HDR Video Tutorial – Coming Down

Hey everybody… I’m only leaving the HDR Video Tutorial up for a few more days before I bring it down forever. It will never be available again… If you want to grab it, now’s your last chance!

It will replaced very soon with something even better… but just in case you wanted the existing one, I wanted to give you fair warning.

Daily Photo – The Black Rock

When I was in Big Sur spending a few days at the Post Ranch Inn, my wife and I ended up spending some time with Anton Lorimer.

Anton was down filming a new video for SmugMug, which I’ll share here when it’s finished. Since I get about 1 million photo views a week from SmugMug, they wanted to feature me in their new video. BTW, if you want to know more about it all, see my SmugMug Review, or try them out for free…if you sign up, STUCKINCUSTOMS code saves you 20%, btw…

You can see Anton’s existing SmugMug video on his site. He does really elegant work, nice editing, and puts together a tight little story. I had him film a little bit “extra” stuff with me, and I’ve encouraged him and SmugMug to put together an extended behind-the-scenes video. Let’s hope he does it!

One of the places I wanted to visit was this amazing beach not too far from the inn. I planned on getting there early so I would have time to set up. We got there a little too early, and the sun was too high in the sky. But we still took time to check out the scene. It was hellishly windy, but I did grab a this shot below before we retreated to a nearby cafe to get some hot chocolate before returning for the sunset. The sunset gave us some amazing light for a crazy ocean sunset, but I’ll save that for a future day…. Maybe when that new video comes out!

Filed under the categories: Big Sur, California, Nikon D3X

Note on Photomatix Pro 4.0

If you want to get Photomatix, use the Photomatix Coupon Code STUCKINCUSTOMS to save the most money). You can download it from the HDRSoft website.

Adobe Photoshop CS5 is available.  I own it and think it is amazing.  If you want to buy it, or get a free trial, you can see if you can get a good special offers from Adobe on that link.

New to HDR?

If you are new to HDR, you can enjoy my friendly, easy-to-use HDR Tutorial.  I’ve taught tens of thousands around the world how to do it… I’m sure I can teach you too!  The tutorial is free!

Quick Verdict

Photomatix Pro 4.0 is the clear winner.  Photoshop CS5 Merge to HDR is much better than CS4, and it has a few redeeming qualities.

Advantages of Photomatix Pro 4.0:

• Faster (MUCH FASTER – see the chart below)
• Upgraded noise-reduction just for HDR
• Better ghosting control
• and more image control for higher quality images

Advantages of Photoshop CS5 Merge to HDR Pro:

• Having one integrated solution right inside Photoshop
• Easier to learn because there are less controls

Photoshop CS5 vs. Photomatix Pro Comparison

* Photoshop CS5 Gives you a warning about not using JPG photos to make an HDR.  You have to click “OK”, but I did not include that wait time in my timings.

Test Subjects and System: I chose a 7-exposure session from a lake at sunset near Nikko, Japan.  The exposures ranged from -3 to +3.  I shot them with a Nikon D3X a few weeks ago. I have a speedy 17″ MacBook Pro.  I bought it about 9 months ago — the specs are to the right. In the Photoshop CS5 test, the only things running were Photoshop CS5 (in 64-bit mode), Bridge CS5, and Skitch for taking screenshots.   In the Photomatix Pro test, I kept those running + Photomatix Pro.

Special Conditions:

Now, the Photoshop Merge to HDR Pro option does not allow me to turn on and off Auto-Alignment, Cropping, or anything else.  Normally, I turn that off in Photomatix because I use a tripod. To keep the tests fair, I turned on the Align Source Images, Cropping, and Reduce Noise in Photomatix Pro. That way, it was doing the same tasks as Photoshop.  

However, in my normal conditions, I don’t have those turned on, which makes Photomatix even faster. Also, as you can see I processed with RAW and JPG files. I preach in my HDR Tutorial that using JPGs is just fine.  I don’t see any difference in quality. But, I do notice that JPGs are much faster. This is important!

Overall Speed

In these tests, Photomatix Pro 4.0 was much much faster.  There’s almost no comparison. Photomatix Pro processed the images in 1:05 — Photoshop CS5 did the same job in 2:48.  It was more than twice as fast!

There are two intense “Computer Processing” periods. The first is when you load the images into the program.  After this is done, the human takes over and adjusts the sliders.  Then there is a second period of processing.

I will discuss each of them in turn now.

Speed – Loading the Images

Photoshop CS5 Merge to HDR was slow.  Painfully slow!  

