HDR software

[raven15]

Since I got a tripod and reverted back my E-410 (DSLR with lowest dynamic range of all time) I've been taking a lot of HDR's. In this thread here Here I was pretty up-beat about SNS-HDR, but still skeptical about spending the money on it. Anyone have any updated suggestions, or has the situation really not changed in the past nine months?

[kgosden]

Raven,

I still use Media Chance's Dynamic-Photo HDR. But I have not done anything in the way of serious work with it. I may give Photomatix another try. First I have to organize my drives a bit so I can dive into Lightroom 3.5 which I just bought.

[Anthony]

I use SNS-HDR lite which does not have that many controls but is free - run from the command line. Some results here

[raven15]

Hmmmm so far SNS-HDR seems easier to use than Dynamic-Photo HDR. Especially the free version of SNS-HDR, because I can't change anything even if I wanted to...

[raven15]

I might have to take another look at the lite version. I wasn't successful in running it from the command line last time... Can you give me tips on how to actually do things? Right now it just spits out a file, with out me being able to affect anything.

I like the top three on the left side best, the reflected building, church, and old couch.

[kgosden]

Raven,

I was playing a bit with a difficult HDR sequence in Dynamic-Photo tonight. I tried Photoshop's merge to HDR, but liked it less. This was shot, handheld, from beneath a waterfall. It was a +2, +1, 0, -1 -2 sequence in aperture priority. With the moving water this was a ghosting challenge. It actually worked better to use just the -2, -1 & +2 images since so much of the image was moving. The one artifact I could not really eliminate was the blue cast to the water highlights. Still think it did a decent job. Here is the output with minimal PS tweaking and small versions of the source images.

[Anthony]

Thanks for the comments raven15 - the reflected building is probably my favorite HDR

Some instructions as requested:-

To get to the program:
cd\
cd C:\Program Files\SNS-HDR Lite\

To view helpfile/options:
SNS-HDR.exe

To run:
SNS-HDR.exe -jpeg C:\Users\Anthony\Pictures\2011_08_15\IMG_3399_1.CR 2 C:\Users\Anthony\Pictures\2011_08_15\IMG_3400_2.CR 2 C:\Users\Anthony\Pictures\2011_08_15\IMG_3401_3.CR 2

The options:

-da Disable alignment
-dd Disable deghosting
-pm Panorama mode
-srgb Convert colour profile

Size reduction
-x1 -x2 -x3 -x4

Presets
-default
-dramatic
-interior
-ldr
-neautral
-night
-soft

-jpeg
-tiff8
-tiff16

I have not noticed much difference between the presets and I would have thought there would be a way to alter the options when dragging and dropping over the SNS-HDR icon. Out of interest I might see if I can write a batch file.
I only tried panorama mode once and it did not work but I am not sure what it is supposed to do anyway!

That is a good result kgosden especialy as the water is so blurred in the longest exposure image.

[Anthony]

I ment to say that the ability in Dynamic-Photo to use a "brush" to add an HDR effect to seleted areas looks interesting.

[raven15]

Thanks for the comments raven15 - the reflected building is probably my favorite HDR

Some instructions as requested:-



The options:


I have not noticed much difference between the presets and I would have thought there would be a way to alter the options when dragging and dropping over the SNS-HDR icon. Out of interest I might see if I can write a batch file.
I only tried panorama mode once and it did not work but I am not sure what it is supposed to do anyway!

That is a good result kgosden especialy as the water is so blurred in the longest exposure image.

I have to admit, I have seen the options that are available, but don't know how to implement them. Where do you type them in? Or do I need to be using a batch file to run this? If so is that as simple as renaming a txt file bat?

[Anthony]

I added the path of SNS-HDR to my enviromental variable path and so I use a batch file containing:

SNS-HDR.exe -jpeg -dramatic %1 %2 %3

If you do not do that give the full path to the SNS-HDR exe program.

"C:\Program Files\SNS-HDR Lite\SNS-HDR.exe" -jpeg -dramatic %1 %2 %3

Yes a batch file is just a text file where you save as a .bat not .txt

Just add the options to the command in the batch file as above.

e.g to save as a tif file with the default setting use:

"C:\Program Files\SNS-HDR Lite\SNS-HDR.exe" -tiff16 %1 %2 %3

To use 5 photos instead of 3 you need to add an extra couple of variables:

"C:\Program Files\SNS-HDR Lite\SNS-HDR.exe" -tiff16 %1 %2 %3 %4 %5

To recap in a notepad file you will have one line:

"C:\Program Files\SNS-HDR Lite\SNS-HDR.exe" -tiff16 %1 %2 %3

You will save this as something like sns.bat
To make your HDR file you will sellect 3 photos and drag and drop them over the batch file icon - I usualy put it on my desktop.
The image will be created in the folder the 3 images came from.