# Conservative (real estate) HDRs from today



## Jon_Are

My goal was to create realistic interior room shots, capturing all the darks and all the lights without utilizing flash. I would appreciate some criticism.

Thanks,

Jon
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5.


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## PhotoXopher

Very nice examples of what you can use HDR for!

Great work.


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## boomer

Awesome!


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## bmrust

These look great!  My only concern is that #2 looks just a little too oversaturated.  might just be my monitor though.

Very nice work!


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## Dominantly

I am a fan.
I have used the same technique and find that it really grabs the attention of someone viewing the image and gives them a real feel of what it was like to be standing in that room at that moment.


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## PushingTin

very nice


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## Enough Already

Great use of HDR. I recently sold my house and the agent was a photography buff. Manually bracketed 9 images and got fantastic results not much different from these. These are really good..


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## musicaleCA

Um, okay, well you've got the restrained part of realistic HDR down. Now for the problems with the images themselves.

Your blues have become very over-saturated in some areas. This is a product of cool light spilling in from outdoors, in contrast to the warm interior light, which is amplified by the HDR processing. (Good rule of thumb for HDR is that *everything* is increased; saturation, chromatic aberration, fringing, noise, everything.) A good way to correct this would be to go over each exposure and mask in a correct WB over those areas. Once you've removed noise, aberrations, yadda yadda, and corrected WB in all of the exposures (copy the layer mask you use to correct WB and use it for all the images to save time), then process them into an HDR image. This over-saturation that I'm referring to is most prominant in the first image (the grass has turned blue, which is becuase it's in shade), and the third (towels and windowsills, where the cool ambient is strongest).

In the case of the third image, it wouldn't be a bad idea to shoot a few correctly exposed images of a grey card in each area with a different WB. That would be: the bathtub, left window, sink, back window, and interior wall closest to the camera. Doing that will give you references for how to correct the WB of each area of the image in post. (Definitely not something you can fix on-location, other than preparing for it by shooting a grey card...a lot.)

The second image doesn't display this odd WB behaviour. That's because the light in the room is all from outside, and so is relatively the same temperature.

Lastly, your Sigma 10-20 has some very unusual barrel distortion, which is apparent in the first image. It distorts at the corners and edges rather strongly at 10mm, but the centre of the visual field is relatively free of distortion. Find yourself some good distortion correction software to fix this (its not something you'll be able to fix easily with the transform tool in Photoshop without cursing your life and everything that brought you to this point).

Lastly, was it your intention to blow-out the highlights outside in some of the images?


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## Jon_Are

Wow, thanks MusicaleCA. I really appreciate your taking the time to make these comments.

White balance: Honestly, I didn&#8217;t notice the issues until you pointed them out. Your suggestion to correct it sounded reasonable until I realized that this is all done _before_ HDR processing. Because I used, typically, six images on each shot (and I ended up producing 15 HDRs from the shoot),  I&#8217;m not sure that is practical for me. Maybe I&#8217;ll try it on a few and see how it flows. I guess it might not be so bad, copying the layer mask as you suggested.

The second image &#8211; the one you mention has no WB problem &#8211; is the one I fretted over the most. I wanted to convey a warm, sun-filled room (which is was), but it now looks a bit over-cooked to me.

Barrel distortion: Yeah, this is one of the things I learned from this job. I thought all BD could be corrected in post, but not so much. Before even seeing your post I resolved to stay away from the 10mm as much as possible (maybe go to 15, 13 in a pinch). I&#8217;m also looking into PTLens, which seems to be highly recommended. Would this &#8211; or some similar software &#8211; correct virtually all barrel distortion? Or would I still have to be mindful of my focal length.

Blown highlights: I knew they were blown, but I tried to minimize it. I needed to brighten up some of the interiors, and I couldn&#8217;t do it and recover everything. It was a compromise that I am OK with.

I&#8217;m all about learning, so I welcome any more insights.

