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1. Loading of images in editor view Separation Creative DOF 1 Use the Open toolbar button to add images to the active project 2 Drag amp Drop image to the image layer browser of one of the Alignment modules like Tripod 3 Drag amp Drop image to the image layer browser of one of the HDRI creation modules like Average etc 29 Chapter 6 Aligning images 1 Problem Merging several images into an HDR image works satisfyingly only 1f the source images are exactly aligned Chapter Preface HDR photography explains how to prepare an exposure series using a tripod But even 1f you follow the advice closely you may find that sometimes your images are not perfectly aligned 2 Module Tripod While avoiding misalignemts by careful shooting is the best strategy for getting perfect results minor misalignemts from horizontal and vertical shifts can be corrected satisfyingly using automated alignment algorithm Tripod Use this method for photos taken with the camera mounted to a tripod This method is not suited for alignment of hand held images Tripod method dialog Start image alignment by pressing the Align button Generally Tripod works quite reliable yielding very good results However scenes with moving objects covering large areas of the scene can be problematic often requiring manual intervention The figure to the left shows an exposure series that shows severe horizontal and vertical shifts The scene has moving object
2. Thumbnails may be moved among projects via drag amp drop This is necessary to correct wrong allocations that may evtl result from creating projects via the Many button 4 Overview project management FDRTools start in a project managment view Here projects can be created edited rendered and deleted again The buttons of the toolbar allow the following actions fm FDRTools Advanced il 2 gt EDRTools Projects Images Windows Help pm Edit A Render a Overview project management e Projects Allows to configure project management preferences e One Creates a single project The file choosing dialog opens up Upon finishing file selection a project is created e Many Creates projects by grouping related images from a selection of images Images may be grouped by number or by their difference in creation time e Prepare Preparing of marked projects This is a batch process preparing all marked projects in one go Note currently the process can be started but not paused Depending on the number of projects running time can be quite long The Include in next run flag of finished projects is cleared 23 Project management e Render Rendering of marked projects This is a batch process rendering all marked projects in one go Rendering means HDR image and tone mapped LDR image are calculated in full size and saved in the Section 5 1 Note currently the process can be started but n
3. appear or not If you encounter halos in a tone mapped image you can remove them by adjusting the Frequency components of the Contrast parameter If you encounter spots in a tone mapped image you can remove them by lowering the Compression parameter value Look at the following image comparison The first image shows the Simplex result The second image shows the result of using the Compressor default settings You can here perceive slight halos along the pylons and moreover dark looking spots inside the pylons The third image results from properly adjusting the Compressor parameters 44 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing Compressor halos and spots image by courtesy of Alessandro de Simone How to adjust the Compressor parameters in general lower the Compression value until the spots disappear but keep it as high as possible in order to achieve good details and contrast Adjust the Contrast gt Frequency curve as shown below to access the Contrast gt Frequency option click the arrow button left to the Contrast slider Set the Curve point linkage option to Line The intention is to lower the impact of frequency components that are responsible for the halos 45 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing Tonemapping 20 8 Compression w 2 0 0 Contrast Lu minance Curve point linkage gt Spline Line The relevant Compressor parameters 3 Example Night Shot The following example clarifies the characteri
4. checks 1f the expected image files are there If so the now corrected path 1s removed from the list Moreover all paths which have E Bilder HDRI Szabo as part of their path and can be recovered by replacing it with D Bilder Szabo are also removed from the list So in the example in fact all the missing paths are recovered by replacing E Bilder HDRI Szabo with D Bilder Szabo You can close the dialog at any time via the OK button If you have not recovered all missing paths the affected projects will be visible in the project browser yet they will be deactivated and thus be unusable You may then delete the unusable projects or recover them the next time you start FDRTools 26 Part Il Processing a single project Table of Contents ADAMS MATOS ee ei erinnerte 29 bergen Al Sita AO 29 2 EO adi 11 Project A esta A O des 29 5 Loadine 11 SO MOT VIEW E een 29 6 Allen ne mare nee ie ae ur a a a unteren ee 30 Hs NE MOND Tt sof alicell 30 A A ss 30 Te Ved HDR Massello 31 Pic UN EL a LEN a Dole as a nee art adi 31 2 HDR ne hold Average et aloe 31 Io o AAA O A lan 32 4 HDR method LEAVE A AAA A A ASA 35 9 bone Mappins and Postprocessng alos toi nee o atte ae 38 Tone MPPD ai caia 38 115 Globalvand Tocalamethiods ataca isis 38 1 2 Natural and creativo Tone Mappa ua 38 1 3 Tone Mapping and panorama photography Li 38 2 Fone Mapping in EDR Torla die iii 39 noi AAA A ita 39 22 IM
5. 2 Triangle 2 Min Lumi 31720 44 20 44 Max Lumi 20 Dynamic Range FR nauce e Include were rel EV MM Include WB Ref ei 8 9 rel EV Third part the final noise free HDR image The figure to the left shows the third part the final HDR image consisting of the HDR images from the two previous projects The HDR image is nois free and is tone mapped 3 2 Tone Mapping The following figures show the results achieved with the different tone mappers applied to the HDR image The first figure shows the overview the second figure a detail of the scene In order to make the results of the algorithms comparable the intensity of the brightest feature in the scene an illuminated cage is adjusted so that the intensity is about the same for all tone mappers Note that the intention of this example is not to produce the best looking result but to show the differences between the tone mappers 50 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing Overview 51 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing Detail While the Simplex result is noise free and does not show overexposed pixels it is rather dark and shows poor contrast It is not easy to discern fine detail Receptor creates a brighter image The reason for this is a stronger compression of the highlights and linked to it a spreading of dark and medium tonal values As a consequence the contrast in the highlights decreases the reflection of the ill
6. Chapter 12 Preferences 1 Preliminary note Preferences allow you to influence several functions of the program and to configure them according to your wishes All parameters have reasonable default values hence a configuration is not a must 2 Devices FDRTools processes images from differing devices sources Here you can configure the characteristics that matter in the context of merging images Add Delete Parameter Set A Parameter Set comprises the settings for input device output device and display device in one set The important cases are covered by presets like Generic JPEG This guarantees that everything works even without the definition of custom Parameter Sets Creation of a new parameter set 1s recommended if e a device shall be used whose characteristics like color space are not embedded in the image files produced by the device e adevice shall be measured e g TRC The user chooses the right Parameter Set in the file chooser when loading images Instead of the usual data formats like JPEG TIFF etc you will find the configured Parameter Sets like Generic JPEG Generic TIFF etc Note Use of self defined Parameter Sets 1s deactivated by default You can avtivate the switch Show custom Input Devices in Open Image s dialog in the Gui settings dialog in order to use self defined Parameter Sets 3 Input device Preferences SS File Formats Raw Conversion Directories Gui Settings Add Delete Generic D
7. achieve sophisticated mappings Add a knot via left mouse click Remove a knot by dragging the knot outside the borders of the control The default setting for the curve does the following the left knot maps the darkest pixel of the tone mapped image to 8 while the right knot maps the brightest pixel to 0 The output values are a measure of the output dynamic range and are in log base 2 units or EV or f stops In effect this means that the white point with value O has 256 times the luminance of the black point with value 8 The tone mapped histogram is displayed behind the curve It is obtained from the luminance channel of the tone mapped image The histogram is a visual aid for adjusting black point and white 40 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing point Note the left axis scaling is a measure of the number of entries per histogram bin It is of informational value only Switch Left axis scaling The scaling of the left hand axis can be changed from linear to logarithmic This alleviates the perception of the histogram tails Switch Curve point linkage The curve knots may be linked via splines smooth curve or via lines Slider Saturation Is used to adjust the color saturation 2 3 TM method Receptor Receptor mapping works by logarithmising the HDR image The strength of the compression depends on the intensity of a pixel Highlights are compressed more than shadows Z Kirchberg TM FDRTools Advanced Fe esa FORTools Project
8. button switches from Preview to Navigator mode Slider Zoom Scaling Sets the zoom level of the displayed image detail The zoom level may alternatively be controlled via the mousewheel 58 Navigator and Preview Output fields X and Y Displays the current mouse coordinates Output fields R G and B Displays the RGB values of the pixel at the current mouse coordinates 100 X 1600 Y 971 R 24101 84 G 5789 95 B 2588 85 Preview 59 Chapter 11 Tools 1 White Balance Tool Click the button with the pipette icon to toggle the White Balance tool Move the cursor over the image area Clicking the pipette in the image area of Navigator or Preview measures the color value of this spot The white balance correction then adjusts red and blue channels so that the spot is neutral grey which means that the color channels red green and blue have the same value Option Button Sample Size The area of the measured spot is variable It can be a single pixel or a quadrat of sizes 3 or 5 respectively Option Button White Balance Custom indicates that white balance has been adjusted As Shot resets the red and blue channels to their defaults Sliders Red Blue Balance As an alternative to the pipette you can use sliders to manually adjust the red and blue channel correction values sample Size Point Sample White Balance As Shot Red Bal ance 0 00 Blu a Bal ance 10 00 Tools window 60
