Non PS Tools

• Photomatix http://www.hdrsoft.com/• FDRTools http://www.fdrtools.com/front_e.php• Picturenaut http://www.hdrlabs.com/picturenaut/index.html

Photomatix

‘HDR’‘Generate’

Basic settings.

This is an HDR imagedisplayed on a LDR device

‘HDR’ ‘Tone Mapping’Maps the HDR image to a low dynamic range space.

Details Enhancer is the beststarting point.

Better adjusted in PS

Some fine tuning possiblebut defaults are usually ok

Sample with Tone Compressor

‘Save as’

In PS

Final is PS

Using PS Local Adaptation HDR.

PS LA HDR version.

FDRToolshttp://www.fdrtools.com/front_e.php

Note: HDR is technically not required for this series – there is no clipping at either end.

Click ‘Images’ and select the imagesto combine

Click ‘Align’

Click ‘HDRI Creation’ then ‘Creative’ – defaults are usually ok.

Click ‘Tone Mapping’

Adjust sliders, other defaults are OK.

Click ‘Save’

Image in PSMagenta linesare “trial version”

Adjustmentlayers are off

PS adj layers on, final version.

Picturenaut: Freeware!

‘File’‘Generate HDRI’‘Add’

For this series the ‘Automatic image alignment’ didn’t work, so I used PS to align the images then exported the layers separately. Unfortunately this loses the EXIF, which Picturenaut (and PS HDR) needs to generate the HDR. As shown, with the same time, this will not process.

Using the exif information from Bridge I manually entered the time

Here’s the HDR image.

‘Image’‘Tone Mapping’‘Photoreceptor’gives the best results

Tweak the exposure, dynamic compression and histogram. In this case based on the preview I did not adjust the white point. ‘File’ ‘Save as’ then open in PS.

In PS

Using Shadow/Highlights to recover highlight detail. Notice how the histogram previews the change. This is a good example of why you can’t just pull the white point all the way to the right.

Final version. Note the motion issue was dealt with automatically.