Many new HDR offerings!

This HDR Software area is really heating up… I know Nik has something new coming soon, as does OnOne and many others. What do you guys and gals think? Are you playing with these? Send me a Tweet (@TreyRatcliff) or leave a comment — I look forward to your feedback!

Note on Photomatix Pro 4.0

It is not available to the public yet — but if you get Photomatix Pro 3 (use the Photomatix Coupon Code STUCKINCUSTOMS to save the most money), then you will get a FREE upgrade to Photomatix Pro 4.0 when it comes out… I don’t know when that will be, but I am guessing in the next few weeks. 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

(Continued from Page 2 – or go to page 1 of the HDR Tutorial)

Step 6, Continued

Stacking and Aligning the Photos

In the screenshot below, look down in the lower right at the layers. You can see the four layers there. I put the Photomatix result on the top layer, and stacked the other three below. The order does not matter. Note that as you become more advanced, you will not need to bring in all of these originals. Maybe just one or two will do the trick.

To import the photos, there are a variety of ways, as there is with everything in Photoshop!  If you read the following bullet point list, I will assume you are a beginner, so I will try tell you the easiest way!

• After you open all 4 (or your number) into Photoshop, you should have 4 windows or tabs open in Photoshop.
  • Bonus Tip: If you have Adobe Bridge, you can select all the photos, then go to Tools>Photoshop…>Load Files into Photoshop Layers… and voila, all are in one Photoshop window!
• Go to your Tonemapped photo that was the result of the Photomatix process. Remember this is your “Base Layer”. We will copy and paste all the other photos into this image.
• Go to one of the original photos.
• On the Menu, choose Select > All.  Then Edit > Copy.  Then go back to your Base Layer and do a Edit > Paste.  Then you will have 2 layers.
• Continue to repeat this with all of the other photos.
• Once you have all the layers in one photo, you can re-arrange them as you see fit. I usually put the HDR result on the top.

I have also made sure to align all the images so they are neatly stacked:

• Select all the layers with CTRL or SHIFT-clicking them, then use Auto-Align under the Edit Menu – default options are fine.
• …Or you can press V to get into move mode and use the arrow keys at 300% to nudge them around. This is usually what I have to do with the HDR layer, turning it on and off to make sure it’s lined up just right.

Photoshop – Here we have the HDR image on top with some of the original photos on layers beneath.

If you look closely at the layers on the right in the screenshot below, you can see that I have created a LAYER MASK for the TOP LAYER. If you see those little black and gray marks there, that is where I have painted black to see the layer beneath. I used the Brush, adjusted the opacity to about 30%, and kept painting until enough of the lower layer shined through.

To create a mask and start revealing the layer underneath:

• Click on the top layer (the one you want to punch through)
• On the Menu, go to Layer > Create Layer Mask > Reveal All.
• Choose the brush tool (or hit B).
• At the top, there are two areas to adjust:
  • “Opacity” -  Set that to 30%.  This means how hard you will be pushing down the brush to punch through to the bottom layer. Multiple brush strokes will make that percentage go up… For example, if you brush over the same spot ten times or so, you’ll be at 100% see-through!
  • Brush – Click that dropdown and make the brush size 100.  You will keep adjusting this size throughout, depending on what you want!
    • Quick Tip – to change the size of the brush quickly use the bracket keys ( [ and ] )
• Now that you created the mask, you will see a little white box on that layer down in the lower right.  See it?  Click on that little white box it because THAT represents the mask.
• Make sure your chosen color over on the right is BLACK.
• Start using the brush on the photo.  Each stroke will make that layer 30% more transparent.  If you stroke the same area over and over again, you will get to 100%, which allows you to see the layer underneath.
• After you are done masking the two layers together, Merge Layers in the menu or by pressing Command (Ctrl on PC) E.
• Bonus Tip: Are you still MASSIVELY confused by Masking?  This happens often because of my lousy description.  I suggest you visit this nice YouTube Video on Masking (note that I did not make that video).

You will notice the areas in which I painted. Those areas were blown out and unreadable. So, I chose the DARKEST layer, in which the signs were very readable. I masked those through so we can read, for example, the ticker on the right at the ABC Studios.

Photoshop – Stacking the Layers and Starting to Mask. The gray areas in the white box represent where we have “punched through” to the lower level.

I hope that was easy for you to understand, at least in concept. People sometimes have trouble with Masking, so I hope I explained it okay.

The next thing I do is combine the top two layers by selecting both of them by selecting Layer > Merge Layers. Below, you can see how I have combined the layers top two. Now I only have three layers.

Photoshop – I have combined the top two layers after masking.  Now just three remain.

This process of masking and combining should repeated until you are happy with the results.