9. consists of four steps 1 Creation of projects 2 Optional Automated preparation of all the projects for interactive processing 3 Interactive processing of the single projects 4 Automated rendering of all the projects to create the HDR and tone mapped LDR images Motivation the complete processing of an exposure series consisting of several RAW images is rather time consuming loading the images interactive evaluation of the HDR and tone mapping settings and especially the rendering of the results take some time In order to minimise waiting times for the user 1t makes sense to separate automatable working steps from interactive working steps This separation is supported by FDRTools project manager when adopting the recommended workflow 3 Elements of a project A project comprises the images of an exposure series and the accompanying parameter settings from the project editor into one unit You can create single projects or several projects in one go see Section 4 Projects can be named and show thumbnail images Projects have a name When a project is created its name is derived from the project images This automatically created name may be changed at any time A project shows thumbnails of the project images and has several buttons e House Carstanjen 7 Elements of a project The buttons have the following functions e RAW images are developed and saved in a compressed format e Thumbnails are if available
10. image can be accomplished with several differently exposed images This way all areas of a scene are present optimally exposed though in different images The only thing one needs to do now is to combine these photos to a single image in a way that lets overexposure and noise disappear Such an image is named HDRI High Dynamic Range Image An HDRI comprises all information contained in the images of an exposure series Normal output devices like monitor or printer can not reproduce the information content of an HDR image in a natural looking way An other step named Tone Mapping is needed to make Preface HDR photography this possible Tone Mapping converts an HDRI to an LDRI Low Dynamic Range Image preserving all relevant details of the scene The LDRI can then be displayed using monitors and printers The figure to the left shows an example for such an exposure series and the tone mapped result obtained with FDRTools 2 Natural and creative HDR image processing Result of a dramatising image processing with FDRTools The tone mapped image resulting from combining three images as shown above looks quite natural However achieving dramatising effects with FDRTools is also possible The premium tone mapping method named Compressor with ease converts boring looking scenes into exciting images But there is more to merging images than just scene HDRI and TM FDRTools offers a method named Creative Creative allows for mixing im
11. persons then also show up several times in the resulting HDR image Not all moving objects yield visible ghost artefacts Scenes with moving clouds or water are normally noncritical as the ghost artefacts do not catch the viewer s eye JB x Be Haws Carstanjen FOR Tools Advanced EbRTaots Projetin Bilder Fenstet Hille B E REA fat Ausichten HORI erzogen Ter Mapping Speicher O Separation Creative xDOF EXA a 150 1 Ata Lam ies Dyers Ds i DI rre O A Fat 18 dl ead GW Ual dl EW Ferran WA Far The Average dialog Controls and buttons impacting all images are located in the upper part of the dialog Button Defaults Resets all parameters to their default values Switch Exposure info Average needs to know about the exposure of the source images With setting Auto the relative exposure values of the source images are calculated from the pixel data of the source images With setting Exif the exposure value is extracted from the image EXIF data provided embedded EXIF data is available Switch Color Activating this switch can vitalise colors with nonlinear images like JPEGs Color has no effect with linear images like RAWs Menu Weighting curves The menu allows to assign preset weighting curves to the image layers These curves are meaningful with nonlinear images like JPEGs The form of the weighting curve impacts colors
12. CRAW Parameter Set SAS Output Device Display Device DcRAW File Format RAW File Formats i SRGB G2 2 Color Space vIpreserve embedded profile i linear Rea 4 0 010 T Green 0 010 Minimum Response Blue 4 0 010 FI Red 4 100 Green 4 1 00 _ Maximum Response Blue 4 100 Dialog input device File Format File format RAW JPEG etc delivered by the Input Device File Type A textual description of the File Format 61 Preferences Color Space Describes the color space of the Input Device Choices are the ICC profiles that FDRTools finds in the directory configured at ICC profiles directory preserve embedded profile The value configured at Color Space is overridden if a color space in the form of an ICC profile is embedded in the image file Note for RAW image files this parameter has a special meaning since RAW files have no ICC profile embedded one could think that the preserve embedded profile parameter has no effect However FDRTools relies on deraw a well known RAW converter to decode RAW files and to convert the image data from the native color space to a usable RGB color space This color space is adjustable and 1t was decided to use WideGamut RGB In addition it was decided that this color space namely WideGamut RGB shall be considered the embedded color space of a RAW file This definition 1s of course somewhat arbitrary but nevertheless makes sens
13. Full Dynamic Range Tools Photography in a new dimension User manual version 2 6 Andreas Sch mann Manfred Sch mann Full Dynamic Range Tools Photography in a new dimension User manual version 2 6 by Andreas Sch mann and Manfred Sch mann Publication date 2012 Copyright O Andreas Sch mann Manfred Sch mann Table of Contents ENGeneral considerado ea ee dai ve l ls Pr tace Ok DIOOD este ee ee nel 3 I HDR photosraphiy why And What LOL ciar ct si aie 3 2 Natural a a ercative HDR image process eresie a Teve SDR NANNA 4 32 Prepat na EXDosure seties air aia dira ro en 4 E A dee olii 6 o A PP ea ee ee heran ee ee inet 6 ZA on anelli 6 3 SCAUNS ANG PLO STAS ar Marine inne ne Te ting en Te ei a Tee king 6 4 Processing as1ne le Images aa id 4 A OI ists siii liana 7 5 1 Processine and Lone Mappine essen 8 A A A 8 IS Rsa ahi 10 SA Process me an Image SOES Te usa ale ai esta 10 SA pro lisbona rado 10 50 Inlermediafe POS ONG ias 12 O sciacalli 12 A A A A A 12 59 HPR Creation O E E 13 5 10 Tone Mappe apatia nali iena 14 Gx Saving Themes iaia E 15 Te RESO esse iaia en en ea een di 16 Si WOEKTIOW JOVERVICW barili ai 18 Le Project Ma as MEL tir A A Aaa 18 Ze brocessn2 a 81nSle MO CCT sista ode 18 2 13 AMAPOLA TING ES tad cias adn tea tasas 18 DL AMC ara are 18 Zoe E AAA A toni dai 19 24 TONS Mapp E elastici 20 25 EXPOS A en eisen 21 A Project Management E eee 22 Use Cases taten
14. HDR images should be saved as floating point data Possible data types are RGBE OpenEXR and TIFF FP Now before starting the saving there 1s one more thing to consider HDR images should be saved as linear light To do this set the TRC menu button to 1 linear an alternative would be to choose a linear color profile like 1 Wide Gamut RGB G1 0 Now save the image Note saving HDR images is not interesting for the normal user However 1f you save HDR images on a regular basis 1t is recommended to create a custom Parameter Set see FDRTools gt Preferences gt Devices to make sure the right settings are chosen automatically 54 Saving the results C Us ers andreas Documents Unbenannt exr OpenEXR gt Dateiformat Dateityp floating point Kanaltyp i SRGB G2 2 Farbraum Bewahre Eingabeger teprofil linear TRO Bildkomprimierung Kopiere Metadaten Uberschreibe ausgew hlte Metadaten f2 Exif AResolution 72 ExifYResolution ffne Bild mit Saving the HDR image 55 Part Ill Specific topics Table of Contents TO Nav tea tor and PIOVE Wise acta e a tai dias 58 A ee Nas ses een set 58 ZII ORTO TSO OT 58 Pe OO LS a cae eats bello 60 li White Balance Tool er derer tient ati eer oot ee adi datan 60 ibidem 61 io O A tes ram sae 61 MIDE NICE ES NA AA ee 61 Ss PP patata nto 61 POUE DEO EN 62 Di Displayzdevice aaa E E era 63 bile Bomann ed SE 64 TR aWCONVEISION een ea ae rer 64 MM
15. Manual With active switch the program uses the online HTML manual from the FDRTools website If you wish to read offline you may also use a HTML manual that is saved locally on your computer Note that the HTML manual is not part of the software If you want to use this option go to download pages of the FDRTools web site load the HTML manual ZIP archive down to your computer unpack the archive somewhere on your computer and navigate to this place via the Browse button Language Sets the language used to display texts in the program Changing the language setting will take effect with the next program start The default language 1s taken from operating system settings 66
16. PG E Bilder HDRI Szabo Ysperk cher Galleck amp SOU amp HDRI 01 048 JPG SAI Galleck amp SOU amp HDRI 01 049 JPG Galleck amp SOU amp HDRI 01 050 JPG Galleck amp SOU amp HDRI 01 051 JPG Galleck amp SOU amp HDRI 01 052 JPG OK Cancel 25 Project management Dialog Missing paths recovery The left side of the dialog shows all the missing directories and the right side lists all the image files that are expected to reside in the missing directory move the mouse over the directories to show the accompanying image file names The directories are decomposed into their elements the path nodes The path nodes are selectable To recover a path you replace the non existing part of the directory path with the correct existing path assisted by the dialog How does the recovery work Let s assume you have moved the folder E Bilder HDRI Szabo with all its subfolders to D Bilder some time after you created projects with images from these directories Now FDRTools 1s unable to find the original directories and you will see the dialog as shown in the figure To recover the missing paths choose one of them and click the path node that you have moved in our example this is Szabo The dialog for choosing a folder opens up Navigate to the existing path in our example this is D Bilder Szabo and confirm your selection Now FDR Tools replaces the path E Bilder HDRI Szabo with D Bilder Szabo and
17. S COS a ae een 65 GUSCIO Siae 66 57 Chapter 10 Navigator and Preview 1 Navigator The Navigator provides an overview of the resulting image The user interface elements Image area Clicking the left mouse button within the image area switches from Navigator to Preview mode The spot below the mouse pointer will be shown centered in Preview Button Zoom Clicking the Zoom button switches from Navigator to Preview mode Switch 360 Panorama Activate this switch if the image is a 360 panorama cylindrical or spherical The panorama must be in the so called equirectangular projection This is a common form of projection in panorama photography for more details see Panorama Tools Switch Zenith Activate this switch if the panorama has a zenith Switch Nadir Activate this switch if the panorama has a nadir Navigator 2 Preview The Preview allows to inspect the image in detail The user interface elements Image area Clicking the left mouse button within the image area switches from Preview to Navigator mode In the top left corner there is a small Navigator showing the currently displayed detail Clicking the left mouse button within the small Navigator shifts the displayed image detail If you need to inspect the image pixels in the upper left corner which are hidden by the Navigator you can toggle the visibility of the small Navigator by clicking the right mouse button Button Zoom Clicking the Zoom