Thanks, also, to those who complimented my work.
  [FONT=&quot]
Jon[/FONT]


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## musicaleCA

My suggestion to streamline those WB corrections is to work with a single, correctly exposed image first. Open it again, adjust the WB to fix one area, and then put it over the original. Mask it so that the WB is adjusted in the right place. Rinse and repeat as many times as necessary to fix the image. Then, keep all those layers and masks open (you should also note down every new temperature and which areas they fixed). You can then use that as a guide to correct the other images, and copying the layer masks will speed things up (and make sure that you don't end-up with wonkiness because of differing masks in different exposures).

Yeah, it kinda sucks. It's the only way I've ever found to correct this though. *sigh* Maybe someone else on here knows better. (manaheim might...he does plenty of HDRs, methinks) Aside from the above, which will be more accurate, you could just try selectively adjusting the areas of the image with wonky WB, by subtracting blue, adding amber, etc. It might be acceptable, or it might not. Won't know if you don't try. (And I have sympathy for the PP nightmare that'll be; my computer would choke doing extensive editing to a 32-bit image.)

PTLens will probably fix everything quite nicely. However, you should still be mindful of your focal length while shooting. Fixing the distortion in post is a stop-gap measure, and should only be used if you absolutely must use a focal length that suffers from serious distortion. <snip; I'm a dummy and I'm tired; long night>


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## Jon_Are

<_fires up the Bat Signal for Manaheim>_

I dunno. I'm going to try some things, of course. But I wonder if it's worth the bother for real estate images. Architectural Digest? Maybe. Realtor.com? Perhaps not. (speaking of the WB issue here). I know I should always strive for my best image, but I must be practical about it, too.

Selectively subtracting a hunk of blue is worth trying, as well.

The demos at the PTLens web site are mighty impressive. It's reasonably priced, too. I'll try the 10-day demo first, but this decision is very near to a no-brainer.

Jon


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## c.cloudwalker

Photos 1 and 3 are great examples of when to use HDR but it didn't work. You still have totally blown areas outside which should have been corrected.

Unfortunately, I am not an expert in this technique and I hope Manaheim sees your thread so he can help you. If he doesn't, you may want to just pm him.


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## Jon_Are

Alright, so I messed around with this one a bit. Any better?

Jon






*THE ORIGINAL, FOR COMPARISON:

*


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## musicaleCA

The towels are much improved. They look like they might be white after all. Hehe. But it seems there are other spots that you didn't touch like the windowsill in the back and the tub. The tub is rather easy because the target is white; you might try creating a new layer, and painting over it with the inverse colour of that blue (take the RGB values of the colour, and for each value subtract it from 255 to get the inverse colour value; e.g. 200,200,200, becomes 55,55,55). Doing so pushes the colours to 18% grey. Then just lighten it a bit to come back to white. (Don't go all the way to grey though, otherwise you're liable to end-up with wonkiness.)

But, this is all just me spouting ideas of what might work, maybe, when I'm tired and am so sore I can barely feel my legs (bending myself into a pretzel in freezing cold water to get a shot; never had so much fun...).


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## Jon_Are

The towels are the only thing I worked on, aside from the blown areas in the windows; didn't touch the tub. But I will.



> take the RGB values of the colour, and for each value subtract it from 255 to get the inverse colour value; e.g. 200,200,200, becomes 55,55,55



Fascinating info. Thanks.

Jon


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## musicaleCA

It's a nifty trick to invert colours to cancel them out. Works really well when whitening teeth (usually comes-out to painting a little cyan over the teeth, brightening, and presto). If you want the end result to be brighter or darker, you can brighten or darken the inverted colour. (It's easiest and more accurate to do this in LAB where you have direct control over the luminance value without affecting colour, though it's such a simple change that it's more about being picky.)


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## ek20

have the images since been removed? why aren't they appearing?

EDIT: srry, they are appearing just fine. I had a flickr issue. 

the images look great, true example of realistic well put together HDR images
the untrained eye would be unable to tell.


