go to updates page you will directly enable HDR projects update service where you can download a new up dated version of HDR projects Further information on HDR projects including the current version the credits and the external licences can be found under the menu About HDR projects 2 2 Drag amp Drop HDR projects extensive Drag amp Drop support enables you to drag files to the software interface and just drop them by releasing the mouse button Drag amp Drop is context sensitive and can decide automatically which function to use depending on the imported file If you drag and drop three image files from one exposure bracketing as in our example HDR projects will automati cally start the image bracketing view HDR projects photo 2 3 Toolbars HDR projects has two toolbars that show the available options depending on the context Options that you cannot use will conse quently be omitted for clarity 2 3 1 Main toolbar After startin
28. name is DSC_2704_05_06_07_08_09_10_11_NEF This means that the first image was called DSC_2704 the file format is NEF PA RARREAEREE Move the cursor over a miniature preview in order to take a look at a bigger preview of the image 44 Batch processing For the bracketed pictures on the left this is a larger preview of the corresponding exposure bracketing image For the HDR tone map ping preview on the right you will receive a bigger preview of your final image Note All the previews will be recalculated immediately if you make any changes You can experiment with the HDR settings and the tone mapping settings and immediately see the effect in the preview Furthermore you can right click on an exposure bracketing or a bra cketed image in order to bring up a context menu with the following options Open as project Opens this bracketing ETET as a project in HDR projects You can use rarr the batch processing as a browser for your T exposure bracketings as well 0035_36_39 _36_ te De Activate exposure bracketing S De activates this exposure bracketing for batch processing aa Paste image DSC_2356_N Delete exposure bracketing Deletes this bracketing from batch processing Move image to new series Moves the selected image to a new exposure bracketing Cut image Removes an image and saves it in the clipboard 45 HDR projects photo Paste image Pastes the image from the clipboard into the
29. o edit certain exposure areas in a motif 27 HDR projects photo 3 2 2 Global weight amp Exposure value Every exposure bracketing image has two control panels irrespective of whether it is an original image or a synthetic one With these two control panels global weight and exposure value EV you can influence the outcome of the HDR creation enormously The example on the left shows an exposure bracketing directly after uploading it The control panels for global weight and for exposure value are both set to the middle The example in the middle shows the first bracketed image DSC03641 jpg with a higher global value This image now has a stronger influence on your final HDR image which is indicated by the brighter look of the global weight view Your final HDR image will be a little bit darker as a result because the image with the shorter expo sure has a stronger influence during the HDR fusion The example on the right shows a higher exposure for the image in the middle which is also the master image DSC03642 jpg This influences the final HDR image twofold this bracketed image is now brighter which means that you are changing the uploaded exposure bracketing in the memory Furthermore the weight of the image per pixel changes because it is now a modified exposure bracketing image Y DSC0364Ljpg u M R H YH DSC03641 jpg A DSc03641 jpg u M u M e j s 8 Y 0SC03642 jpg a lt Eel Y DSC03642jpg Y
30. orrection you can treat moving ob jects within an exposure bracketing when these objects have tra velled a certain distance within the bracketing On the left you can see a typical situation that leads to ghost images an exposure bracketing containing three images that shows a busy street The cars in the lower third of the image were moving while the bracketing was being taken Therefore you can see a row of semi transparent vehicles On the right you can see the corrected version the ghost images of the vehicles have disappeared 3 2 The work area exposure bracketing As soon as you have uploaded an exposure bracketing in HDR pro jects you will see the HDR creation area which consists of the work areas for exposure bracketings on the left of the screen and the HDR algorithms on the right You can see your HDR image in the centre of the screen 25 HDR projects photo With the uppermost check box you can exclude an image from the exposure bracketing or include it again Underneath you can find the miniature view of the exposure bracke ting image If you want to see it in full size simply left click on it Left click again if you want to switch the view back to the final HDR image On the right of the colour view you can see the weight matrix for the exposure bracketing This greyscale image can be interpreted as follows Bright pixels indicate that this area will have a heavy influence on the
31. real time As interpolation would work exactly on the scale of single pixel areas this feature was not included here Monitor size With this button you can set the zoom to monitor size and display the whole image at as high a zoom as possible Additional functions This button opens a section of the toolbar with the additional functions Horizontal mirroring Vertical mirroring 90 degree rotation anti clockwise 90 degree rotation clockwise 18 Program amp interface 2 4 Image area The image area is the centre area in HDR projects and has an additio nal status bar To zoom in and out on the image simply use your mouse wheel or the multi touch mouse of your Macintosh To change the displayed area of an image simply click in the image hold down the mouse button and drag your cursor over the image If you have zoomed in this will open a small window with an over view of your image that will help you to keep track of where you are inside your motif The status bar on the bottom part of the screen shows you some ba sic data on the motif such as the resolution the number of megapi xels the ISO value of your images the current cursor position and the pixel colour at the current cursor position ISO 100 NIKON D80 HDR projects photo 2 5 Progress bar The progess bar shows you what is currently being calculated and the progress of the calculation If an error occurs during calculation the info par