During the loading of the images, it give a few indications of why it is so slow.  After a period of time it says “Aligning”.  Then, after another bit, it says. “Transforming”.  Then for another longer period, it says “Crop”.  I did not touch the computer at all during this time…  I kept the timer on my iPhone going to watch. In these tests, the only thing I had running was Photoshop CS5 and Bridge CS5.  This is not typical.  Note that I am usually running Google Chrome, Tweetdeck, Mail, and iTunes for music.  So all the times you see in the chart are actually much higher, and the delta between CS5 and Photomatix Pro grows even more.

Note that I do not think there is a way to turn off the automatic aligning of images, stretching of images, and subsequent cropping. If you could disable that, I am sure Photoshop would be faster.

There is another feature that I did not test — the “batching” of images. I know this functionality very well in Photomatix. I am sure you can make scripts to do this in Photoshop, but I do not know how. If you know any easy way to batch load in HDR images and process them, let me know (I don’t think you can).

My first broken test: What I had running in the background for all the tests before the reboot:

• Tweetdeck
• Google Chrome with about 6 tabs (gmail, websites, nothing too taxing)
• iTunes playing music
• Photoshop CS5
• Bridge CS5
• Apple Mail & iCal
• Skitch

The first time I ran it with Merge to HDR Pro, it took 6:05 (six minutes and five seconds) to load.  Just amazingly slow!  Then, I thought, “Well, I do have it in 32-bit mode,” since I was also running some old plugins.  So I tried it again in 64-bit mode.  I shut down Photoshop and re-opened.  Then I did the Merge to HDR Pro option through Bridge again.  The second time it took 13:10.  THIRTEEN MINUTES.  I was just about to Force Quit the program — I was sure something was wrong!  How can this be — in 64-bit mode?  Isn’t it supposed to be faster?

So I decided to reboot and try again. I was worried that maybe there had been a memory leak or something had just gummed up the works.  Because thirteen minutes just didn’t make sense!  Now, I am using big images from a Nikon D3X.  And these were RAW files, but that still seems like way too long… After I rebooted, I loaded NO OTHER PROGRAMS expect for Photoshop CS5, Bridge CS5, and Skitch.  I did not like doing this for the test, because this is not a “normal” environment for me. I usually have several things running.  This time, it was much faster and clocked in at 1:54.  

After this, I decided to restart the whole test and have nothing else running to keep the results as clean as possible.

Speed – Processing the Images

After you make your slider changes, you can process them.  There is a period of waiting whilst the image processes.  Again, Photomatix Pro was not just a little faster, but way faster.

For the RAW files, Photomatix Pro took an average of 8 seconds and Photoshop CS5 Merge to HDR Pro took a whopping 51 seconds (two tests at :50 and :52). And remember… I wasn’t doing anything else on the computer… I wasn’t checking the mail or tweeting or anything… just watching the water boil…

Photo Quality and Control

I’ve been using previous versions of Photomatix for years, so I am familiar with the sliders.  Because I am a private tester, Photomatix would not allow me to post screenshots of the new GUI.  However, it is very similar to previous versions.

The new Photoshop CS5 Merge to HDR Pro dialogs are very similar to that of Photomatix Pro.  However, they do not have nearly as fine control.  There are about 1/3 as many sliders, which is good and bad.  It’s good in terms of simplicity, but it is bad it terms of flexibility. I find that there are so many different sorts of HDR shooting conditions.  The more sliders you have to adjust one part of a photo for one condition and another for a different condition — the better.  

I’ve processed a bunch of images with both now, and I prefer Photomatix Pro.  I get much more fine-grained control. More importantly, I feel like I get more “pop” with the Photomatix Pro controls.  It’s tough to explain… what do you think?  What’s your experience with these tools so far?

The two above images are from Photomatix Pro 4.0 (left) and Photoshop CS5 Merge to HDR (right). Although it is probably hard to tell at this resolution, I believe the Photomatix Pro one has finer control. Both tools allow you to move the sliders around until you are happy with the image… so there is not really a one-to-one comparison possible here… Also, I did not show the new GUI for Photomatix Pro 4.0 at the request of the developer.

Better Ghosting Control

I remember when CS5 Merge to HDR Pro was announced that it had this cool feature for repairing ghosts.  Ghosts are those nasty bits where part of an image is moving around in the various frames.  A dog running across the bottom of the frame would be a good example. Well, Photomatix Pro 1-ups CS5!  It allows you to control various ghosts around the frame at the same time!  