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## Jon_Are

They appear fine for me.

Anyone else?

Jon


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## Nostregar

I see the pictures fine.

Also, I love them - great use of HDR. Do you have a trick for getting the windows and what is outside them to show up so cleanly without getting blown out, or do you just make your 0+/- exposure one that shows what is outside the windows?


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## CraniumDesigns

overall i think these are very good. HDR is perfect for interior photography. they're not 100% realistic, but damn close enough. i think you're gonna get barrel distortion on any lens at 10mm. it's near impossible to cram a whole room into a picture when you're that close to everything.

also, what exposure sets did you use? a standard -2,0, +2?

oh, and to kill the blues on the towels, i would just desaturate them a bit, maybe all the way.


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## musicaleCA

CraniumDesigns said:


> overall i think these are very good. HDR is perfect for interior photography. they're not 100% realistic, but damn close enough. i think you're gonna get barrel distortion on any lens at 10mm. it's near impossible to cram a whole room into a picture when you're that close to everything.
> 
> also, what exposure sets did you use? a standard -2,0, +2?
> 
> oh, and to kill the blues on the towels, i would just desaturate them a bit, maybe all the way.



For HDR, it's best to meter the lightest and darkest parts of the scene, and then take exposures in increments in between. The problem with that lens is that it's non-uniform barrel distortion. The edges are curvy at 10mm, but the centre field isn't at all. That complex distortion requires something like PTLens to fix accurately.


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## Jon_Are

Thanks, everyone. I'm extremely new at this, got a lot to learn. It's nice to hear some positive remarks.

As for the windows, it was a lot of trial & error. My first attempts were with just three images. I was pretty disappointed with the results, and walked around in a bad mood for a few days because of it. :mrgreen:

So I realized - with the help of a lot of nice folks on TPF - that I needed to use more images, a wider range of exposures, to achieve what I was after (especially with the windows). My next shoot, which came at a perfect time, I set up two bracketed sets, giving me six exposures for each image. I started doing +/-2, then changed to +/-1 EV.

My goal is to shoot real estate using no flash, just natural lighting.

As for the distortion, it sure does look ugly to me now; it's all I see when I look at some of these photos. I just downloaded PTLens literally ten minutes ago, and used it on a horribly distorted image. My reaction to PTLens: Wow! So easy to use, and so effective. It's worth 5 times the cost.

Now I have to go back and fix some verticals and un-barrel some barrels. I'll post a few of the results back here.

I still want to keep my Sigma away from the 10mm, though. 

Jon


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## Jon_Are

OK, so here is an image I corrected with PTLens, shown below the earlier, non-corrected version for comparison. Please let me know what you think, good, bad & ugly.

(still trying to rein in those window highlights)

Thanks!

Jon


Before:







After:


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## Josh66

I prefer the "before" version.  The white balance looks more natural.



Jon_Are said:


> Please let me know what you think, good, bad & ugly.
> 
> (still trying to rein in those window highlights)



The grass outside the window is blown out, but I take it that you noticed that.

I suggest you try the method I mentioned in another thread...
Like I said there - with AEB you will always be guessing.  Sometimes you might get lucky.  I don't think that happened here...

It may take a little longer to set up, but it will solve your problems.

(And you will have _perfect_ HDRs...)


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## Jon_Are

Thanks, Josh. I will try your method as soon as I get the chance.

Anyway, I was more focused on correcting the distortion in the above example than the saturation (or the blown highlights).

So, just for you, here is a more restrained version. :mrgreen:

Jon


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## Josh66

Jon_Are said:


> I was more focused on correcting the distortion in the above example than the saturation (or the blown highlights).



Oooh...  I didn't even notice the distortion till just now.

The doors (camera left) look better in the after version, but I think the windows look better in the before version...

Looks like it will be hard to get both perfect...


If I had to go with one, it would be the doors though - closer to the edge, more noticeable.


