swisspace wrote:
> I can't find the info on the adobe site, so maybe someone on the list
> can help.
>
> Many years ago I bought photoshop 5 for PC, now I use a mac and was
> thinking of upgrading to the CS2 version - mainly for its ability to
> combine images for HDR. I looked at the gimp plugin but never manged to
> figure it out with my limited time.
>
Fighting back upstream to the original question... What are you
planning to use the HDR function for?
I've played with this process in a number of ways, especially with P&S
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Process/CombExposure/Combos/>
and.
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Process/CombExposure/SanSe.htm>
Playing with it with DSLRs, I've become convinced that it's mostly
unnecessary. I believe much of this use is either because it's a cool
toy or because people haven't learned how to use their equipment and
editor very well. I'm not saying not to bracket in tricky situations,
but that the properly exposed one will almost certainly have everything
you need with any combining.
DSLRs shooting RAW have a much wider dynamic range that most people seem
to be aware of. And then some folks are doing two RAW conversions at
different brightnesses and combining them in an "HDR" way. Really
unnecessary if you have decent tools. Any decent RAW converter can
nicely put everything that the camera captured into a single 16 bit
output file, PSD or TIFF or whatever, which can easily handle a huge
dynamic range.
Depending on the individual JPEG engine and the noise, even some P&Ss
are capable of capturing much more dynamic range than the users are
aware of. Where I needed to ocmbine exposures with the F10, I don't with
the F30, or at lest won't over a much wider range.
Good scanners and software also may be capturing more brightness info
that you think.
The big thing that leads people astray is the assumptions that many
cameras and much software make. In a lot of ways, we are still in the
era of the automated 4x6 print. the algorithms make assumptions about
the dynamic range of the display device(s) and compress and/or clip the
top and bottom of high brightness range subjects.
Unless you know this and are willing to learn how to "roll your own"
tonal distribution, it's easy to think that your equipment doesn't have
what it takes to handle high brightness ratio scenes. I'll bet it does.
I've got CS2 with HDR - and I've never used it. And trust me, the old
image tinkerer, I would if it got me anything. If I were still using the
F10, I would try it.
Rant over; if you are back at PS5, you are missing all sorts of other
powerful, useful tools that have come along since. For example,
ShadowHi is really powerful for recovering those highlights and shadows
that you thought weren't there.
Moose
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|