High Contrast Image

[Inkz]

Hey guy's... Not really my field lol, but lately, I've been intrigued with HDR images. Unfortunately, I don't have a camera to make HDR images so I'm playing around with Ps and Topaz to get a high contrast effect like HDR.Probably out of my depth lol, but I really do like to try new things.

Any advice on this is very much appreciated, and Tom, if you do comment, keep it simple Here's the original I used from dAhttp://www.deviantart.com/art/Deja-Vu-245771831
http://s1309.photobucket.com/user/InkzFX/media/HDRoldorig_zpsc8b07b6f.png.html
Here's what I came up with.

Here's an industrial one...http://www.deviantart.com/art/Steam-Pipe-Jungle-DC-Cook-92106811
http://s1309.photobucket.com/user/InkzFX/media/HDRondorig_zpscca02038.png.html
Here's what I came up with.



Here's a few more that I've done lol.

 

[SPWA]

Amazing. The old couple at the top is my fave.

 

[Dear John]

I actually prefer the factory...can you explain what HDR is supposed to accentuate? It looks like it brings out the darker tones quite well.

 

[Inkz]

Better than I could ever explain..

I had a good read of this earlier though. http://digital-photography-school.com/hdr-for-black-and-white-a-step-by-step-guide

 

[Dear John]

Thanks for that resource man...much appreciated!

 

[Inkz]

Thanks for that resource man...much appreciated!

No probs, I hope it helps.

 

[chrisdesign]

This Topaz treatment looks great on your images. But not so much on the skintones. You should reduce the effect there, they look to blotchy to me.

 

[Tom Mann]

These are very nice images. I thought you might like a bit of the historic background behind the HDR tone mapping "look".

HDR stands for "High Dynamic Range". In its pure form, one wants to capture a scene that has a dynamic range (ratio of brightest to darkest light intensities present) that exceeds the dynamic range of the intended recording and/or display devices (eg, camera, scanner, monitor, printer, etc.) and compress that huge range down to a range that can be handled by the output devices.

The problem is if one tries to do this the obvious way (ie, reducing the overall, global contrast of the image), there is so little local contrast that everything looks flat and un-interesting. This led to the development of tone-mapping algorithms that produced more visually pleasing output, ie, more local contrast while keeping the global contrast to a range that the output device can handle.

The goal of the original tone-mapping algorithms was to make the result of this process look just like a normal single exposure photo, but with the lighting controlled to stay within the dynamic ranges of the camera and output device. Of course, like good guitarists everwhere, photographers turned all the HDR controls up to "11", fell in love with the wild, exaggerated looks they produced, and this started the somewhat incorrect concept of an "HDR look". Anyway, that name stuck, and this is where we are today. Everyone forgets that the original concept was to avoid unrealistic looks.

Anyway, when one processes a single image in an HDR-like way instead of taking many separate exposures, the only part of the HDR process that is being used is the tone mapping. So, it's a bit of a misnomer to call pix like these (ie, 1 exposure pix) HDR.

Until ten or so years ago, when HDR techniques started to become popular, many Photoshop old hands knew that if one wanted a bit more punch in an image, you would apply the unsharp masking (USM) filter at relatively low opacity, but unusually large radii (say in the tens or many tens of pixels). For an even smoother effect, one could do this repeatedly at significantly different radii (say, 200 px @ 5%, 100pixels @ 5%, 50pixels @ 10%, 25pixels @ 10%, etc. ). If you haven't ever tried this classic technique, you should give it a try.

The problem with this method is that each step tended to emphasize very high spatial frequency noise, ie, below a few pixels in size. The tone mapping algorithms in the HDR packages were well aware of this problem and constructed their algorithms to only enhance the medium spatial frequencies, and not overly boost the very high spatial frequencies.


Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the short tour down memory lane. LOL!

Cheers,

Tom M

 

[Inkz]

Thank you very much for the history lesson on HDR lol...

I was hoping you would jump on and give me some words on it. I just love the grittiness of the HDR image.

Thanks again Tom, you wise one lol.

 

[Tom Mann]

Thanks for being so kind and mercifully omitting the word, "old" which almost always appears in the phrase, "...old, wise one". However, if you had let the word, "old", remain, but omitted the word, "wise", it would have been much more accurate.



T

 

[Inkz]

Talking of old...

I've found that using "old" people portraits, they make really amazing HDR images lol.

Why is this?

 

[Paul]

All of the cracks lines give the HDR effect more definition i suppose?