32. s you choose from different algorithms that can each be used on its own or combined In order to add a tone mapping to your list of selected filters simply double click on it Alternatively you can right click on it to open a context menu Gradient tone mapping This is a method with strong effects that is suitable for motifs with weak colours and high contrasts Average tone mapping This is a very stable method and can be used for almost any motif Sigmoid tone mapping Sigmoid tone mapping is a very special method that has been optimised for motifs with strong highlighted areas 4 2 2 Post processing filters This list contains 52 different filters for post processing They are subdi vided into six categories Median noise suppression Min max nose suppression Sharpening levels Depending on the category the fil Smooth sky ters are highlighted with a different irbag di colour Lens correction Rotation and zoom e Yellow Edge effects fester ere Adjust light shadow Green Geometry effects Effects yo re selected 3 3 e Cyan Exposure effects Effects you have selected 3 3 Blue Colour effects e Violet Scrim diffuser effects Pink Artistic effects 35 HDR projects photo In this list you can find all the classic post processing effects of the HDR area such as e Detail strengthener Correction of chromatic aberra e Denoise and sharpness filter tong Colour adaptation by tone br
33. see at first glance that this is an HRD image natural highlight details Natural highlight details This image resembles a painting by applying local dodging and sharpening 33 HDR projects photo Additionally to the theme based default settings there are two more categories Custom and All Your custom made default settings will be saved under Custom while All will let you combine all available default settings The default settings have diverging functions that you can find on the right of the respective preview image 4 2 Tone mapping expert mode You can find the expert mode panel for tone mapping and post processing on the right of the screen With this you can configure the whole image editing test new effect combinations or edit default settings according to your wishes There are four different lists in this panel Tone mapping algorithms Post processing filters Effects you have selected Parameters of your selected effects Tone mapping algorithms and post processing filters are filters that you can opt for and the selected filters are those which are represented in the current calculation The way these filters work and how to transfer the filters into the list of selected filters will be explained in the following chapters 34 Tone mapping post processing 4 2 1 Tone mapping algorithms Tone mapping algorithms are purely there for enhancing the quality of the image HDR projects let
34. t of the progress bar will display the various steps of the calculation with different colours green This step has been successfully completed e yellow This step resulted in a warning red This step caused an issue 2 6 Modifying the interface You can modify the HDR projects interface according to your pre ferences This means that you can drag any work area toolbar or information window to any given place on the screen or even ona second screen In order to unlock an area from the interface disconnecting dou ble click on the respective title bar or just drag the area out of the interface by holding down the mouse button while pointing at the title bar You can attach the window back to the main interface in the same way Double clicking on the title bar will move the area back to its original position in the main interface You can also move the area to a new position within the interface if you prefer 20 HDR creation 3 HDR creation HDR creation is the basis for a good final image from an exposure bracketing or for the function HDR from single image HDR projects uses the following basic steps for this e HDR preparation chapter 3 1 e Optimising the exposure bracketing chapter 3 2 e Choosing an appropriate HDR algorithm chapter 3 3 The possibility to optimise the exposure bracketing and the ability to choose and change the parameters for different HDR algorithms are probably new to you since thes
35. t way and has depending on the motif its strengths and weaknesses 29 HDR projects photo 3 3 1 An overview of HDR algorithms e Average The average is the simplest form of HDR creation and creates an average from all of the exposure bracketed images Entropy Entropy in information theory is a degree of measure ment for information density If you use this for HDR creation you have an algorithm that measures the information density of the exposure bracketing images per pixel and calculates from those the weight for the HDR creation This is a very stable method which is also set as the default algorithm for HDR projects e Luminance distance Luminance distance uses the average brightness distances in an image as a method of weighting an image for HDR creation This method is also universally useful so it can be applied to almost any exposure bracketing Colourmix The colourmix method uses the colouring of the pi xels as a unit for measuring the weight of an image It is especially useful for bracketings that only have a slight brightness difference in certain areas of the images such as images containing fog smoke or clouds e Luminance entropy Luminance entropy is a combined method using both luminance distance and entropy 3 3 2 Parameters of HDR algorithms Underneath the list of HDR algorithms you can see up to four control bars for fine tuning the parameters Denoising Denoising directly affects the HDR
