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Challenge: DR compression

Lars

Active member
A recurring problem in photography is to compress the dynamic range of reality into something printable. I'm sure we all have faced this numerous time. Some approaches include ND grads, negative film with a long toe, HDR merge, and various image processing workflows.

I propose a challenge for us to post our best results in compressing DR in an image. Not a competition, but more to let us compare approaches and results.

Simple "Rules":
- Color photos only (color is more of a difficulty than B&W)
- Post source image as well as final image
- Tell us how much of a challenge you faced in the lighting conditions, and how you handled it.

I got the idea after noticing Graham Welland's "Cow Bikers & Sunset" in the image gallery:



Beautiful photo, obviously the DR is enormous, shooting straight into the sun. The camera (digital Leica?) handled the transition to blown highlights nicely without being able to actually show the outline of the sun (which is probably 5-15 stops overexposed). Lens coating performance is also remarkable. That is one clean lens.

I'll post my own favorite high-contrast image here soon.

Lars
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Hi Lars:

This is a topic we discussed at length on our Yosemite workshop. Here is the exemplar image I worked up in the demo for the participants. Note that I hand blended two separate exposures, though the technique can work for one raw file processed two different ways:

First is the image exposed to hold the sky:




Next is the image exposed for the foreground (about 2 stops more exposure plus an extra 1/2 at raw conversion than the sky image):



I then blend and mask these two images in CS to get this result. (Note that this blended file has been fully worked, so has localised brightness and contrast adjustments as well as global hue, saturation and output curve adjustments:



What we end up with is basically an SND filter after-the-fact whose contour is "tunable" to the elements of the specific image we are working...

Cheers,
 

Lars

Active member
Here is a sunset photo from Australia - when I saw Graham's biker photo I noticed the similar lighting. It was captured on Velvia 50, obviously exposed for the highlights - I seem to recall that I spotmetered the sand in the center left and placed that at zone 5, but I'm not sure. To handle the contrast range I used a 3-stop hard edge ND grad. This works well in the sun and sky but towards the right side of the beach the ND grad is noticeable. I also used an upside-down coral grad to warm up the sand, as any horizontal surface is mostly blue at sunset.



Next I digitally adjusted exposure by about 2.5 stops, limited to darker areas. Total compression should then be in the range of about 4-6 stops, compared to the actual scene (this does not include compression by overexposing highlights and letting the film handle that). Here is the result:



There are some things going on with saturation in the breakwater, and as mentioned earlier the upper right has lost all detail in the shade. Apart from that I think it's pretty good, with the foreground transitioning nicely into the reflection of the sun in the breakwater and all the way into the sunset. (the frame seen is the film holder in my scanner).

Lars
 
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Lars

Active member
Jack, are you sure it's just two plus 1/2 stops difference between the two exposures? it looks like a lot more. Joey says it's more like 4 stops. Perhaps some contrast adjustments were present in the raw conversion.
 

PeterA

Well-known member
The challenge in HDR printed images is to make the viewer of the printed image comfortable with the unnatural look - 99% of the time ( to my eye anyway) it is a challenge that cant be met.
The challenge isn't a technical challenge - it is a matter of aesthetic.
Fir example - Jack's technically great presentation to my eye would have been much better with a much more subtle treatment of the foreground - the shot is to me more bout the drama in the sky as framed by the foreground and slopes than teh detail in the foreground.
it is always dangerous ground to comment on other people's aesthetic preference - usually I avoid it - but HDR is an 'in your face trickery' that I don't have much emotional sympathy for in most cases.
Understanding teh techniques though is a valuable exercise for photographers to master.
 