18. This can be caused by wind shutter vibration or micro movements of the tripod Module Alignment helps in correcting such shifts 12 Quick start guide am House Carstanjen FORTools Advanced a FORTools Projects Images Windows Help HDR Creation Tone Mapping Defaults Align m Include si i a BH Include ge a 0 i Horizontal Fag O O vertical 0 Vertical O E Time Br 0 Horizontal Alignment module Tripod The example series was captured using a tripod Automatic alignment can not detect horizontal or vertical shifts hence there is nothing to align here This is not always the case Often there will be positive or negative numbers visible in the image alignment layers of the Tripod module You can adapt the results of automatic alignment if necessary The results of changed alignment parameters are displayed in the Navigator window 5 9 HDRI Creation HDRI Creation serves to the merging of differently exposed photos to one homogeneous image the HDRI high dynamic range image FDRTools offer several methods for HDRI Creation named Average Separation and Creative each of which is specialised in some aspects The Average method is the method of choice as long as the scene has no moving objects like people cars etc The Separation method in many cases allows to avoid so called ghosts caused by moving objects and can reduce a
19. age editing application To this end 1t is recommended to save tone mapped images in a lossless data format FDRTools supports several 8 bit and 16 bit integer formats We recommend the 16 bit TIFF format for the saving of tone mapped images 3 Save Image dialog When exiting FDRTools the projects with all relevant project details are saved automatically When starting FDRTools again the projects are also loaded automatically again The results from processing a scene namely HDR image and tone mapped image are saved explicitly This is done from within the project editor By choosing one of the tone mapping modules you decide which type will be saved Choose Identity if you intend to save the HDR image Choose Simplex Receptor or Compressor to save the LDR image see Tone Mapping in FDRTools Section 2 The Saving Image dialog is displayed by pressing the Save button in the task bar or by choosing the menu entry Images gt Save as The figure below shows the Save Image dialog Use the Browse button to browse the file system and choose file path file name and data type The fields underneath show the parameters of the output device for a description see FDRTools gt Preferences gt Output Device and image format settings for a description see FDRTools gt Preferences gt File Formats Copy metadata Check this box to copy metadata from the darkest source image to the resulting image provided the target data type supp
20. ages with completely differing content thus broadening the possibilities of HDR imaging and supporting creative photography 3 Preparing exposure series One of the essential functions of FDRTools is to merge the images of an exposure series into a so called HDR image When doing such an exposure series you should observe the following 1 The camera must not jiggle while taking the exposure series Therefore the following is recommended e Mount your camera to a tripod and look out for save stand of the tripod e If you have a cable release you should use it e If your camera has a so called mirror lock up function you should use it 2 Pay attention that your exposure series covers the whole dynamic range of the scene In the brightest picture all detail of the darkest areas should be clearly visible Contrary in the darkest picture all detail of the brightest areas should be clearly visible Preface HDR photography The images of an exposure series should have exposure differences between two and four EV or f stops Using the Automatic Exposure Bracketing functionality that most digital cameras possess can be beneficial To alter the exposure value vary the exposure time Keep the aperture value constant All images of an exposure series should be taken with identical white balance setting We recommend to use RAW format whenever your camera supports this Chapter 2 Quick start guide 1 Purpose This is the first in a se
21. and contrast of the resulting HDR image According to present experience Triangle 2 yields best results and hence 1s 31 Creating HDR images the default curve With linear images e g RAWs colors and contrast do not depend on the form of the weighting curves Below these controls there is a histogram display The histogram displays the intensity spectrum of the resulting HDR image To the right are the measured values for minimal and maximal luminance Below is the image dynamic range in EV units calculated from minimal and maximal luminance Note the stated dynamic range value is an estimation calculated from the pixels of the Navigator image Below the histogram display the source images are listed as layers The following parameters steer the influence of a layer on the result Switch Include When activated green the layer is included in the calculation of the result otherwise the layer is ignored Switch WA Ref Specifies a white balance reference image When specifying an image as white balance reference the program tries to adapt the white balance of the other images to the white balance of the reference image Weighting curve Intensity Weighting of the intensity is adjustable per layer The form of the curve can be adapted by adding removing and moving knots Hint modification of a weighting curve can be synchronised among layers To do this select the layers to synchronise and then modify the curve of one of the selected la
22. ative exposure value of an image is displayed here as an information Slider Separation The slider is below the histogram and in conjunction with the slider of the following layer specifies the intensity area that this image contributes to the HDR image The contributed area is highlighted in dark grey in the histogram The following example shows how to use the separation sliders The scene shows a typical use case for this method separation is easy and effective if the scene is easily separable into several intensity areas and the moving objects are each completely within the respective intensity area In this case two areas can be distinguished the sky with the sunlit house walls and the shadowy area where two ladies are walking Both ladies are complete in the shadowy area ternkastel Tort gen gt TELT Eh ang zo e Pirro H R Image Ins Y i a ee eee i E7 Wear EiS oo Gee Elen 33 Creating HDR images bal Bernkastel Torbogen FR Tools Advanced e aj x EDRTools Projekte Bilder Fenster Hilfe ce inen Aurian CO o HOR Bild spe Zee Bild HOF erzeugen A_N 2 t e Va rechau 51 Vogatan Dam Wea F sse eat ae ae EDRTaols Profeta menn Windows Help Je em HOM Creation Tone Mapping Average Separation Detauns Dotas JE Auto Exit JE Seprton Mask faa 53074 Min Lied j BETET 45 Mam Lumi a 13 Dyers Fi
23. c 53 Ae 11120 OO a seen 53 As Savio no HDR Mas ASS TA ee 54 HLSpeciic OPiS ad 56 LO Navisator and PREVIO pit sila ili 58 ERROR RON TO TT 58 NS areas 58 BO A AI AI 60 1 White Balance TOOL ee iS 60 12 PETOT CCS id ts 61 1 Preh Minary Hole EST AL AA TA NA 61 UN A IO ene een ne ee ee eer Far 61 5 Input de ica lib 61 A CUTE OU Ea WAC BESA CPE NS 62 D2 DIS Day Ade VIC Cras NE AN ita 63 6 BE TOMAS csi 64 Te RAW CONVE Olisy liana dira dara 64 8 DIEEE Or ee een ee 65 SGU SCUNOS ee nee a 66 1V Part I General considerations Table of Contents be Bretace HDR Photography setas aida ii di en a ea niet 3 HDR protostaphy gt wAy and what TO id ela 3 Z Naturalsand ereative HDR Image Process 2er 4 3 Preparins exposure SETS rt A ea 4 2e OWC GIUANIN 6 PUDO Ca E a A E Pe RE ee 6 2 ANG AO 206 iaa E A A E i A 6 Seona Ihe POTTA ae ee AD A Dt 6 dA Processie asino le trarre ir eat 4 DA DAN pro Eagle ee ee serie 7 SE ProcessimsandTornie Mappliis rasi ella aA 8 NS TAE TESIS EA 8 SR letter A oo 10 SA Process1n8 aMMa oe SEES aan dd 10 a use tennis steel A ENN 10 50 Inteimediatetesult a a ne Bares da Bee 12 A ee ee re a age 12 LISCA electa 12 IS HOR CreaiOn silla A AE 13 SLU Tone Mappe ail 14 A AAA en q K O aiar 15 Rutigliano 16 di WOFKHOW OVCIVIOW cisti ar au rn Asien iaia 18 LtPROJECEANANACCMCIL pelare edera 18 Ze Processing A SINCIC project ar taten ee DD id 18 Dal a aa ee een se esse 18 22 AUSHMENT
24. c Range First part of the project the HDR image The figure to the left shows the first part of the HDR image an exposure series consisting of 11 exposures with exposure times ranging from 1 100 of a second to 10 seconds The resulting HDR image 1s not noise free Longer exposure times are realised with a second exposure series see below 48 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing u o 7 RT i 7 se J n y vale iz DR tepore a I E Cn TT wel A doma rea E Kirchberg Noise Reduction FDRTools Advanced SE FORTools Projects Images Windows Help Alignment MET Separation Creative Min Lumi 55182 07 Max Lumi Dynamic Range 5 9 rel EV MH ingude rel EV Second part long time exposure The figure to the left shows the second part of the HDR image This series comprises 8 photos each of them exposed for 10 seconds The 8 images correspond to a single photo with an 80 seconds exposure time This in turn means a difference of 3 EV or f stops compared to a single photo The photos are merged with the HDR method Average The pixels are weighted using weighting curve Constant which means that the resulting value of a pixel is calculated as the sum of the pixel values from all images divided by the number of images 49 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing SEE JE Kirchberg TM FDRTools Advanced FDRTools Projects Images Windows Help separation Creative Defaults Ea Se C Color Triangle
25. dules are not yet implemented Alignment HDRI Creation Tone Mapping LDRI HORI Hi HORI LORI HORI LORI HORI Lis i LDR LDR E implemented work in progress M not yet implemented Abl ufe und Module in den FDRTools 2 1 Importing images Editing a bracketed series of images starts with loading images This always starts a project either explicitly via the project manager or implicitly when using the mages gt Open menu to enter the image editor immediately By using the latter option and discarding any unsaved results you may bypass project management if you don t need it 2 2 Alignment Merging several differently exposed images implicates a couple of problems One of these problems which arises already when taking the images is the movement of the camera itself If the camera jiggles then the exposures won t fit exactly together Instead they are slightly displaced yielding an unpleasant blurry look of the combined image Camera movement is nearly unavoidable Only mounting the camera to a tripod and using an accurate shooting technique can avoid jiggling in most cases 18 Workflow overview Alignment Module zur Ausrichtung von Bildern 2 2 1 Tripod This is a method for registering of photos that were taken using a tripod It allows to compensate for slight vibrations of the camera 2 2 2 Hand held Combining photos taken freehand requires more elaborated c
26. e The bottom line is activating the preserve embedded profile parameter means that the converted RAW image will be in WideGamut RGB space TRC FDRTools supports measuring the Transfer Response Curve of the input device Such TRCs are contained in ICC profiles also but these are quite imprecise and not suited for accurate linearisation of image data In order to get properly linearised image data for further processing in FDRTools measuring the TRC is reasonable Notes e Measuring a TRC is not a must FDRTools creates very good HDR images without a TRC e Measuring a TRC makes sense only with nonlinear image data like e g JPEG images RAW images are linear by nature hence a TRC is not necessary e The TRC profiling function is currently only available in the older version 1 8 3 Minimum Response Here you can configure the minimum response value of an input device that shall be utilised for HDR image creation The range 0 1 is internally mapped to the file formats value range This setting is part of the Input device profile and is normally set by the Profiler application Maximum Response Here you can configure the maximum response value of an input device that shall be utilised for HDR image creation The range 0 1 is internally mapped to the file formats value range This setting is part of the Input device profile and is normally set by the Profiler application Note this switch is currently inactive 4 Output Device Prefer