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## Jon_Are

Josh, so I dug up that other thread, the one where you advised against using bracketing.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I still don't understand how that will give different results that bracketing, and I definitely don't agree that it is easier.

If you're interested in re-hashing it with me, this is a comparison of our methods:

Yours: 


Shoot in manual
Meter darkest area
Meter brightest area
Note dynamic range of scene
Split range into equal increments; take an exposure for each stop, from dark to bright
Bottom line (on example of, say, 6 images): Click shutter 6 times, make 5 adjustments, touch camera 5 times
Mine: 


Shoot in manual
Meter darkest area
Meter brightest area
Note dynamic range of scene
Take 3-shot bracket of scene, using same aperture, setting shutter at lowest metered exposure (so capturing bottom three images of range)
Adjust shutter speed appropriately
Take another 3-shot bracket to capture next (final) highest three images of range
Bottom line (on example of, say, 6 images): Click shutter 2 times, make 1 adjustments, touch camera 1 time
And....we both end up with the exact same six exposures.

If I'm wrong, please tell me.

Thanks,

Jon


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## Josh66

As you set it out above, they both should give the same results.

But, you can clearly see that my method has fewer steps, that makes it easier - IMO.

In the examples in _this_ thread, you failed to meter the brightest area.

Metering - knowing the dynamic range that needs to be captured - is more important than the method you choose to capture it in.

My way, your way..., doesn't matter - just get the whole scene.


I will say this though...
The larger the dynamic range gets, the harder your method becomes.
...Something to keep in mind.

EDIT
I'm not saying that they're not good.  But, I _am_ saying that they could be much better.


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## boogschd

wow!


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## Jon_Are

> In the examples in _this_ thread, you failed to meter the brightest area.



Here's what I don't get, though: When you meter for the darkest areas - which you must do - the highlights are going to be blown.

Because you need this exposure as part of your final picture, how do you prevent these blown highlights from making their way into my final HDR image?

Is there a way, within Photomatix, that prevents this from happening? An adjustment I am missing?

Jon


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## crazycreature11

THUMBS UP


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## c.cloudwalker

Jon_Are said:


> Here's what I don't get, though: When you meter for the darkest areas - which you must do - the highlights are going to be blown.
> 
> Because you need this exposure as part of your final picture, how do you prevent these blown highlights from making their way into my final HDR image?
> 
> Is there a way, within Photomatix, that prevents this from happening? An adjustment I am missing?
> 
> Jon



Never done HDR but from what I'm reading that has got to be the case. You end up combining 3, 5 or more exposures so as to cover the tonal range that the camera cannot cover in one exposure.

PM Manaheim. What you're trying to do is what he shows as the results of a good HDR. I'd be surprised if he didn't help you out.


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## Jon_Are

Here's another, just for fun:


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## manaheim

Hey Jon, got your bat signal... 

I've been trying to get in here all day to talk a bit about this but haven't had the time.  I plan to get to it tonight.  

That being said, any chance you could put up your raw images somewhere for the first two shots so I could download them?  There's something wonky going on with them but I'm not totally sure what and it's hard to tell without playing with the originals.

If that's cool you can PM me the download details.

If not, I'll be happy to offer what advice I can when I get back online this evening.


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## Jon_Are

I'd love for you to have a go at the RAWs, Chris, but I have no way of getting them to you (that I know of).

[new thought: I'd even put them on a disc and ship them to you]

Anyway, they're wonky because Photomatix has so many freaking settings, and no two tutorials / 'experts' on the net agree on even general guidelines and/or starting points.

I've been tweaking and tuning for hours, often 'til I get to the point where _nothing_ looks real. Time to go to bed, then. I've got all kinds of variations of the same few images.

So, advise away. Maybe if you could share your starting points for each slider, that might go a long way toward my learning process.

Thanks for dropping in. 

