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The HDRI Handbook: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG Artists +DVD
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The HDRI Handbook reveals the secrets behind High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI). This cutting-edge imaging technology is a method to digitally capture and edit all light in a scene. It represents a quantum leap in imaging technology, as revolutionary as the leap from Black & White to Color imaging. If you are serious about photography, you will find that HDRI is the final step that places digital ahead of analog. The old problem of over- and underexposure in analog photography, which was never fully solved, is elegantly bypassed here. A huge variety of subjects can now be photographed for the first time ever.

HDRI emerged from the movie industry, and was once Hollywood's best kept secret. It is now a mature technology available to everyone. The only problem was that it was poorly documented until now. The HDRI Handbook is the manual that was missing.

Many questions remain open even for the computer graphics gurus that have been using HDRI for years. This is where The HDRI Handbook comes in. Included here is everything you need to build a comprehensive knowledge base that will enable you to become really creative with HDRI. This book is packed with practical hints and tips, software evaluations, workshops, and hands-on tutorials. Whether you are a photographer, 3D artist, compositor, or cinematographer, this book is sure to enlighten you.

Topics include:

  • Understanding the foundation of HDRI
  • Tools for a High Dynamic Range Workflow
  • How to capture HDR images: now and tomorrow
  • Tone mapping for creating superior prints
  • Image processing and compositing
  • All 4 ways to shoot panoramic HDRIs
  • Image based lighting and CG rendering
  • World premiere of the Smart Dynamic Range toolkit
  • Creative uses and unconventional applications
  • ISBN13: 9781933952055
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
The HDRI Handbook: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG Artists +DVD Don't throw it all away yet!
 
Review Date: December 31, 2007
Reviewer: Dan Dill, Boston MA
I have been learning about HDRI primarily from Uwe Steinmueller's generously helpful articles on his site outbackphoto.com, and from the Photomatix email list. Seeing that Steinmueller is a contributor to The HDRI Handbook, I expected it to be more of the same.

In the event, it has been an epiphany. I had not appreciated that HDRI is a doorway into truly archival imaging, for today's imaging technology *and* for imaging tools and output devices not yet invented. I had completely missed the point made on page 132 of The HDRI Handbook:

"Most photographers will tell you that the next step [after having merged bracketed exposures into an HDR image] is tone mapping because an HDR image doesn't fit the limited range of our ..." output devices. "This is missing the whole point."

"*Don't throw it all away yet!* There is nothing special about an HDR image. It's all just pixels waiting to be messed with, but better pixels that are much more forgiving when we apply extreme edits. Imagine the HDR image as raw clay that we can form into whatever we want. Why would you burn that raw clay into a hard block now just so you can destructively chisel the final form out of it? Wouldn't it make much more sense to massage the clay into a good model first? [Apply non-destructive edits to the HDR image itself!] And then put it in the oven the fix that form [tone map into an LDR image], and sand and polish [fine-tune with LDR editing tools] afterwards?

"To speak in more photographic terms: Here we have an image that exceeds the tonal range and qualities of a RAW image. Wouldn't it be great to keep it like that for as long as possible? Well, you can! That's what true HDR workflow is all about.

Christian Bloch then describes a 32-bit workflow to do just this. An HDR LDR workflow can be broken down into three parts. Bloch describes and compares the tools available for each part, and examples of these are provided on the DVD that comes with the book.

First, combine bracketed exposures to create an HDR image. Block focuses on using Photoshop or Photomatix for this step.

Second, use Photoshop to make basic adjustments to the HDR image. These are: cleanup with the Clone Stamp, white balancing (done in two steps, differently than in LDR images), frame/perspective correction (using Free Transform), sharpening (using the HDR exposure changes to visually quantify proper sharpening), and color correction. None of these need to be done to the HDR image, but Block discusses the advantages of doing so, *before* converting to LDR.

Third, tone map the HDR image into an LDR image. For me, this is the core, creative part of HDR imaging in photography. Bloch distinguishes two perspectives.

One perspective is to have "the final image appear as natural as possible, ... an image that looks like it was shot with an ordinary camera but incorporates more dynamic range than a camera could actually handle." (page 168).

The other perspective is to create an "painterly" interpretation, as illustrated by the many example images seen on the web.

Bloch illustrates tone mapping of four different HDR images, using the four methods in Photoshop (Exposure & Gamma, Highlight Compression, Equalize Histogram, and Local Adaptation), Photomatix Details Enhance, FDR Tools Compressor, and Artizen HDR Fattal.

The tone mapping that seems to offer the most precise control is Photoshop's "flagship tone mapper" (page 155): Local Adaptation. The mapping is crafted by adjusting a toning curve to set black and white points, and to control local and global contrast. Bloch's detailed examples show precisely how to work with this approach. I show an example of this in the Digital Dgrin Photography Forum post



Uwe and Bettina Steinmueller describe (pages 172--182) how they have used Photomatix to produce their stunning images of interiors of abandoned buildings.

Also, there is a very helpful, detailed (page 183--211) tutorial by Dieter Bethke, of how he used Photomatix to create three "natural" and two "painterly" images. It is a great resource for getting to know how to use Photomatix and an encouraging illustration of the capability of HDR imaging as a photographic tool.

There is much more in The HDRI Handbook but this is what I have gleaned so far. The HDRI Handbook has turned out to be a wonderful, measured, detailed, and accessible guide to what an HDR > LDR photographic workflow has to offer.
The HDRI Handbook: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG Artists +DVD Finally there is the definitive source for HDRI
 
Review Date: November 27, 2007
Reviewer: Rawshooter, Linz, Austria
I had seen the book announced months ago and was probably one of the first customers to order a copy. It took me about two weeks to read it from cover to cover and check out some of the resources on the disc. This is an amazing source of information! I am a photographer and I was intrigued by some of the HDR-Photography I had seen posted on the web (by Dan Burkholder and others). I started experimenting with some of the tools like Photomatix and Photoshop but these were fairly random experiments and I did not get consistent results. After reading Christian Bloch's HDRI Handbook, I think I understand this technique and the underlying concepts and I feel I can embark on a new and better planned trip into the field of High Dynamic Range Photography.
Luckily, I can use many of the bracketed shots that I still have -- and I already started to reprocess some of them with software that was included on the disc. I was blown away by the first results. HDRI is fun and I expect to spend many more nights over the next few weeks to create HDRIs. I am just starting, but this book is, in my opinion, a must have for any serious and forward-thinking photographer.
I highly recommend this book.

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