Basically, there is an intermediate step where you can drag the mouse around one area and select a new single “source” image for that area, and then do it again for another section.  For example, you may want to pick the dog from one exposure and the blowing tree from another.  It’s great flexibility and very smart.

Noise Reduction for HDR CS5 did make some very nice changes with Noise Reduction, but that is part of the RAW import process.  Since the Merge to HDR Pro option goes around that, you don’t get any of the good Noise Reduction for HDR images inside CS5. Photomatix Pro 4.0 has a newer, more robust way to reduce noise.  It even allows you to adjust the noise in the “input” images before they even begin the processing period.  Smart. The image there to the right was taken from a single RAW. As most of you HDR veterans know, noise at night is a big problem. The new Noise Reduction in Photomatix (which works even for a single RAW photo) really saved me a lot of time. You can click on the image there to go see the full size on SmugMug. You’ll notice little white bits… they almost look like stars that I drew in, but they are falling sparkles from previous explosions.

Photoshop CS5 Merge to HDR Pro Advantages

There are a few good things about the Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro features.  

For one, it is a totally integrated solution.  You don’t need a separate program, so that is quite nice.  Also, the controls, sliders, and whatnot are consistent to the Photoshop experience.  I quite like that.

The other thing that is good about it is that their solution is more “simple”.  There are not as many sliders or controls, so it can be less intimidating.  That is indeed a good thing.  There is a “bit” of power there with the curves adjustments, and that is nice.

 Personally, I am a little jaded and I like to have more sliders and more control to make the image how I want it — and I found the simplicity to be a bit annoying.  I don’t like complexity for the sake of complexity — I like it for power and control. The last good thing about Merge to HDR is that it is “Free”, in that once you have paid hundreds (or even over $1,000, depending on the suite), all the HDR functionality is included.

HDR Toning – Are you kidding me?

I was also intrigued by another little feature in CS5 that all the videos were raving about.  It is called “HDR Toning…” and it allows you to take your image inside Photoshop and give it an “HDR Look”.  Cool, I thought!

 Well, I got in there to try it, and it told me that I had to Flatten the entire image first!  That means, basically, that you have to take all of your layers and make them one. This is another reason not to HDR Photoshop.  This is a deal-killer for me, since I like to have several layers open while I am working on an image.

Worse, it makes no sense!  Most of the other Photoshop filters and controls work on a single layer without requiring the entire thing to be flattened.  What’s up Adobe?  You gotta fix that up… it’s sloppy.

What are Your Results So Far?

I’m sure many of you already have Photomatix Pro 3. Now, I understand that the tonemapping algorithms are the same. So I am pretty sure that you will get similar speed results. We have a lot of great HDR Photographers that hang out around here… so I’m interested in hearing your feedback. Am I off my rocker? All I kept hearing about is HOW AWESOME Adobe CS5 is with HDR… but I just don’t see it. Am I living in a fantasy world? I’ll keep on testing, and will slowly update the full Photomatix Review when I have time. I swear I must have watched about 30 videos when Photoshop CS5 came out — they were all about how amazing CS5 Merge to HDR Pro was. But, really — is it? It’s a big improvement over CS4, but that is like saying WW2 is a big improvement over the first one. Okay… that’s too harsh… but CS4 HDR was really really bad. CS5 is much better, but I just can’t come up with any compelling reasons to use it… from speed to image quality – I think Photomatix Pro 4.0 is a better product all around.

This is one of the first images I edited with Photomatix Pro 4.0 — I was very happy with the result!

Daily Photo – The Lake at Nikko

This place was Cold with a capital C, as you can plainly see.

And worse, I had forgotten my special little gloves with the flip-up fingertips.

So I was goin’ finger-commando while trying to line up this shot. The wind was pretty stiff in my face. The wind always seems to be against you, eh? I think I just never notice it when it comes from any other angle.

By the way, there is only one place that is convenient to quickly warm up your fingers.

There is an older, historic part of Nikko that is about a 30 minute drive away. The drive is practically straight up a mountain, through a series of switchbacks. During the entire time up the mountain, I was surrounded by clouds. I thought it would be quite miserable at the top. But once I poked out, everything was free and clear. I was between cloud layers, exactly where this chilly lake sat at sunset.

Filed under the categories: Japan, Nikko, Travel, tutorial

How did you get into coffee?