Jon

*EDIT: To be honest, #2 looks pretty OK to me (I did change it to an improved version, not sure which one you saw). What is not right about it?*


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## Josh66

Jon_Are said:


> but I have no way of getting them to you (that I know of).



Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire

Like photobucket, but for files.


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## Jon_Are

Dang, Josh. Yer smart!

Thanks,

Jon


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## Josh66

Any time.  Glad to help.


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## manaheim

I still need to invest more time with this, but honestly, Jon, I don't think you're far off... at least for my eye.

To be honest, I don't know how I've gotten myself some kind of name as "an HDR guy" since I've probably done 6-10 of them max, AND I'm a total slack-@ss about it when I do it... I don't bother metering dark and light areas, I keep it on auto white balance, etc.

What I do:

- Set up on tripod and get it REALLY steady.
- Spot meter and focus on whatever happens to be my primary focus point.
- Set aperature up for whatever depth of field I want, trying to keep within optimum for the lens/e.
- Spin the aperature wheel to the point where it says I am MASSIVELY underexposed (like literally fill up the exposure indicator to the right of the line).
- Then I follow this series of...
1. Wait 3-5 seconds to be sure camera is still.
2. Take shot.
3. Move exposure up 3 stops.
4. Repeat.
- I do this until I have the exposure at the opposite extreme of overexposure (bar all filled up)

Then I go home and generally edit the HDR using the RAW images as sources (no correction step inbetween). I usually select the exposures that I think are most appropriate, trying for no less than 3, no more than 5... some exceptions on the 5 though. I set the white balance to "As Shot", align images usually based upon features, reduce noise and ghosting, etc.

Then I tone-map.

Mostly I just keep tweaking it until it looks "right" to my eye, though sometimes "right" means a bit warm or cool, depending on what feeling I'm trying to portray. This is admittedly tricky, but it's very much a feel thing and I don't see any real pattern on the settings... though I imagine if I did 1000 of them or so I would.

Once done, the final rendering often seems to be not QUITE what I had in the preview screen... often a bit more red. So I usually wind up having to pull some red out of the final product and make other small tweaks to color and brightness and contrast.

I then save it as a 16 bit tiff and then open it up in photoshop. I want to retain as much of that color info and such as I can so I can make non-destructive adjustments.

I don't generally bother trying to sharpen the HDRs as they tend to be _quite_ soft by nature and tend to have a bit of noise, which makes sharpening a disaster. I often consider cleaning up the noise and going a few steps further, but honestly most of the times I've done this it seems to work out so that these kinds of details seem less important in the final product than they would be in a more standard range image. Probably just because there's more detail to carry it without making razor edges on everything. Not certain, though.

The things I've noticed you have to watch out for is inadvertantly winding up with washed out trees outside and such, and I actually t hink most of that has to do with my not taking enough care at capture, but I'm still fiddling. You also have to watch out for nasty oversaturated colors, but you can usually pull those down in photoshop after the fact.

For me, part of the reason why I tend to rush these is...

1. I think I get a pretty good result just horsing around with it as I do- after all, this is about as close as you get to splashing paint on a wall in photography as you get, so I think you have a LOT of leeway.
2. Since I'm trying to actually behave and most people with HDRs are creating alternate realities, even if I don't get it dead-perfect, it stands out.
3. Hourly cost. Particularly at the rates I know you are charging, you have to consider how many $/hour you are eating up here. While I certainly think you should understand the tool inside and out as it can't help but make your process better and faster, I think you should keep in mind that there is a diminishing return factor when you are on a paying job. Obviously make your own choices here. Quality is important and will make you stand out amongst a sea of hacks... but 80% of the job might make you stand out just as well as 99%. You know what I mean?

BTW, here is a thread where I posted a few of these I did for a client this weekend: (one of them has a color space issue, but still looks pretty cool IMO)  (paint->wall)

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/174454-residential-real-estate-example.html

btw, I think it was your first two in your original post that had the most issue.

