Bracketing at Big White - HDR and Photomatix 7

Notice the watermark - I am using a trial version of Photomatix 7.  See below for the bracketing.

Seven photos, ranging from +3 to -3 stops from central exposure.  Used HDR software to merge.

HDR stands for high dynamic range.  Dynamic range is the spread between white and black, where highlights and shadows can no longer show detail.  Put another way, it is the number of stops a medium has where details can be captured between light and dark values.  At some point, highlights get blown out, where every value is blank, and shadows are expressed as pitch-black.

Although modern sensors typically have dynamic ranges between 10 and 14, our eyes can capture differences up to 20 stops.  And that's just what we can see in real life; nature can produce values much greater than that (the brightness of the sun vs the darkest point in a cave).  The fact that a raw image can manage around 14 stops of detail in between highlights and shadows means that most of the best image (+3) can be saved, although the sun presents the largest challenge in that its presence is causing bloom where it intersects with the tree.  I converted the raw image to a jpeg and processed it in the Adobe Raw app, you can see the results below.

Big White living area and ski hill without using HDR.  +3 image used.

To compare, I processed the -3 stops image to see what kind of details I could get out of that.  As expected, the highlights were better and there was almost no bloom in front of the sun, but the range of captured shades was still somewhat underwhelming.  To be sure, the HDR image offered a better  reproduction of shades.  The nice thing about the Photomatix app is that there are numerous presets and precision controls that let you play with the image until you get a desired result.

The problem is, for me, that the cost is $129 for a licence (CAD) and I am not sure the expense is worth the number of times I can use it.  Photoshop has HDR software built into it, although it does not compete with Photomatix in terms of overall quality of output.

I used the same 7 images in Photoshop.  You can see the result below.

Same image using HDR software built into Photoshop; the result was not great.

In the end, I would use Photomatix ahead of Photoshop because of the greater ability to finesse the outcome and restrict ghosting.  If I needed the program, I would not hesitate to buy it.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com



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