Jul 9, 2010

High Dynamic Range Toning (HDRT) - CS5


High Dynamic Range Toning, HDRT, Photoshop CS5

Anyone who uses Photoshop CS5 for HDR must master HDR Toning. If you submit n images at constant aperture and white balance but different shutter speeds, CS5 will create a 32 bit file called Untitled_HDR2.hdr. I always save that file so I can try more conversions later.
This 32 bit file should under go multiple3 transformations before it becomes web-ready.
1. Save as .hdr
2. Convert to 16 bit using HDRT.
3. Tone Map in LR3 with active Histogram; careful 200% scan.
4. Spot Heal (content Aware Fill – CAF) all blown highlights (BHL).
5. Sharpen region where you applied Spot Healing.
6. Save final tif and jpg.
7. Make jpg Keeper in Smart Collection.
Most monitors won’t let you see 32 bit files in true color. Hence, CS5 created HDR Toning. HDRT is a dialog box to ‘help’ you estimate what that 32 bit file should look like as a 16 bit tif.

What Does HDRT Do?
HDR Toning considers 4 functions; Edge Glow, Tone and Detail, Color, and Toning Curve and Histogram. Rather than repeat dry information from your help file, I want to talk about important aspects of creating landscape HDR fine art.
Clearly, my emphasis about Presets and Corner Points provides a starting place for an HDR conversion.

HDR Toning transforms a 32 bit hdr file to a 16 bit tif file so LR3 and CS5 can perform tone mapping to create a fine art piece.

Click here to download a tutorial on in-depth intricacies and tips on HDRT…

Finale
When you’ve carefully read our tutorial, practiced on several HDR Pro images, then got one tone mapped to your liking - you’re done, save the final image as a tif file, then make a jpg as well using LR3’s Export command. You can save that final jpg in a Smart Collection. I usually put keywords in this image, including setting Keywords to kpr for each image I’ve labored over to create another fine art piece.

There’s an example of success in Spot Healing in a prior blog…

Enjoy…

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