Lars

Active member
Peter,
Forget the "HDR" moniker for a while - how do you control contrast range when photographing? It's not really about digital solutions in particular - photographers have been dodging & burning, using flash and diffusers for a hundred years.
Lars
 

PeterA

Well-known member
Lars - what you say regarding photographers' penchant for embracing artifice is a to a large extent a function of managing the perceived limitations of teh capture medium technologies they had to deal with.
The imposition of technical cliche and artifice however - has not really added much to the aesthetic of the appreciation of photography.
Now how do I handle 'contrast'? - a good question - mostly I embrace it and underline it - when that is important to the emotional impact of a shot.
Regarding dodging and burning - I guess a lot of people can have a lot of fun - dressing up mutton as if it were lamb -:)
Maybe I say these things - because of my personal taste at the moment -the same reason why I find landscape shooting to be the hardest thing anyone could do - unless their ambition was to be a good postcard shooter and that formula is boringly easy.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Jack, are you sure it's just two plus 1/2 stops difference between the two exposures? it looks like a lot more. Joey says it's more like 4 stops. Perhaps some contrast adjustments were present in the raw conversion.
Actually, closer to 2-1/4. First image was taken at 1/90th f8, second at 1/20th f8. I bumped the second image maybe +1/3 stop in the raw converter, so that gets us to approximately 2-1/2 stops total difference. Anyway, I did also do a *LOT* of selective editing in the final, so depending on what you are actually measuring, Joey could easily show 4 stops total difference. The bushes in the lower right and flora in the mid-ground are the obvious ones for added selective brightness, and then some global adjustments after that --- just compare bright areas in the final to the lighter or the two base images.

PS: Lars, you'll be happy to know I did it all in CS3 ;)
 

Lars

Active member
Peter,
I was hoping with this thread to have a "how" discussion. Another topic is of course the "why" discussion, which as you point out is partly about aesthetics.

Jack,
I did my edit using Joey ;)
(Had size it down using PS so metadata says Photoshop)
 
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PeterA

Well-known member
oh my sincere apologies - you may find 'value' then in my post regarding Lightzone - it is a far less tedious workflow than any incarceration of photoshop regarding the practical aspects of DR etc..for exactly the pur[oses you are examining.

Cheers
Pete
 

Lars

Active member
Thanks Pete, no worries. I think LightZone was a good first attempt - we did break some new ground. We could have taken it much further but Fabio wanted to put most of our efforts into raw conversion. This lead us into a position where we competed by price rather than by functionality. Without much revenue we ran out of funding and most of the staff was laid off last year.
Lars
 

PeterA

Well-known member
So the lightzone thing is a no go then? How disappointing - I think it is a fantastic approach to darkroom work. I am very sad to hear it..

Jack - dont hold your punches man - let em rip we are big boys down here mate -:)
 

Lars

Active member
Peter - I think the company might still be alive, Fabio burned through some more funding this year but it doesn't seem to have improved the product much (some feature changes actually made it worse, but then again Fabio and I had different views on photography from the start - he's a scientist). My personal opinion, of course.

Anyway, I've been busy working on my own product for a while, I showed Jack a prototype some months ago. It's a while more before any public beta but I think it's safe to say that there is still lots of room for innovation in the digital darkroom field :).

Jack - by all means, rip away! ;)

Lars
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Peter:

My part of the LightZone story isn't really very exciting. I was part of a focus group early in the product cycle. They were supposedly looking for input (and funding). This was where I first met Lars, got to see some of his work and instantly saw he was an excellent photographer! Anyway, one of the principles was discussing the product and I asked a few questions he couldn't answer, so he asked Lars to demo it for me. As Lars was doing the demo, I made three or four suggestions on things I'd like to see it modified to do a certain way and have a few simple features added. Lars said these were great suggestions, mention them to the principle. I did and it became clear in about three seconds that this guy knew next to nothing about digital photography and even less about traditional photography. Moreover, he didn't know anything about his main competitor at the time, Photoshop. (He did know some buzz words and I guess that's all he felt he needed to know to run a digital imaging product company...) I attempted a second time to explain why these features would be important to a photographer, but he literally cut me off and shifted to his mantra about focusing all of their energies on developing solid RAW conversion platform and weren't really interested in changing program features at this time. He totally turned me off. Little did he know I had done my share of fundraising for start-ups and had several possible sources of funding for them. At any rate, as far as I was concerned he shut that door at that first meeting. But Lars pulled me aside and said not to give up, use the program and he'd discuss my suggestions with the owner. He was optimistic some of my suggestions might ultimately get implemented as they'd be easy to implement and were clearly good ideas. I tried the product back then and found three serious flaws in the first 5 minutes, gave up totally and decided I'd never go back until they "fixed" my issues.