OH... and yes... ptlens is the stuff of the gods.  And for what?  $30?  pfft.  I'd pay 'em $100 without question.  Photoshop has some of these capabilities, too, but PTLens is so much faster and easier.


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## Jon_Are

Chris,

You're the TPF HDR guy, well, because we _say_ you are. That is, until some young buck de-thrones you.

Your camera set-up isn't much different than mine at all (and that's the part of the process I do understand pretty well). 

What I need help with, I think, is the post stuff, particularly Photomatix settings. Or, at least, starting points. Defaults a good place to begin, I guess?

Also, some specific advice on keeping the windows looking natural. Whatever that  means.

As for the dollar/time investment, oh yeah. I am fully aware of that. But by investing a lot of time now, learning it, my hope is that I can happily and speedily zip through the process when the meter's running. I know that what I can already do is so much more betterer than 95% of the real estate photos you'll find online. And I know it's good enough to 'fool' virtually all the agents into thinking I'm a near-genius. 

I just want to be _really_ good, that's all.

Holy crap...my grill is on fire. Be right back.


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## musicaleCA

Aren't grills supposed to be on fire? :lmao:

I think the really good people in any profession are the ones who want to be better at their job, for the sake of being better at their job. A mindset of doing the best job you possibly can is always a boon.

manaheim, it's that one HDR you use as an example all the time. Indoor foyer, plants, big windows and glass doors going on, and it's all perfectly exposed and doesn't look like an HDR at all. That's what makes me think "Oh...hey, that bloke might actually know what he's doing. Maybe..." :greenpbl:

And yes, your real estate photography is already quite good. Being honest, most pictures of real estate tend to look like they were done by the agent with their weeny P&S on full auto. *shudder*


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## c.cloudwalker

Jon_Are said:


> Dang, Josh. Yer smart!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jon




Isn't that the point of sites like this? We learn from those who know.

At least, that's why I'm here.

Just hope manaheim the artist doesn't hate me for shouting his name so loud on this thread :er: I guess we'll see about that 

In the meantime, who can argue with musicaleCA when he says: "I think the really good people in any profession are the ones who want to be better at their job, for the sake of being better at their job. A mindset of doing the best job you possibly can is always a boon."
:thumbup:


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## manaheim

Jon_Are said:


> Chris,
> 
> You're the TPF HDR guy, well, because we _say_ you are. That is, until some young buck de-thrones you.


 
Does that work with other stuff?  Can you declare me the super rich and famous guy??   Well, maybe just rich.



Jon_Are said:


> Your camera set-up isn't much different than mine at all (and that's the part of the process I do understand pretty well).
> 
> What I need help with, I think, is the post stuff, particularly Photomatix settings. Or, at least, starting points. Defaults a good place to begin, I guess?


 
I wish I could tell you but I honestly can't.  It very clearly has a _lot_ of variability based upon the subject, how the white balance was setup, how many exposures you have, whether or not you used flash, what items were in the room, etc.  Each of mine has varied pretty drastically.   Sorry I wish there were a magic formula starting point... well... there may be and I just haven't stumbled on it yet.  If you find out, let me know.   Well, either that, or I'll crown you instead. 



Jon_Are said:


> Also, some specific advice on keeping the windows looking natural. Whatever that means.


 
I think that's primarily making sure you have the right source exposures and then not washing out the subject in PP.  Note that you want to generally speaking err on the side of underexposing blues and (to a lesser degree) greens, because it really makes those colors pop.



Jon_Are said:


> As for the dollar/time investment, oh yeah. I am fully aware of that. But by investing a lot of time now, learning it, my hope is that I can happily and speedily zip through the process when the meter's running. I know that what I can already do is so much more betterer than 95% of the real estate photos you'll find online. And I know it's good enough to 'fool' virtually all the agents into thinking I'm a near-genius.