27. e as saves the result First you determine the file format that shall be used to save the resulting image Here we have chosen JPEG Name the result and confirm Now the Save image dialog shows up Start the image generation by pressing the Save button Quick start guide File Format File Type Channel Type i SRGB 62 2 4 preserve Input Device profile fone LS J TRE JPEG Image Compression PEG Quality Copy metadata _ Override selected data cur 1 m it wT so mater Ta CATAT T a KUN LO i Cari wit IL S Jopen image with The Save image dialog Quick start guide 9 3 Result iv y js a IP RI APA i k 2 AY The result 5 4 Processing an image series For this tutorial we provide a set of images that you can get from http www fdrtools com examples tutorial zip Extract the images to a directory of your choice 5 5 Starting a project FDRTools start in project management view A project consists of one or several images and the accompanying processing settings Projects are saved when exiting the program and are reloaded with the next program start EDRTools Projects Images Windows Help Many Prepare Render Delete Created Modified FDRTools main window project management view By pressing the One button we are now going to create a single new project The file choosing dialog shows up Navigate to the directory
28. earlier time Button Save state Opens a file choosing dialog that allows to save the current state that is the entirety of all parameter settings 2 4 1 Tone Mapping Slider Compression Regulates the strength of tonal range compression More likely affects local contrast Slider Contrast Substantially affects the contrast of the image Low values result in smooth transitions the image will look blurred High values yield strong local contrasts the image will look sharp Should the image look dirty or should unwanted seams show up blue skies are especially damageable then the value is adjusted too high Clicking the toggle button to the left opens two additional controls named Frequency and Luminance Curve Contrast gt Frequency Lets you control the contrast with respect to frequency bands The x axis ranges over the frequency components beginning with lowest frequencies Low frequencies stand for large scale features while high frequencies stand for fine details Adjusting the Frequency curve you can influence blurriness and sharpness respectively Curve Contrast gt Luminance Lets you control the contrast with respect to pixel luminance The x axis ranges over the pixel luminance beginning with lowest luminance Low luminace stands for dark pixels while high luminance stands for light pixels Adjusting the Luminance curve you can influence contrast in dark areas and light areas respectively Slider Color Contrast Regulates
29. ect Directory The Project data is stored in this directory In detail the following files are stored e File fdrprojects contains all projects and their parameter settings e File fdrimages contains a list of all images related to the projects The image data that is extracted during project preparation in form of coded files e g 2B5E6CC3C459DA7FD4ECOACBE7CC5443 e The HDR and tone mapped LDR images that emerge from rendering projects Naming follows the scheme Project name type ext HDR images are of type hdr LDR images are accordingly named dr ext denominates the extension of the used image format e g t1f 24 Project management 5 2 Templates Directory The Template data is stored here Templates are contained in the file fdrtemplate Alle files have the same structure as their Project data counterparts 5 3 Many Projects grouping criterion Projects may be created manually or from a larger set of images in an automated way For automated generation the images must be grouped somehow so that images belonging together form a project Images are grouped according to one out of two possible criteria e the maximum difference in shooting times e the number of images 5 4 Prepare Projects When there are many projects to process one can save some time if automatable calculations are performed before the actual editing is done This comprises e g the development of RAW images and the alignment of images althoug
30. ences File Formats Raw Conversion Directories Gui Settings Add Delete Generic DCRAW Parameter Set Input Device Output Device Display Device Tagged Image File Format File Type 16 bits unsigned integer Channel Type i sRGB G2 2 Color Space _ preserve Input Device profile none ame Defaults Save Cancel Dialog output device 62 Preferences File Format File format of the tone mapped image File Type A textual description of the File Format Channel Type A textual description of the channel type Color Space Describes the color space of the tone mapped image Choices are the ICC profiles that FDRTools finds in the folder configured at ICC Profiles Directory preserve Input Device profile The tone mapped image is not saved in the color space configured at Color Space Instead the color space configured at Input Device 1s adopted Note be aware of the special meaning that activating this parameter has for RAW images if Input Device gt preserve embedded profile is also activated see explanation above 5 Display device Preferences File Formats Raw Conversion Directories Gui Settings Add Delete Generic DCRAW Parameter Set Input Device Output Device NALES i sRGB G2 2 Color Space vIUse system profile Det Dialog display device Color Space Describes the color space of the display device Use system profile Use the system display p
31. ered with a couple of parameters and hence is quite flexible The essential difference to Average and Separation is that images with differing light sources position intensity color spectrum can be mixed This allows for interesting effects be FOR Tonka Advanced Li FDRTools Projects images Windows Help L L Prepare Edit Render 5 Raps ilal 2 021608 ozz108 b Rapsvital 3 02 1608 02 18 08 se Rapsvnald 02 1608 02 18 08 Le IL a z a BA Edit Render o es bk Rapsa 5 02 1608 02 16 08 bl Raps vital 6 Benge 025108 Raps ital 7 021608 021608 Est Render e Rapsvital 8 021608 oanems Rapsa 9 02116108 An 608 b Raps vital 10 02 1608 0216 08 kiRapsvnal 11 02116008 0246 08 F Rapsvital Creative ozo Le ILI Prepare 042508 FI Edit Render Project consisting of 11 exposure series In the following example an object is illuminated from different directions For each of the directions a HDR image 1s created and these HDRs are then merged with the Creative method The result shows an object that acts quite 3 dimensional and does not cast shadows though it obviously has been illuminated The figure to the left shows the project The object a cooking oil bottle is spot illuminated from on high The spot is then moved around the object in steps and an exposure series 2 0 2 EV is taken at each position Then a HDR
32. erpolation e AHD Adaptive Homogeneity Directed interpolation Default Set the output color space During development RAW images are converted from a camera specific color space to a device independent color space Set this color space here The default value is Wide Gamut RGB 8 Directories Preferences 4 as i Devices File Formats Raw Conversion Directories Gui Settings TRC Files Director y CyProgram Files x86VAGS Technik FDRTools Advanced 2 5 0beta2 p Browse Defaults Save Cancel 65 Preferences Dialog Directories TRC Files directory FDRTools looks this directory for TRC files 9 Gui Settings r Devices File Formats Raw Conversion Directories Show Tooltips Confirm overwriting of existing files Show custom Input Devices in Open Image s dialog Gtk Widget Theme Use Online Manual Default Language Note change of language will take effect with next program start Dersuns save cancel Dialog GUI settings Show Tooltips Show a help text if the mouse is moved over a Gui element Confirm overwriting of existing files Protects against unintended overwriting when saving an image Show custom Input Devices in Open Image s dialog This switch activates the use of custom Parameter Sets within the file choosing dialog Widget Theme The look of the Gui elements can be adjusted via themes Use Online
33. etadata information evtl available with an image Main Navigator Preview windows are the most important ones They should always be visible You may show or hide individual windows via the Windows menu 4 Processing a single image FDRTools were developped primarily for processing series of images but allow for processing a single image also whereas it doesn t matter whether the image is a real HDR image a RAW iamge a TIFF file or a JPEG It is often intended to obtain a dramatising or even alienating effect when tone mapping a single image The following section demonstrates how you can achieve this HDR effect We provide a series of images for this tutorial that you can download from http www fdrtools com examples tutorial zip Extract these images to a directory of your choice 5 Starting a project FDRTools start in project management view A project consists of one or several images and the accompanying processing settings Projects are saved when exiting the program and are reloaded with the next program start let Em FORTools Advanced I Joj x EDRTools Projects Images Windows Help C gt a9 L e ur T sue Projects One Templates FDRTools main window project management view By pressing the One button we are now going to create a single new project The file choosing dialog shows up Navigate to the directory with the example images and choose data type Generic TIFF Choose the image battleship
34. evails Noise can be fought in several ways The cleanest way because image quality is preserved is the following method Dark image areas emit light also albeit very little In order to get a sufficiently strong signal one has to expose longer There are two ways to expose for an arbitrary long time 1 Make a single exposure of the required exposure time As many cameras are limited in their maximal exposure time external equipment is necessary e g a remote control release 2 Cumulating the required exposure time via a series of N identical exposed photos The images of the series are then merged using the HDR method Average see below The result matches a single photo of N times the exposure time Advantage of this method disturbing factors like cars passing the scene can be removed by excluding the respective photo For the implementation of this method three projects are defined 1 Kirchberg HDR is the usual exposure series The resulting HDR image is not noise free 2 Kirchberg Noise reduction is a series of images with identical exposure time combined into a long time exposure 3 Kirchberg TM is the unification of the previous images into the noise free HDR 47 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing 3 gt Kirchberg HDR FDRTo0E Ahamed een NES Ney OA ds FDRTools Projects Images Windows Help Open Alignment Separation Create Defaults ut if Triangle 2 Di Min Lumi 15024 13 Max Lumi Dynami