Almost a year later, Lars and I are independently asked to co-lead on a workshop led by a mutual friend. Here we really got a chance to know each other, and the short version is we've been friends ever since. LZ had not really implemented anything new during that year other than keeping current with the raw conversion explosion. Lars said the writing was on the wall and that he'd probably be leaving soon. Shortly thereafter, he and LightZone parted ways, and with that separation I stopped following the company as I knew it would simply fade away over time.

I've got to take my daughter to school, so I'll come back and finish with part 2 in a bit.

Part 2.

This is where the story gets interesting, but please understand I am not comfortable saying too much at this stage and will leave it up to Lars to fill in as he sees fit. Several months after Lars left LZ, he met with me to show me what he'd been working on and I've been on his advisory board ever since. In short, Joey is an entirely new concept for image editing, nothing like Photoshop or LZ, and extremely intuitive to use. Not only that, Lars has implemented some clever programming tricks that make it really fast even with large files on a laptop computer... It is clearly a product designed for photographers by somebody who knows something about photography --- how refreshing is that!

Joey will not have a raw converter so you'll need to use Lightroom, C1 or whatever, and it will only have simple print output, so you'll need a printing program or RIP for serious image output. But let's face it: Now that the raw converters allow for such good initial global image adjustments, most of us already use that workflow anyway --- RAW processor > Image editor > RIP --- and time spent in the IE has been reduced pretty much to where we only need it for selective adjustments. IMO, Joey promises to fill this middle step far better than anything we've had available to date :D
 

PeterA

Well-known member
Well Jack - that is a very interesting background - thanks for that. The thing I like about LZ is the use of teh idea of zone, and relight and the elegant selection tool. Some of te canned effects are pretty good.
I am shocked to hear about "Fabio's'? response to suggestions - usually good business people are all ears and closed mouth -:)
Well I look forward to what Lars is working on and I am glad you are involved. I think the world is ready for debloating as far as image processing goes.
Regarding workflow I think that you ar eon teh right track with regards to avoiding raw processing if it ads too much complexity cost. Regarding PRINTING SOFTWARE - that is teh new frontier as far as I am concerned ( after a LZ or better product) I am so irritated with clunky Japanese software and lack of manuals ( read Canon especially) fantastic prints - but hopeless documentation and manuals..
Anyway thanks for the background - chalk me in for beta testing if you like Jack/Lars, I haev had some extensive involvement in GUI design over the years - in high end financial software etc..- I could be the idiot user test -:)
Good Luck to both of you.
 

Lars

Active member
Jack - thanks for the summary re Joey.

Joey is not yet ready for a beta, or even a technology preview. It has some really neat stuff (that Jack hasn't seen :D), but the issue of completeness should not be underrated. Joey is now a great demo but I wouldn't let anyone else drive just yet - the wheels might fall off at the first turn, so to speak. I'm just about getting to the confidence level of posting images produced by Joey here.

There are some possibilities on the raw converter side. Windows has the concept of an image codec which is a plugin program for the OS that interprets a binary file of a specific format into an image so apps can read that file. Using codecs Joey can now read for example NEF and DNG files directly, all I had to do was install the codecs and include those extensions in my file list. However, the Nikon NEF codec only shows the image as it came from the camera, and the third-party DNG codec does the same, ignores any CR/LR edits. If Adobe would release a DNG codec that fully interprets DNG with corrections then an editor could plug straight into a raw workflow without any need for integration on the workflow tool - no need to render an intermediate tif file. I think this will happen some day.

Anyway, this should give some perspective as to my interest in this topic. Always an ulterior motive hehe.
 
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PeterA

Well-known member
Lars - I suspect Adobe will eventually integrate Lightroom and CS - the lightroom database ( idea) is probably useful as the front end for all sorts of Adobe files no? As the database improves - I suspect you will lsee greater integration - what is the point of Adobe Raw now? ( accessed through 'Bridge" - it only exists because Lightroom isn't integrated...( yet)
 
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