Moving on, the next step in this particular photo is masking in the pedestrians so that they do not look “ghosted”.  When they are moving around between the frames, Photomatix gets confused.  I prefer to find my favorite of the original shots where the people are in the most interesting formation.  I then use that photo to remix with the original.  Below, you can see I have zoomed in on the pedestrians and created a mask on the top layer.  I have used the Brush on the top layer to reveal the clean pedestrian layer beneath.  Note that the pedestrians are not crystal clear, and I did not mind a bit of “motion” here, since it is Times Square after all.

De-ghosting the image by masking through to the layer where the people look best

Step 6 – Noise Reduction and other Tools

You will notice that you probably have a lot of noise in the finished result. The HDR Process does this… it is an unfortunate side effect, but easily cleaned up.

I will not go into the full description of Noiseware here, but you are welcome to go read my Noiseware Review.

The only thing I really have to do is to show you the following screenshot. I mean, are you kidding me? The only tip I can add beyond this, for a full master’s touch, is to create a duplicate layer of your finished product before doing the noise reduction. It may get rid of some details you quite like, in which case you can use the masking tricks above to just keep the details and noise how you best see fit for your own work of art.

As you can see below, this can help make your final product look a lot more silky-smooth.

This is the best software I have used for Noise reduction – better than Noise Ninja!

Below, we can see the final image once again! All the hard work has paid off! Behold!

The final product, after a lot of fun steps… remember… it’s the journey, not the destination…

Now that you are done with that, here are some other tools that I recommend. These are part of my workflow, and I recommend you get these and play with them all!

• Lucis Pro – I’ve also started using Lucis Pro more and more. It’s a lot like LucisArt, but it’s even better. I’ve written a Lucis Pro Review and a Lucis Tutorial here on the site, which maybe you can save for later. The same coupon code for LucisArt applies here of “TREYRATCLIFF”. She tells me it’s the best one available.
• Nik Software – Nik makes a great suite of tools I recommend. Use the Coupon Code of “STUCKINCUSTOMS” to save the most amount of money. You can get it from the Nik Software website. I have a full Nik Review here on the site for more info.
• OnOne Software – This is another great suite of powerful tools that I use a lot. Use the Coupon Code “STUCKINCUSTOMS” to save the most amount of money when ordering from the onOne Software website. I have a full review of the OnOne Plugin here on the site for you.

Bonus Step – Sharpening and adding pop with Lucis Pro or LucisArt

Many of my images get a visit from the sweet lady Lucis.

The LucisArt Plugin is awesome. I suggest you download the trial and give it a run! The trial is nice because you get a preview window that shows what all the cool sliders do. If you buy it, be sure to use this Lucis Coupon Code of TREYRATCLIFF.  If I ever meet you in person, you can buy me a cappuccino or something… You can get the trial or order it at the LucisArt Website.

Note that sometimes I use an even better program, and you can find out more about that at the Lucis Pro Review.  I really don’t mean to overwhelm you with options, just to let you know that there are good, better, and best paths to sharpening.

When you use LucisArt, I suggest the SCULPTURE setting with the top slider less than 12 and the bottom slider above 70 or so. Now, the screenshot below has the bottom slider at 55 original just to show you how it makes the lines “pop”. It’s a bit like UNSHARP MASK, but quite a bit better, in my judgment.

Bonus Step – Processing a single RAW file

In Photomatix, go you can simply open a RAW file and then go right to Tone Mapping! This is a new feature, and a welcome time saver… You will get a little warning that it is not a true HDR image, but just ignore that. Many times, I find that it is quite good enough.

People ask me all the time if it is better to use just One RAW or multiple. Well, sometimes you have no choice if the subject is moving… but the result can be quite nice in both conditions. For the record, I always take multiple exposures whenever possible.

To show you how good images can look from just a single RAW file, here are a few examples:

That is an hour of your life you will never get back, but let’s hope you formed some good memories and skills to create more. Best of luck and I thank you for all your comments and feedback. I currently have over 20,000 emails unread in my photography inbox, so I apologize if I do not get back to you… just don’t have enough time I am afraid. But thanks for all your comments and support! I hope you all have as much fun with HDR as I am – again, best of luck to you!

Did You Find the HDR Tutorial Useful?

If you did, please make a little blog post about it and link back here to “HDR Tutorial“!  That would be very nice of you, and it would help more find out the best way to make good HDRs.  Thanks!

Stuck In Customs Textures Tutorial

The video Stuck In Customs Textures Tutorial is only a click a way. Now that you are getting to know HDR, why not move onto the next one? Below is an advertisement that talks a little about the content. I think out of all our sales, we have only had ONE return, so people seem happy with it.

The Stuck In Customs Textures Tutorial.  Make your photos stand out from the crowd!

Filed under the categories: Nikon D3X, tutorial