Free HDR trial worth trying - Page 2

imagingluminary · 07-09-2008

Tamlin/Tony,

I am the developer of Essential HDR. First thank for mentioning the software on this board. We are proud of the tonemapping algorithm we invented and implemented. But, we are so new and many things are being improved as we speak.

Your assessment of the alignment is fair. During the past a few months, we have been developing a new alignment algorithm that is based on the latest theory and research results. It will be released as a free update after it passes our internal and external tests. So far, we have tested many "handheld, 200mm lens, windy day" situations and the new algorithms performed extremely well compared to PM3 and PS-CS3.

We welcome any feedbacks, especially negative feedbacks at this time.

Tony_photoplus · 07-09-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by tamlin

This is a pretty tough task for any software to take on but, although none of the results are perfect, Photomatix's ghosting-reduction algorithms win hands down.

Unfortunately, I don't know what all this proves. You pays yer money and you takes yer choice, I suppose.

Very interesting assessment Tamlin. Your pictures show the evidence Photomatix has the lead. The best I have come across on the free was Picturenaut and the guy according to his statement on the forum is hot on getting the alignment just right for the software to work.

Tony

Tony_photoplus · 07-09-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by imagingluminary

Tamlin/Tony,

I am the developer of Essential HDR. First thank for mentioning the software on this board. We are proud of the tonemapping algorithm we invented and implemented. But, we are so new and many things are being improved as we speak.

Your assessment of the alignment is fair. During the past a few months, we have been developing a new alignment algorithm that is based on the latest theory and research results. It will be released as a free update after it passes our internal and external tests. So far, we have tested many "handheld, 200mm lens, windy day" situations and the new algorithms performed extremely well compared to PM3 and PS-CS3.

We welcome any feedbacks, especially negative feedbacks at this time.

Nice to see you on our board. Thanks for the feed back to, it is difficult as Tamlin has stated to get these things right. I haven't had time as yet to get the new software assessed, maybe 'cause its dam well rained and rained and rained, as well as being in hospital. But no doubt it will be on the agenda next week. Many thanks again for stating your intent on your software and look forward to its updates.

Tony

**synthetic** · 07-09-2008

here's what I got from my LR plugin... unfortunately... I ran into an issue with full version last night in which it hung up and I forced quit the app... when I reopened I keep getting an error with the path to the alignment software installation even though I have went back and reset the path correctly many times so I haven't been able to do much more with it... contacting the developer this eve to ask for suggestions

anyhow... this is a 8 file merge I did with photos that were bracketed with exposure compensation (I should have use shutter speed probably)... bad lighting is my fault... was just messing around with studio shooting and not a good light setup really... but it seems like it did a good job and there were controls for weighting contrast, exposure, or saturation which I didn't really mess with much as I am still learning the new plugin... first is HDR version... second and third are darkest and lightest of the bracket shots

now if I can only get to work again <sigh>

**Tamlin** · 07-09-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by imagingluminary

Tamlin/Tony,

I am the developer of Essential HDR. First thank for mentioning the software on this board. We are proud of the tonemapping algorithm we invented and implemented. But, we are so new and many things are being improved as we speak.

Your assessment of the alignment is fair. During the past a few months, we have been developing a new alignment algorithm that is based on the latest theory and research results. It will be released as a free update after it passes our internal and external tests. So far, we have tested many "handheld, 200mm lens, windy day" situations and the new algorithms performed extremely well compared to PM3 and PS-CS3.

We welcome any feedbacks, especially negative feedbacks at this time.

Alignment is always going to be a tricky issue - especially in extreme conditions.
I think overall you've got a very good product in Essential HDR. I will certainly be adding it to my toolbox when it is officially released - I tend to rely on a small number of tried-and-trusted tools for jobs like tone-mapping (as well as noise reduction and sharpening), but I also like to have a couple of alternative options available too. After all, a mechanic doesn't rely on just one spanner or a chef on just one knife. Good luck with Essential HDR.

imagingluminary · 07-10-2008

I can not agree more with this post. Many people think Tonemapper is the mysterious and ultimate photo-beautifier that always change your photo into something exciting if you are lucky. But we consider it as one of the steps in the entire workflow. So, our product was designed to do tonemapping while keeping everything else unchanged. This is the major difference between us and PS/PM that EHDR adds very little flavor of itself other than revealing the details already in your photo set.