35. extracted and saved e Metadata are extracted and saved You can get an excerpt of the metadata if you move the mouse over the thumbnail 22 Project management In a further step images are aligned with the Tripod method e Adding of images Opens the file choosing dialog e Removing of images Removes selected images from the project Clicking a thumbnail selects the image Note removing an image from the project does not delete the original image from the harddisk e Prepare Preparing of a project Motivation loading several RAW files can be tedious The point in preparing 1s to speed up loading and processing of images Preparing extracts data from the original images and saves them to the Section 5 1 In detail the following data is saved e Edit Editing of a project This opens the project in the editor Note the project editor lies above the project manager when opening a project for editing the program switches into editor view at the same time hiding the project manager The program returns to project view if the project is closed either via menu Projects gt Close active or alternatively by clicking the Close button of the window e Render Rendering of a project This renders the HDR and tone mapped LDR images in full image size For that purpose the source images are loaded to the editor the processing parameters saved in the project are set and finally the rendered images are saved Remark
36. gi ss D Express Tramos Manga m induce HERE E_ingune I We Rat nder Han Ev Separation example Defaults shows the ghosts caused by the moving persons Separation now means to take the light areas from the first image while the shadowy areas with the ladies are taken from the second image and evtl very dark areas from the third image To accomplish this one simply has to move the slider of the bottom image to the left until the ghost artefacts are gone see Separated without mask Separated with mask shows which pixels are adopted from the middle selected image Areas that are not adopted are colored red The separation mask is a good aid when adjusting the sliders This example also reveals a side effect of the separation The photos were taken freehand and hence are slightly misaligned The alignment function has corrected the horizontal and vertical shift but more complex contributions like rotation etc have not been corrected This can be seen when toggling between Defaults and Separated without mask the buildings move slightly between the two views Here the separation reduces visible seams because seams form only along the separation boundaries This positive trait often hides slight jitters or at least makes them less noticeable 34 Creating HDR images 4 HDR method Creative Creative 1s a method for the creation of HDR images from arbitrary image material The process can be ste
37. h automatic alignment of course delivers an approximate solution only Currently these two steps are supported Other precalculations are thinkable but not yet realised 5 5 GUI For the thumbnail browser within a project you can set the number of thumbnails per row 6 Dialog Missing paths recovery If you see this dialog it means that FDRTools while loading projects could not find all related image files How is this possible When creating a project FDRTools remembers where the accompanying images can be found in the file system The image paths are saved in the project files Without this information it would not be possible to edit a project because the images must be loaded in order to edit a project Now if you move these image files within the file system be it because you want to rearrange your images or because you want to archive images on external storage media this invalidates the image paths stored in the project files and FDRTools can not retrieve the image files any more The projects are unusable in this state In order to make the projects usable again the incorrect image paths must be recovered The dialog supports you in performing the recovery Missing paths recovery F Bilder HDRI Szabo GalleckSonnenuntergang Galleck amp SOU amp HDRI 01 044 JPG ela a nn Galleck amp SOU amp HDRI 01 045 JPG een ri Galleck amp SOU amp HDRI 01 046 JPG E Bilder HDRI Szabo YsperBaum Galleck amp SOU amp HDRI 01 047 J
38. image is created from each of the exposure series Thus 11 HDR images are produced in total see the projects RapsVital 1 to RapsVital 11 The figure exemplarily shows the images for three of the eleven positions 35 Creating HDR images The HDR images of the several positions are now combined to the new project RapsVital Creative The project is opened with the editor and the Creative method is chosen for HDR creation The intensity curve is adapted as shown in order to remove remains of shadows Changes to other parameters are not necessary Finally the image is tone mapped with the Compressor method and the result is saved Hint for best results with method Creative you should use high quality image material That is to say the images should neither be noisy nor overexposed For this reason a HDR image is created at each position in the example before merging them with Creative Hint you should use HDR images for mixing images with Creative but not tone mapped LDR images While that works too the quality of the resulting i ma is not optimal Eu RapsVital Creative FOR Tools Advanced EDRTOoos Projects pha Windows Help seele een J ARgrmant la Mori Bi Logarmmie Defauits Constan Saturation Contrast CTE 20 act Luni jar ri Barge The Creative dialog In principle Creative is used like methods Average and Separation Controls and buttons impact
39. ing all images are located in the upper part of the dialog Button Defaults Resets all parameters to their default values Menu Weighting curves The menu allows to assign preset weighting curves to the image layers Menu Histogram scaling The scaling of layer histograms can be linear or logarithmic Sliders Intensity Saturation Contrast When merging the source images the attributes Intensity Saturation and Contrast are weighted for each pixel in order to form the resulting image A curve is used to adjust the weighting values The example shows the weighting curve for Intensity It is adjusted in order to assign a low weight to the shadows and higher weights with growing intensity Such a curve prefers highlights while shadows 36 Creating HDR images are suppressed The parameters Saturation and Contrast are adjusted analogous via a curve The browser below lists the source images as layers The following parameters steer the influence of a layer on the result Switch Include When activated green the layer is included in the calculation of the result otherwise the layer 1s 1gnored Switch WA Ref Not implemented yet Weighting curve Intensity Weighting of the intensity is adjustable per layer The form of the curve can be adapted by adding removing and moving knots The resulting weight is equal to the sum of the weights of each layer multiplied with the global intensity weighti
40. is exaggerated by choosing a large aperture 2 0 37 Chapter 8 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing 1 Tone Mapping The contrast ratio of commercially available monitors is somewhere between 100 1 and 1000 1 paper is even worse in this respect This is by far lower than the contrast ratios of many real scenes which can easily reach 10 000 1 to 1 000 000 1 If an HDR image is composed from an exposure series properly capturing the full dynamic range of the scene this means that the HDR image can not be reproduced in a natural way on a normal monitor As a consequence the dynamic range of an HDR image must somehow be mapped to the limited range of a monitor This process is called tone mapping 1 1 Global and local methods Doing this tone mapping in a simple manner would loose the natural contrast and details of a scene the resulting image would look flat and dull In the recent past many different tone mapping algorithms were invented because it turned out that developing a method that produces fine looking results for all thinkable types of scenes is not easy Tone mappers can be categorised into global and local acting methods Global tone mappers work in a rather simple and computational efficient way The resulting tonal value of a pixel is computed by applying a global formula In contrast local tone mappers handle each pixel by looking at surrounding pixels This is computationally more expensive but in general produces bet
41. lp File Type Channel Type i SRGB 62 2 preserve Input Device profile none LS J TRE TIFF Image Compression DEFLATE Copy metadata Override selected data lopen image with The Save image dialog 7 Result The following images show the results Both images were created using the Average HDR creation method and then tone mapped with methods Receptor resp Compressor 16 Quick start guide Resultat Receptor Resultat Compressor 17 Chapter 3 Workflow overview 1 Project management Probably you want to optimise not only one but many scenes using HDR techniques FDRTools help you to keep track of your HDR activities By means of a Project all images of a bracketed series the HDRI creation parameters tone mapping settings and everything else needed to remember your work are integrated and saved for later use The component that helps you keep track of your work on several projects is called Project Manager 2 Processing a single project Working on a single project comprises several steps The component that you use to process your bracketed images is named Project Editor The following figure provides a view over the principal workflow when editing a project It shows the essential participating modules within the functional groups The diagram shows the status quo of planning and realisation Modules colored in green are implemented yellow modules are currently under construction and red mo
42. method Simple ener ei 40 2 07 TM method Rece Po en teten a rannte 41 24 TIVE method COMPLESSO cada 42 Example ANTONE Oia teens tee 46 Sidhe A ne un 4 A een a ee ee lu 50 Os Say alias iaaia 53 I HDR Ede Bonner elena iaia atene la rasa ela riale nella 53 LDR FIE FOMA A SKER aaa eda Sean 53 Se Save mare dalia A ee 53 4 Savio te HDR Imase nun ss ss ee 54 28 Chapter 5 Loading images 1 General There are several ways to load images to the program Some of them are general methods some of them are connected to project view some of them are connected to editor view 1 Drag amp Drop images to the program icon This starts FDRTools and loads the images 2 Use the menu entry Images gt Open This creates a new project switches to project editor view and loads the images 2 Loading in project view E FDR Tools Advanced Zo CE x FDRTools Projects Images Windows Help Loading of images in project view 1 Create a project via the One and Many buttons of the toolbar This opens the file chooser dialog where you can select the images Later on you can add additional images using the button 2 Drap amp Drop images to the thumbnail browser of a project This adds the image to the project 3 Drap amp Drop images to the project browser area This creates a new project 3 Loading in editor view ene Haus Carstanjen FDRTools Advanced n O x EDRTools Projects Images Windows Help Tone Mapping Save
43. nd vertical boundaries 2 Tone Mapping in FDRTools FDRTools implements four differing tone mapping methods Three of them are global methods and one is a local acting method named Compressor While the global methods allow for basic tone mapping only the local Compressor algorithm 1s a capable and flexible tone mapper producing images with remarkable local contrast and fine detail You can switch between the methods by choosing the tabs Identity Simplex Receptor or Compressor n the Tone Mapping module 2 1 TM method Identity Identity does an identity mapping This means the HDR image 1s mapped to itself One may ask what could be the use of such a method Well Identity is used to display and inspect the HDR image While Identity has all the controls of the Simplex method only one slider is active However displaying the other controls makes clear how Identity differs from Simplex E Kirchberg TM FDRTools Advanced o es FORTools Projects Images Windows Help f Alignment HDR Creation Tone Mapping Save FN F entity Simplex Receptor Compressor Defaults Postprocessing 0 00 Exposure The Identity dialog Button Defaults Resets all parameters to their default values 2 1 1 Postprocessing Slider Exposure Shifts the output EV range up down This corresponds to changing the exposure settings of a camera 39 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing For a description of the