 
Yup, no doubt.  I'm with you... I'm just hyper sensitive to the fact that residential real estate takes me easily 2x as long to shoot and process and makes me at BEST 1/3 the money... and that's at my "Yes, I understand all the other guys doing this are 1/4 my cost... but I'm better" price.




Jon_Are said:


> Holy crap...my grill is on fire. Be right back.


 
err... hope that flamed out quickly.


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## manaheim

musicaleCA said:


> I think the really good people in any profession are the ones who want to be better at their job, for the sake of being better at their job. A mindset of doing the best job you possibly can is always a boon.


 
Oddly, I've found in commercial real estate that being better got me in the door, but then they just want to rush rush rush even if it means not getting the quality of shot they expect from me.  I'm always pushing back at least a little... gotta make sure I give them a quality product, but in general I find that business at least _slightly_ trumps the need to get those nice big puffy white clouds in every shot. (as an example)



Jon_Are said:


> manaheim, it's that one HDR you use as an example all the time. Indoor foyer, plants, big windows and glass doors going on, and it's all perfectly exposed and doesn't look like an HDR at all. That's what makes me think "Oh...hey, that bloke might actually know what he's doing. Maybe..." :greenpbl:


 
Oh yeah... you mean the only HDR I have that I actually have an ounce of respect for?   I probably know what I'm doing to some degree at this point, but I honestly have no idea why. 



Jon_Are said:


> And yes, your real estate photography is already quite good. Being honest, most pictures of real estate tend to look like they were done by the agent with their weeny P&S on full auto. *shudder*


 
Oh sure.  I think you could pretty much just have slightly better equipment (like a wide angle lens) and have the notion that maybe you should try to back yourself into a corner when taking the shot and you'd be about 80% better than most of the crap out there.  It's astonishing how bad some of it is.



c.cloudwalker said:


> Just hope manaheim the artist doesn't hate me for shouting his name so loud on this thread :er: I guess we'll see about that


 
Actually, I was kinda flattered by the whole thing.  Thanks for the ego boost.


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## Jon_Are

Alright, so here we go. The good news is, my house didn't burn down and I didn't singe a single hair. I was firing up the grill, paying it just half-attention, and the flames started a-shootin' a couple of feet in the air. Put out the fire, re-grouped, and had some tasty barbecue chicken w/ corn on cob.

Back on topic. I tried HDR-ing that dang dining room scene a few more times, using slightly different methods. First, I omitted using the most overexposed frame. Then, I omitted the TWO most overexposed frames, thinking that might chill out the blown window to some extent.

Didn't really help all that much. I'm to the point where I feel that the window isn't going to be well-exposed no matter what I do. The error here - and the lesson - is that this was probably not a good shot to begin with. It was a very sunny day and I was shooting a moderately dark room full on toward a large window. Maybe that shot, at that time, was not meant to be.

Not that I'm going to trash it. Blown highlights and all, it's still a fairly good shot.

As for Photomatix settings, I understand that they must be highly individualized. I guess part of my frustration with that, though, is the wide, wide range of advice I've encountered when searching out how to create a realistic HDR. For example, on the Strength slider alone, I saw some folks swear you shouldn't take it above 20 (but 10 is better), while others push 100 with it. Quite a wide range, that. And these were both specific to indoor, natural-lighting non-cartoony HDR creation.

I think I'll do OK. I just need to keep practicing, jotting down settings, and backing away from the screen when my eyes start to lose focus.

Chris (or anyone else, for that matter), if you still feel like it, I'll send you the RAW files of that evil dining room scene. If anyone is able to get a purty HDR out of it - windows included - I'll buy you a beer one day.

Or maybe grill you a chicken leg. :mrgreen:

Jon


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## manaheim

Yeah, I'd like to take a crack at doing the HDR of your evil dining room.

BTW, the scenario you describe (sunny day, dark interior) is exactly what the HDR thing is for... and why I use them... so, I doubt that was the issue.