We hope this "individual function" approach give users more predicable and controllable results when you combine different single-purpose tools in your toolbox in any way you want.

As you can see, HDR tonemapping is nothing special. We expect our users to run EHDR on original raw files, on already tonemapped TIFF files, on intermediate outputs out of Photoshop, on anything that you like to get more details out of your photos with confidence that no other artifacts (halo, haze) would be introduced in the process. Don't limit your imagination with the tonemapper software you choose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tamlin

Alignment is always going to be a tricky issue - especially in extreme conditions.
I think overall you've got a very good product in Essential HDR. I will certainly be adding it to my toolbox when it is officially released - I tend to rely on a small number of tried-and-trusted tools for jobs like tone-mapping (as well as noise reduction and sharpening), but I also like to have a couple of alternative options available too. After all, a mechanic doesn't rely on just one spanner or a chef on just one knife. Good luck with Essential HDR.

imagingluminary · 07-10-2008

It's great to have this discussion. I run an automatic google query that this link just popped up yesterday. That's how I found here. Don't worry I will not get upset if you don't like our product now.

But I do recommend people to send me feedbacks. We build the product in the past 6 months based ENTIRELY on test user feedbacks. Along the way we have make many users happier and enjoying HDR TM more. Our goal is to build something very practical to use and continue to improve it with the user community as our product design team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tony_photoplus

Nice to see you on our board. Thanks for the feed back to, it is difficult as Tamlin has stated to get these things right. I haven't had time as yet to get the new software assessed, maybe 'cause its dam well rained and rained and rained, as well as being in hospital. But no doubt it will be on the agenda next week. Many thanks again for stating your intent on your software and look forward to its updates.

Tony

Tony_photoplus · 07-10-2008

I wonder if there is an anti over saturation point being developed for tonemapping?! It seems endemic and garish when I look around Flickr.

Tony

**Tamlin** · 07-10-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tony_photoplus

I wonder if there is an anti over saturation point being developed for tonemapping?! It seems endemic and garish when I look around Flickr.

Tony

I think that's more a problem with the users than with the software. The thing with tonemapping is that, like Tabasco sauce, a little goes a long way (why are my analogies always related to food?). If it's used with restraint and (as our friend from Imaging Luminary has stated) in conjunction with other techniques as part of a workflow, the results are more subtle and effective.

**supertackyman** · 07-10-2008

I will agree with tamlin but would like to add my own thoughts.
Often times when someone is new to digital rendering, they lack the eye/experience to see and detect the small things that make a difference. the larger the change, the more they can notice the effect. sometimes that over-effect is misinterpreted as the desired result.
my friend tends to way oversharpen his images.

only with experience comes learning.

to further my point, open up one of your own images from waaay long ago when you were really begining. back when you were proud of an early hack and paste job.
now, look at it with new eyes. I'm sure that you see many things that you would do better or different now.
(certain people will not notice this effect. thats ok, theres nothing wrong with you, it just means that you may have topped out or you have a big ego and cant see your flaws. dont worry, we can help with that

)

some people are just "color ignorant" like my wife. perfectly able to pass a standard colorblindness test, but she cant tell the difference between red, rust, and brown.
its like they are lacking varients in hue to her. all one rusty color she says. some darker some lighter. its like she is "tonedeaf" in that part of the spectrum. (to mix terms)

**Tamlin** · 07-26-2008

Cool! I got a mention on the Imaging Luminary site, in the Customer Testimonials section:
Essential HDR, Tonemapping Software from Imaging Luminary, LLC