44. ne mapping methods like Simplex or Receptor History Parameter changes are recorded by a history module The user interface to the history module is a panel placed below the Compressor tab It consists of ten tabs the so called branches and a counter with arrowed buttons Each parameter change increments the counter and the change is saved in the active branch The arrowed buttons allow to browse the history of the active branch Selecting a different branch switches to the history of that branch or if that branch has no history yet the history is started with the current set of parameters This way up to ten history branches can be maintained and compared with each other A history branch can be reset by browsing backwards until the counter shows 1 _DSC6289 DSC6293_1 FDRTools Advanced FORTools Projects Images Windows Help i Alignment HDR Creation Tone Mapping Save Identity Simplex Receptor MEE fi 4 l2 3 al5jel7 alel o pj BS Tonemapping 50 Compression DET Jeontast Color Contrast IU Smoothing Postprocessing Joso 0 Eposu UJ Black Point os whitePoin i Left axis scaling amp Linear Logarithmic Curve point linkage amp Spline Line 2 00 Saturation 42 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing Der Compressor Dialog Button Defaults Resets all parameters to their default values Button Load state Opens a file choosing dialog that allows to load a state saved at an
45. ng value see above Hint modification of a weighting curve can be synchronised among layers To do this select the layers to synchronise and then modify the curve of one of the selected layers Raps 7 Raps Vital _Vital l Migratory light source compared to stationary light source The figure to the left shows the resulting image compared to one of the original positions Both images were created with the Compressor tone mapper and then slightly postprocessed in an image editing application curve and sharpening When looking at the image emanating from the migratory light source one notices that the object does not cast a shadow That looks strange because the object was obviously illuminated as the traces of the spot light at the bottleneck and the closure show The direct comparison to the normal image shot with stationary light source shows some differences The regions lit by the spot are especially bright and hence contrasty while contours lying in the shadow are dark and hard to recognize The migratory light source in contrast illuminates all contours of the object and makes them clearly visible This makes the object look 3 dimensional Differences in the footprint can be noticed just as clear Illuminated from one direction the footprint appears unfamiliar while with illumation from all sides the structure emerges very clear The object is clearly silhouetted against background and footprint and seems to levitate This effect
46. o is a rodas 22 2e WONTON A NO 22 de Elements ola project tddi edi cias atada 22 A K VELVIEW PIOJECL manao e meh arida 23 5 Dialog Project Manager Sseluines ri da sn uralte 24 JAPO e EDI O a aio 24 3 2 Templates Directory sprite ieri liana 25 3 3 Many Projects SToupmg cHlenon ei o 25 Sd Prepare PIOC OIS ana O st dee sd skonar tion 25 Pebble 25 6 Didlos Massing Palas TECOVELY sile usi iii td dos 25 I Processing asno e PEO JC CU ea er 21 De Loal ns Images iscritti lei 29 Geral 29 2 1 031110 10 Project MiS Wi ti ian ra 29 NS asia aa 29 is stata A intitola 30 Arola pi ooo idas 30 De MOME TPO tias seele see ea lea ee na 30 Lo CIAO HDR Images en ee leale aa 31 O O A O O o ie agb 31 HDR ME od AVE DS iii 31 Roo Sasse na see O A 32 111 Full Dynamic Range Tools A HDR meod Crave Ni 35 S Tone Mapping and POStprOCES SINE salle 38 1 Tone Meppen aa Aare nel lee 38 I I lt Global andTocal inethods ri ai 38 12 N awiral and creative Fone MapplinS seinen ls 38 1 3 Tone Mapping and panorama photography ssssseersserrsserrrssrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrerrrr era 38 2 Tone Mapping 11 FDRTOOlS sn SARA ee A or 39 2 1 IM method denti bipede 39 22 EM NOG YS IMPI ee Aliprandi 40 2 33 TM Me Moa IR BCE D OE lid 41 2 4 TM me hod E OIMpressOL na IE 42 3 Example Night SOL iaderai 46 Sala HDR mas id idea 4 2 VOM MAP it o el e ei edo 50 Savia MET ritrae aa 53 KHDR FIC AO ale 53 EDR Ple Romans einen bi
47. oor image contrast 2 4 3 Receptor This method uses one of the several available global algorithms for the purpose of tonal range compression Global means that the same formula is applied to all the pixels of an image 2 4 4 Compressor This method acts locally That means the algorithm investigates the surrounding of a pixel and from this information calculates an optimal compression value This method is computational expensive but delivers quite contrasty and natural acting results 2 5 Exporting images Merging an exposure series in general results in two images an HDRI high dynamic range image and an LDRI low dynamic range image By switching the appropriate tone mapper you can select either of them A subsequent save operation then saves the selected image 21 Chapter 4 Project management 1 Use cases FDRTools start in a project management mode The motivation for using projects is as follows projects comprise all images of the exposure series and accompanying parameter settings of the project editor into a unit Projects are saved at program exit and reloaded with the next program start Projects are useful for e Processing of a days work 1 e the whole bunch of exposure series one shoots on a photo tour e Processing of HDR panoramas Here each angle of view results in an exposure series e in general for saving and reloading parameter settings of an exposure series 2 Workflow The recommended workflow
48. orrection measures In principal all possible degrees of freedom of a camera must be taken into consideration 1 e all movements of the camera during the image taking session must be reconstructed from the photos Methodically this happens via the recognition and localisation of identical features among the photos This information then allows to translate rotate and zoom the images accordingly 2 3 Creating HDR images Normally each image of an exposure series has a different exposure Hence the images have different brightness These differences must be calculated and each pixel of the resulting HDR image must be optimally exposed Overexposure and noise must be avoided Moving objects like persons cars and plants moved by the wind pose a serious problem when combining several temporally successive photos HORI Creation Module zur HDRI Erzegung 19 Workflow overview 2 3 1 Average This 1s an optimal method for creating an HDR image from several differently exposed images of a static scene There should not be any moving objects in the scene 2 3 2 Separation This method allows to separate a scene into several intensity areas The resulting HDR pixels of such an area are taken exactly from one source image Thus it is possible to treat moving objects proper and avoid blur or ghost objects in many cases 2 3 3 Creative Creative allows to blend images with differing content You can combine images with different exposure a
49. orts this You may override selected metadata Currently you may change Exif XResolution and Exif Y Resolution Set both fields to the same value to give the resulting image a certain image resolution Note that changing metadata has no impact on image quality open image with You may specify an external application that shall be used for further editing of the image The external application 1s started and the image handed over to 1t automatically For HDR images external editing 1s useful only 1f the external application can handle floating point images Save Starts the saving process 53 Saving the results T Unbenannt FDRTools Advanced FORTools Projekte Bilder Fenster Hilfe TIR Aussichten HDRI erzeugen Tone Mapping i i Speichere Bild als ClUsers andreas Documents Unbenannttif Suchen Faogedimage File Format Dateityp 116 bits unsigned integer Kanaltyp i sRGB G2 2 Farbraum _ Bewahre Eingabeger teprofil none TRC TIFF Bildkomprimierung NONE ILZW DEFLATE Kopiere Metadaten JUberschreibe ausgew hlte Metadaten ffne Bild mit Saving a result in the project editor 4 Saving the HDR Image As already mentioned the HDR image is displayed via the tone mapping module dentity Once you have chosen Identity as tone mapper make sure the Exposure slider 1s set to O Now press the Save button in the task bar or choose the menu entry Images gt Save as
50. ot paused Depending on the number of projects running time can be quite long The Include in next run flag of finished projects is cleared e Delete Deletion of selected projects Projects remain in the project view until you decide to delete them In order to delete projects select them with a mouse click and then press the Delete button Note deleting a project does not delete the source images from the harddisk 5 Dialog Project Manager Settings The Project Manager manages Projects and Templates Templates in principle are Projects too They differ from ordinary Projects in that e they can be stored in a separate directory and e there is a function allowing to copy parameter settings from the Template to ordinary Projects The data belonging to Projects and Templates is stored in directories You can determine where in the file system the Projects and Templates shall be stored You can store Projects and Templates in as many places you like and set the directories in this dialog Project Manager Settings Projects Directory E Bilder 0707 fdr Browse Templates Directory C Users andreas Forprojects Browse Many Projects grouping criterion EY 60 E Maximal difference in creation time sec O 2 E Number of images Prepare Projects Develop RAW images Align images GUI 5 Project number of thumbnails per row Defaults Save Cancel Dialog Project Manager Settings 5 1 Proj
51. other Postprocessing controls see Simplex 2 2 TM method Simplex Simplex implements the simplest possible tone mapping algorithm the HDR image is linearly mapped to the output EV range Though this method attenuates contrast and details it works fast It s suited to get an overview of the scene and 1s useful when editing the HDR image e g with manual alignment E Kirchberg TM FDRTools Advanced olaaa FDRTools Projects Images Windows Help 1 5 i ar r di e IM r E Identity EJEA Receptor Compressor Defaults Postprocessing vilo Exposure 8 0 Dynamic Range 000 U Black Point 0 00 White Point Left axis scaling Linear Logarithmic Curve point linkage Spline Line 1 00 a Saturation The Simplex dialog Button Defaults Resets all parameters to their default values Postprocessing applies to all tone mappers Slider Exposure Shifts the output EV range up down This corresponds to changing the exposure settings of a camera Slider Dynamic Range Widens narrows the output EV range Use this to adapt to the dynamic range of the output device Slider Black Point Widens narrows the left end of the input EV range Slider White Point Widens narrows the right end of the input EV range Curve and Histogram The curve maps the EV range of the tone mapped image bottom axis to an adjustable output EV range right axis Adjusting the curve using knots you can