This photo below from Korea reminds me of when I first started to drink coffee. It was a long cold winter there, and I was staying in a place that was over a garage. South Korea in the winter is cold. Super-cold! And this place I was staying never got warm…

In the mornings, I wanted something warm to drink other than tea or hot chocolate. I hated coffee. Super-hated it! So I decided to do an experiment on myself and see if I could take something I hated and turn it into something that I loved. The rational side of my brain knew I was surrounded by perfectly rational people that liked coffee, so the problem must have been with me. Anyway, the experiment worked and now I love coffee.

If you like coffee, how did you get into it?

Daily Photo – What’s on TV

Every Asian megalopolis (like Seoul here) has neo-modern buildings with neo-industrial modern art. They are great subjects for photography, and security never seems to have a problem with tripods. I never see anyone inside taking photos, because these are mostly filled with businessmen. But, if you’re out on the street, you owe it to yourself just to pop into random office buildings to check out the lobbies – you never know what you will find!

Filed under the categories: Korea, Seoul, South Korea

Daily Photo(s): The Airship Isabella

During SXSW, I ended up at a party that had a pretty big steampunk contingent, which is of course very cool to me. I thought I had some good steampunk stuff from Burning Man until I saw these guys…

This was at the Big Bang Bordello Party put on by True Ventures and Tunehopper. It was super-crowded, like most decent SXSW parties, and there was a raucous stage show with a bunch of gals in lingerie and stuff. Is it lame that I hung out with all the steampunk guys in the back? Yes, probably.

Many of them were crew from the Airship Isabella, and they had all kinds of inventive steam-powered goodies. What is Steampunk? Follow that link for the Wikipedia entry… and also, you may remember the Steampunk photo from Burning Man. If you’re looking for a good book in this genre, try “Boneshaker.”

Filed under the categories: Austin, Nikon D3S, Texas, Travel

TWIT Photo – New Video

The new video from TWIT is up now. I hope you enjoy it!  Among many other things we discussed:

• My friend Lisa Bettany is not doing the show any more on a regular basis
• The future of digital photography
• Instagram integration (BTW “100 Cameras in 1″ made #1 in Photography for iPad!) (iTunes link)
• Lens correction in photoshop and lightroom
• And, in general, you can get to know a bit about Mikkel Aaland

Daily Photo – Evening at the Summer Palace

I didn’t make it to the Summer Palace until my final evening in Beijing, and I was graced with a delicate sunset.

This place is also called the “Gardens of Nurtured Harmony” and it rests on top of “Longevity Hill”, a very Chinese-folk-sounding name. What is kind of interesting is that this entire area was manmade, and the huge hill was built out of dirt when they excavated the man-made lake!

It is a truly beautiful place, as you can plainly see. I could not have asked for a better place to explore on my last night in China.

The Original Photo

Now, you guys know I don’t normally do this… and don’t get used to it, but I thought you might like to see the original photo. Sometimes the colors come out so wild that people just surely assume I am “painting” in some wonderful color… but as you can see this is not the case. By the way, the reason I don’t do this very often is not be elusive — just I am incredibly, insanely busy and this all takes extra time…

Now, of course the HDR helped here a lot to bring out better color and all the detail in the palace, as well as bringing back the evening “haze” that was really there… Beijing does have a bit of a constant haze problem, to say the least… and the fast exposure there to the right (I believe it was the -1) did not pick it up… but the color of the sky is just about right.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Nikon D3X

The Google +1 Button

Daily Photo – The Mighty Rocket Rests

I had some time during the day while at NASA to visit the Kennedy Space Center. Inside was the insanely huge Saturn V rocket. It’s one of those things that would hurt like hell if you dropped it on your toe.

The shuttle only has one more launch before it is forever mothballed, like this… The final launch of the Atlantis is on July 8, the first day of my 40th revolution around the sun. That’s kinda cool I think…

Filed under the categories: Florida, NASA, Travel

Twitter and Twitter Lists

Follow @TreyRatcliff

It’s been a while since I mentioned this stuff, and I know a bunch of y’all are on Twitter. A while back, I put together a bunch of “Twitter Lists” that will be helpful if you are new to Twitter or simply looking for more people to follow.

Daily Photo – Underwing

Here’s another handheld job from the Air & Space Museum in Washington DC. I sent out a tweet a few weeks ago and got in touch with the gal that works in the public affairs office… I twitter-charmed her into giving me the thumbs up to use a tripod next time! It took 140 delicate characters to make that happen… there are still more steps, but I am well on the way to getting proper permission. It’s too hard to sneak a tripod into this place… just forget it… armed guards and that sort of thing…

Filed under the categories: Alexandria, Nikon D3S, Virginia, Washington DC