36. to Denoise darker images more strongly When you take an exposure bracketing the images taken with less exposure time the darker pictures have a higher colour noise than the brighter ones If this is the case for your motif choose to denoise the darker images more 3 1 4 Automatic alignment You can use the automatic image alignment to correct shifts turns shearings and movement that happened when you were taking an exposure bracketing These image faults are often caused by taking exposure bracketings unaided 22 HDR creation 3 1 4 1 Shift and automatic cropping The most common error in exposure bracketings is the camera shake Note Automatic alignment of your exposure bracketing requires a lot of calculation time during import If you are sure that your exposure bracketing is not blurred you can deactivate this option in order to improve upload times Automatic cropping is part of the alignment when it comes to moving images This option erases empty areas at the edges of your images that usually appear when you have to shift align an exposure bracketing 3 1 4 2 Turns shearings movement Another variant of a fault in an exposure bracketing is the twisting of the camera while taking a photograph or moving objects For the latter you have to figure out if the error is due to a ghost image or if it is a flaw that can be corrected with an image alignment As a rule of thumb see the following e A flaw occurs if yo
37. u have an object that moves within itself such as a flame or objects that move with the wind e Ghost images are objects that move a certain distance within the time it takes to take one exposure bracketing for example a person or a vehicle Let s come to one of the great obstacles in automatic image align ment the moving flame of a candle in an exposure bracketing contai ning 10 images On the right you can see the candle flame that has been aligned with HDR projects Compare with the unaligned original on the left 23 HDR projects photo The result is already pretty good but it can be made even better with genetic algorithms that are further explained in the following chapters 3 1 4 3 Genetic algorithms Genetic algorithms are a specially developed iterative method to optimise the alignment of exposure bracketings HDR projects is the first software to use this method The genetic algorithm can be added to other alignment measures which means that in order for the genetic algorithms to have an effect you must activate one of the basic methods first Let s have another look at the candle flame 24 HDR creation On the left you can see the exposure bracketing with standard alignment measures being used On the right you can see the same exposure bracketing after genetic algorithms have been applied the result is a very still and calm flame 3 1 5 Automatic ghosting correction With the automatic ghosting c
38. w mode Do yo it to calculate this image in full size before saving it Confirm by clicking Yes in order to calculate your image in its highest resolution and to save it Congratulations You have just created your first impressive HDR image with HDR projects 2 Program amp interface Program amp interface HDR projects is available in three different versions Mac OS 64 bit Windows 32 bit Windows 64 bit Generally there are no restrictions towards importable picture sizes but with the 32 bit version for Windows you will experience a limited maximum size of 22 megapixels per single image in an exposure bracketing This is due to the operating system s limitations Exposure bracketings can consist of up to 9 single images All known camera raw image file formats and almost all image for mats are supported by the software Camera RAW formats Canon RAW crw cr2 Fuji RAW raw Hasselblad fff 3f Leica RAW dng Kodak RAW kelc dcr Minolta RAW mrw Nikon RAW nef nrw nrf Panasonic RAW rw2 raw rwl Pentax RAW pef RAW x3f Sony RAW sr2 srf arw Olympus RAW o1f Image formats bmp dds OXI gif hdr ico iff lbm jng Jpeg jfit jpg2000 Koala Kodak PhotoCD ped pcx pict pet png Taw Sun sgi targa tga tif tiff HDR projects photo All calculation areas support multithreading with up to 32 CPU cores In addition HDR projects uses th
39. weight a single included in HDR projects are now displayed and you can choose one picture has to the final result by left clicking on it powerful colours in our example You can see The special characteristic of synthetic exposure bracketing in HDR all the effects used in this default setting in the expert mode bar on projects is explained in detail in chapter 3 2 1 the right where all the selected filters are displayed You can configu re the list of effects as you wish by adding removing or re sorting ef fects If you want to adjust an effect s parameters click on the effect The parameters are now displayed underneath the lists of effects With the HDR algorithms on the right you can fine tune the creation of the HDR image to your motif For this purpose you have eleven HDR algorithms at your disposal which all have different parameters see chapter 3 3 1 When you have chosen the desired setup for the HDR area click on the palette symbol in the toolbar to proceed to the tone mapping and post processing HDR projects photo Saving the final image You can now save the final image by left clicking on the disk symbol Save final image in the upper toolbar Choose a file path and a format tif tiff jog exr or hdr for the final image and enter a file name If you have performed all of these steps without coming across the software s preview mode the following question will be displayed You are currently in previe
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