52. perture or focus settings or combinations of these images taken under different lighting conditions like dusk and dawn photos flashed images or even images with totally different content Creative works similiar to layer composition in Photoshop or GIMP but without the limited intensity range 8 or 16 bits per channel Hence Creative is categorised as HDR creation method 2 3 4 xDOF xDOF combines differently focused photos into an HDR image with greater depth of focus In contrast to the Creative module that allows to select contrasty regions from the source images and thus yields the effect of greater depth of focus xDOF implements a specialised algorithm for this task 2 4 Tone Mapping A well done HDR image should only have well exposed pixels 1 e there should not be any overexposed or noisy pixels However an HDR image can t be displayed properly on common media like monitors or photographic prints It is therefore necessary to compress the dynamic range of such an HDR image FDRTools provides you with three differing methods to accomplish this tone mapping process Tone Mapping Module zur Tonemapping 2 4 1 Identity This method does an identity mapping The result of this method hence is the HDR image itself This method 1s used to inspect and save the HDR image 20 Workflow overview 2 4 2 Simplex This 1s a simple tone mapper that is used to get a fast overview of the image A disadvantage 1s that 1t yields p
53. ries of tutorials that explain how to use FDRTools Quick start guide is for all photographers who have never used FDRTools before Processing an exposure series and getting a result from it is demonstrated by means of a series of provided images You can find further and more detailed information in the complete manual 2 Installation The installation procedure depends on the used operating system e Windows Double click the downloaded installer file An assistant will guide you through the installation process A link to the executable will be created on your desktop e OS X When the download has finished a Finder window opens up showing the FDRTools folder Drag the folder to your preferred destination You will find the executable FDRTools within the folder FDRTools 3 Starting the program FDRTools is started like any normal Windows or Mac program When starting it the first time the user interface looks like this PDR Took Advanced FORToots Frojeke Bilder Fenster Hille FDRTools user interface on initial start Please note that FDRTools user interface consists of several windows e Main window hosts all functionality modules loading of source images processing exposure series and saving results e Navigator Preview window for displaying and processing of HDR and tone mapped results e Tools window displays tools for individual image processing Quick start guide e Exif Info window displays Exif and other m
54. rofile if available This overrides the manually configured profile above 63 Preferences 6 File Formats Devices 21116129 Raw Conversion Directories Gui Settings Dialog file formats File Format A file format supported by FDRTools Image Compression A compression scheme supported by the selected file format 7 Raw Conversion Use camera white balance if possible w _ 65535 Overwrite preset saturation Don t clip colors H 1 Highlight R interpolate RGGB as four colors f _ Half size color image h read RAW files with tif extension AHD Set the interpolation quality q Wide RGB a Set the output color space 0 Note gamma is 1 0 and illuminant is D65 for all color spaces Dialog raw conversion Average the whole image for white balance Calculates the white balance correction factors by averaging the whole image In general this method is not recommended Use camera white balance if possible Utilizes the values calculated by the camera if available 64 Preferences Overwrite preset saturation level DCRAW has internal presets for the overexposure limits Beyond these values a color channel is regarded saturated In general the preset values are right However certain camera models seem to show a strong variation of the saturation levels among individual cameras One example is the Canon 40D If the true saturation value of the camera is below the preset value this res
55. rtefacts caused by slightly misaligned images Separation also yields optimal results in the shadow and highlight regions of a scene While Average and Separation are specialised in merging exposure series of a statically illuminated scene the Creative method allows for seamless merging of any kind of imagery especially images with changing lighting in terms of position intensity and spectrum of the light sources The result of the blending procedure can be steered in a very flexible way See chapter Chapter 7 for more information on Creative 13 Quick start guide Images Windows Help SEELEN separation Creative Average EEE Creative C Color Dreieck2 A Defaults Auto Exit T Separation Mask Min Lumi Min Lumi 62081 47 Max Lumi 4890 05 Max Lumi 1223 oynamitbereich 1247 Dynamic Range MI Einbinden E as Exposure Transition Range ES 3 00 Anchor Image Opscity Moise suppression amp Include WE Ref Anchor 15 4 rel EW rel EW The HDRI Creation dialog 5 10 Tone Mapping By compressing tonal values Tone Mapping maps a HDR image with high dynamic range to an image with a dynamic range that can be reproduced completely on any monitor or printer Lots of tone mapping methods have been invented each of them producing characteristic results In the main window choose the Tone Mapping dialog and then one of the methods Receptor or Compressor For this tutorial the parameters were adjusted as follo
56. s flag car person l in Yorschau 100 4 i T x 1036 71436 R 26368 00 6 31488 00 B 40192 00 Preview window Inspecting the resulting image using the Preview reveals that the images are not yet perfectly aligned Here the area around the steeple shows some horizontal and vertical shift Manual correction is best done in an image by image manner First right click into the layer browser This opens a pop up menu choose Exclude all from the menu All layers are excluded from processing yielding a black result Now Include image by image starting with the first and second image and then alternately adjusting the shift sliders and including the next image until all images are properly aligned 30 Chapter 7 Creating HDR images 1 Preliminary note This chapter tells how you can create an image with high dynamic range a so called HDRI from a series of differently exposed photos FDRTools implement several methods for HDRI creation Each method covers an other aspect of this subject You can switch among the methods by choosing one of the tabs Average Separation or Creative in the HDRI Creation module 2 HDR method Average Average calculates the HDR image as a weighted sum of the source images This is simple and works automatically but has the disadvantage of creating so called ghosts with moving objects Ghosts are e g persons moving through the scene and showing up in several photos When mixing the photos these
57. s Images Windows Help 5 r E f En A Open Alignment HDR Creation Tone Mapping Save Identity Simplex Receptor Compressor Defaults Tonemapping 15 0 a Compression 50 Brightness Postprocessing leo QU Esposure so __ Dynamic Range 000 Black Point 0 00 O JWnite Point 10 Ei it Left axis scaling Y Linear gt Logarithmic Curve point linkage amp Spline Line 10 Saturation The Receptor dialog Button Defaults Resets all parameters to their default values 2 3 1 Tone Mapping Switch Compression Regulates the dynamic compression Switch Brightness Regulates the image brightness For a description of the Postprocessing controls see Simplex 41 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing 2 4 TM method Compressor The Compressor algorithm works as follows the intensity of each pixel is regulated individually and depends on the intensities of neighbouring pixels If neighbouring pixels differ strongly in their respective intensity e g in the surroundings of a strong light source then these differences are strongly attenuated Where the differences are small e g in shadowy areas there is little or no attenuation evtl the difference is even increased As a result the dynamic range of the HDR image is strongly reduced while local tonal value differences are preserved Local contrast and thus the perceptibility of details are considerably improved compared to global to
58. seen airline 18 23 Ce al ne HOR TINGS ae Eds 19 DA Lone SAA la 20 A O A A SETS URNA NER O 21 4 Project Mamas eMe ail 22 ba USC 22 2e WONTON A ee ren Tee ea clas aa ee en arti 22 5 le mentsioL a PO co caia 22 Ac OVELVI CW DEOJeECL Mana Cement ia NASAS SSE AAA RR ass 23 Sf Dialog Project Manager Sell 108 lele Hessen 24 9 1 Pr9jecL Directory ra een une 24 Si As zarte 25 5 0 Many Projects roupins ChHlenion asian 25 52 Prepare LLO CCAS ri E A a 25 O e td oa artis 25 ODIOS MES DA paths Xe ae ea Reese 25 Chapter 1 Preface HDR photography 1 HDR photography why and what for Digital photography is fun Digital photography would be even more fun without those reiterative exposure problems Annoyingly they occur especially in situations where light is most beautiful for instance on days with crystal clear air cloudless sky and bright sunshine Digital cameras simply can t cope with the very intensive interplay of light and shadow Consequences are overexposure in light image areas and or strong noise in dark areas Correct exposure is often impossible Cause for this nuisance is the technical imperfection of todays digital cameras A thing the human eye manages effortlessly the clean visualization of even the greatest intensity differences without overexposure or noise is utterly impossible for a digital camera The following consideration shows a way out of this unsatisfying situation what is impossible w th one
59. stics of the tone mapping algorithms It is a night scene Night scenes are especially hard to handle because usually they are high dynamic range and prone to noise Nearly always there are very dark areas that can hardly be exposed free from noise Noise is a problem when tone mapping with Compressor Compressor does not distinguish noisy pixels from clean pixels Therefore noisy pixels gain contrast too and hence gain perceptibility For this reason the tone mapping example deals not only with tone mapping itself but also with the preparation namely the creation of a noise free HDR image 46 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing 3 1 HDR image E FDRTools Advanced FORTools Projects Images Windows Help a Projects One Templates Name Created Modified Kirchberg HOR 05 01 2011 06 01 2011 2 Prepare Edit Render Kirchberg Noise Reduction 05 01 2011 05 01 2011 Prepare Edit Render Kirchberg TM 05 01 2011 06 01 2011 Prepare Edit Render I Night shot projects The possibly strong noise in night scenes is caused by a low signal to noise ratio in very dark image areas like the night sky Even quite long exposure does not yield a measurable signal because there is simply not enough light the background noise of the camera electronics pr
60. ter results in terms of local contrast and detail reproduction Local tone mapping algorithms usually also allow for more influence on the look of the tone mapped result 1 2 Natural and creative Tone Mapping Usually the goal of tone mapping 1s to produce a natural looking LDR low dynamic range image from an HDR image that may be displayed on LDR media However tone mapping algorithms and here especially local tone mappers like other forms of digital image manipulation also allow for creative manipulation of HDR images resulting in quite expressive looking results When exaggerated tone mapping can even produce unsightly results The following figure shows a scene that has been tone mapped in two ways while the image to the left looks quite natural the right hand side image creates a dramatising effect Natural vs dramatising tone mapping 1 3 Tone Mapping and panorama photography HDR imaging and tone mapping techniques are especially important in panorama photography This is because the large field of view captured in a panorama often results in huge intensity differences caused by strong light sources e g sun in the scene As a consequence the captured scene becomes a HDR scene and should be handled 38 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing accordingly When tone mapping a panorama with a local tone mapping algorithm the projection of the panorama should be taken into account in order to avoid wrong results at the horizontal a
61. the contrast of colored regions This is best demonstrated with an example image see fig Compressor Color Contrast Note that the brightness of colored regions varies considerably with the slider value while the effect on grey regions 1s negligible Slider Smoothing Regulates the definition of image details Low values yield less defined details especially large scale details are less defined High values result in well defined image details the result will have smooth transitions Using an analogy to painting one could also describe the effect of this slider as regulating the covering application of paint Clicking the toggle button to the left opens an additional control Curve Smoothing gt Frequency This curve lets you control Smoothing with respect to frequency bands The x axis ranges over the frequency components beginning with lowest frequencies Low frequencies stand for large scale features while high frequencies stand for fine details For a description of the Postprocessing controls see Simplex 43 Tone Mapping and Postprocessing vor Compressor Color Contrast 2 4 2 How to avoid halos and spots The Compressor tone mapper sometimes produces so called halos and or spots Halos are seams along edges appearing umnaturally bright Spots are regions appearing unnatural dark or bright Spots result in a patchy 1lluminated image look It depends on the scene and the Compressor parameter settings whether such artefacts
62. tif and press the Open button A project is created n FDRTools Advanced f CE x EDRTools Projects Images Windows Help Prepare SR FDRTools main window project overview with a single project Y ou should give a speaking name to your project as can be seen in the example project By pressing the Edit button the program switches to the editor view at the same time hiding the project view Quick start guide 5 1 Processing and Tone Mapping The toolbar functions Alignment and HDRI Creation have a meaning only when processing a series of images they are not of interest at this point Switch to the Tone Mapping module straight away FDRTools offer four tone mapping methods By far the most important tone mapper is named Compressor It allows for contrast enhancing as well as dramatising effects The other methods are useful primarily with exposure series um my first project FORTools Advanced je pt im FORTools Projects Images Windows Help 832 52 2 2 Identity Simplex Receptor EE Defaults Tonemapping 23 Y Compression P bo QO Contrast hoof Color Contrast gt to 0 smoothing Postprocessing oo Exposure 8 0 Dynamic Range 33 Black Point 0 9 H White Point Left axis scaling Linear Logarithmic Curve point linkage Spline Line 150 Saturation FDRTools main window processing a single image 5 2 Saving the result Images gt Sav
63. ting Exif available only with RAW images the exposure value is extracted from the Exif data Switch Separation mask Highlights the intensity areas of the selected layers that contribute to the HDR image see example below Below these controls there is a histogram display The histogram displays the intensity spectrum of the resulting HDR image To the right are the measured values for minimal and maximal luminance Below is the image dynamic range in EV units calculated from minimal and maximal luminance Note the stated dynamic range value is an estimation calculated from the pixels of the Navigator image Slider Exposure Transition Range If visible seams should show up along the separation boundaries then this switch allows to specify an intensity area where pixels are blended Slider Anchor Image Opacity not yet implemented correct Regler Noise suppression not yet implemented correct Below these sliders the source images are listed as layers The following parameters steer the influence of a layer on the result Switch Include When activated green the layer is included in the calculation of the result otherwise the layer is ignored Switch WA Ref Specifies a white balance reference image When specifying an image as white balance reference the program tries to adapt the white balance of the other images to the white balance of the reference image Switch Anchor not yet implemented correct rel EV The rel
64. ults in pink colored highlights In this case the saturation value can be lowered manually until the pink highlights disappear More information is available from Guillermo Luijk http www guillermoluijk com tutorial dcraw index_en htm Don t clip colors Usually the highlights are clipped to the saturation value This can be switched off This normally results in pink colored highlights see also FAQ http fdrtools com faq_e php 105 Highlight Recovery With unclipped highlights it is possible to recover details from useable information within the unsaturated red channel This method makes sense only in case of an emergency e g if only a single RAW image is available An exposure series is always preferable and yields optimal quality Interpolate RGGB as four colors This option is required by certain camera models Half size color image Four pixels are combined into one This results in an image of half width and heisht accelerating RAW decoding and further processing within FDRTools read RAW files with tif extension CAUTION this option adds TIFF to the list of file extensions recognized by DCRAW Do not check this unless your camera produces RAW files with tif extension like the Canon 1Ds Reading normal TIFFs with this option enabled may yield unexpected results Set the interpolation quality e Bilinear fast suboptimal quality e VNG Variable Number of Gradients interpolation e PPG Patterned Pixel Grouping int
65. uminated cage appears brighter but less detailed compared to Simplex On the other hand the contrast increases in the lower and medium tonal value ranges Compressor yields a well balanced result All areas of the scene are sufficiently bright Even details of the wheelhouse of the car in the front see the overview image are recognizable However good contrast and hence details are preserved over the full tonal value spectrum The resulting image looks quite natural 52 Chapter 9 Saving the results 1 HDR File Formats A HDR image is an attempt to reconstruct the intensities of the real scene like our eye would recognize them An optimal HDR image therefore comprises the full dynamic range of a scene in uncompressed form In general a HDR image can not be saved lossless in a 8 bit data format Lossless storage in general requires a floating point data format FDRTools supports the floating point formats OpenEXR RGBE and TIFF FP floating point We recommend the OpenEXR data format for the saving of HDR images 2 LDR File Formats Tone mapping compresses the dynamic range of a scene in a way that the resulting image can be saved in an ordinary 8 bit or 16 bit integer data format Such formats like JPEG are denoted as LDR low dynamic range formats The most important ones are TIFF 16 bit and JPEG Because FDRTools is not designed to be a full fledged image editor the resulting LDR images are in general further processed in an external im
66. with the example images and choose data type Generic JPEG Choose images 0 jpg to 2 jpg and press the Open button A project is created 10 Quick start guide me FDR Tools Advanced EDRTools Projekte Bilder Fenster Hilfe FDRTools main window project overview Press the Edit button to open the project with the editor The exposure series 1s loaded to the editor for processing Choose Images gt Orientation gt Rotate 90 degrees CCW to give the images the right orientation e a st ee epee F r RT gx Adva perni Harms GE A a mi ae TOLSE Ca SLAME FL 3 A A AA en EDRTools Projects MmMages Windows Help Include selected Include all Exclude selected Exclude all Ctrl A le Ctrl D Rotate 180 degrees Flip Horizontal Flip Vertical 1 2 rel EV 11 Quick start guide FDRTools main window project editor view 5 6 Intermediate result The images are processed automatically using default parameters The intermediate result is then shown in the Navigator window UN A a gt E vd Fr a edi F FDRTools Navigator window 5 7 Optimisation Automatic processing comprises the following steps e Alignment e HDRI Creation e Tone Mapping When automatic processing is finished you can refine the settings and adapt the result to your taste 5 8 Alignment When taking bracketed exposures there 1s a chance that the single exposures are somewhat misaligned even if you use a tripod
67. ws 14 Quick start guide E House Carstanjen FDRTools Advanced Em E House Carstanjen FDRTools Advanced FDRTools Projects Images Windows Help FDRTools Projects Images Windows Help LS ELSIE Identity Simplex pte Compressor Identity Simplex Receptor Compressor Defaults Defaults Tonemapping Tonemapping 110 0 Ol Compression 30 Compression 19 Brigniness MiA contrast Postprocessing 5 0 Color Contrast los I vosure PECO Smoothing U Dynamic Range 20 0 Black Point J White Point meo Exposure Postprocessing Black Point Left axis scaling Linear gt Logarithmic Curve point linkage Spline Line 1 30 Saturation Left axis scaling amp Linear gt Logarithmic Curve point linkage Spline Line Saturation The Tone Mapping dialog The tone mapped image is displayed in the Navigator window By means of tonal value compression we have converted an HDR image into a contrasty image that shows all details of the scene and is suited for display on conventional media like monitor or photographic paper 6 Saving the result Images gt Save as saves the result First you determine the file format that shall be used to save the resulting image Here we have chosen TIFF 16 Name the result and press the Save button Now the Save image dialog shows up Start the image generation by pressing the Save button 15 Quick start guide EDRTools Projects Images Windows He
68. yers rel EV The relative exposure value of an image is displayed here as an information 3 HDR method Separation Separation unlike the Average method does not mix the pixels of the source images Instead the image is assembled from several intensity ranges Each source image contributes one intensity range All resulting pixels within this intensity range emanate from the respective source image an exception to this rule is the exposure transition range see below Separating the intensity areas allows to suppress ghosts in scenes with moving onjects in a simple yet often successful manner Further it allows optimal suppression of noise Both aspects are described in more detail below he Bernkastel Torbogen FORT ons Adwanced EbRTools Projects images Windows Help el Average Separation 3 Tone Mapping AA _Detauits Auto CE Separakon last 21 9272 k n Lumi 3327 A Mus Lema bo 1026 Oyama Range a8 UU gon Tranition Range The Separation dialog Controls and buttons impacting all images are located in the upper part of the dialog 32 Creating HDR images Button Defaults Resets all parameters to their default values Switch Exposure info Average needs to know about the exposure of the source images With setting Auto the relative exposure values of the source images are calculated from the pixel data of the source images With set

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