If the files are not massive and you don't have more than 5-7 of them, you can email them to me at...

chHriHs0H01@wicHkedtHiki.com

(remove all the capital Hs)

BTW, I find I generally run the "strength" between 80 and 100... didn't even occur to me you would want to do less, but I may have to try that now.


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## Jon_Are

OK, Chris, I sent you 6 exposures of the EDR*

Please let me know that you've received them OK.

Thanks,

Jon


*                                     *Evil Dining Room*


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## manaheim

Ok, I'll check it out tonight.


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## Jon_Are

Chris, please be sure you jot down every setting in sight.

Thanks again,

Jon


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## Enough Already

This has been a great read. My thanks to those taking the time to talk about it in detail, its been very helpful. Im sticking to one light source (natural) for the moment as my masking skills need to be honed before attempting anything like that described in one of the other posts. Would a prime wide angle lens like a 12mm or 14mm give less distortion than the wide zoom?? I know its not as wide as the 10 of the Siggy, but to me some of the corrections seem less natural than the original distorted versions. Thats just me I guess.


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## musicaleCA

Yes, in general, a fixed lens will have less distortion than a zoom lens. Distortion will usually be uniform barrel distortion on a fixed wide-angle, but with a good lens it probably won't be a serious problem. Fixed lenses won't exhibit the complex distortion as seen on the Sigma zoom used to take the shots earlier. (Unless it's a really bad fixed lens.)

What you might be seeing is a little bit of perspective distortion, which isn't a function of the lens (well, unless you are able to shift it). It's quite easily corrected in post. (Frankly, sometimes it's better to just embrace the distortion, for things like buildings and the like. In a room, it would probably be best to make sure the camera is at eye-level if it's on a tripod, because the wide angle lens will increase the amount of perspective distortion perceived.)


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## manaheim

Hmmm...

Ok, here is what I came up with...







(note I didn't do any perspective correction or anything)

I pulled them in from RAWs with white balance "as shot".

*Settings:*
Strength: 100
Color Saturation: 66
Luminosity: 2.9
Microcontrast: 6.9
Smoothing: 1.8
White Point: 2.349%
Black Point: 0.031%
Gamma: 0.81
Temp: -7.2
Saturation Highlights: -0.8
Saturation Shadows: 1.4
Micro-Smoothing: 5.1
The rest: 0

As usual, when I do the actual processing, I find there's still too much red in it.  No idea why that happens, so I took about 30 points out in photoshop.  That being said, I think your renditions are WAY too white and in some cases kind overexposed.  (it was a little hard to judge the red since I didn't see the place, but to my eye this looks pretty close)

My thought here is that you should keep in mind that you're not trying to make this look as if you have everything illuminated perfectly, or as if it was illuminated by direct sun (with no ceiling or roof blocking the sun), but rather than you are trying to make it look essentially as it would when you are standing there.

With a house, that means that it will generally be illuminated (relatively poorly) by incandescant lights, which have a warming cast to them that accentuates reds and warmer colors.  It also means you will have some reasonably dramatic shadows and such, which will be very pleasing to the eye and shouldn't be totally lost.

This being said, I think you also had a VERY bright day outside... so bright that  maybe you should have used a flash for these to compensate.  No matter how much I dorked with it, I couldn't keep it from overexposing the exterior... but I need to try one more thing.  (This was just my first try at it)


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## manaheim

btw, I also put the photomax settings up on the server for you.

http://www.wickedtiki.com/images/tpf/memcor/jonare1.xmp


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## Jon_Are

Thanks for taking the time to do this, Chris.

Taking some of the reds out sounds like a good tip. In this case, you got a pink room with pink curtains, so, yeah, it's going to have a red tint to it. 

That window is quite the challenge. I'm going to try cutting the window from one of the darkest exposures and seeing how it looks plopped into the HDR. I know that may not be a practical solution, but it'll be fun playing with it. I've already tried using a layer mask, didn't have very good results at all.

I guess part of the lesson might be to be very aware of extremely sunny days. 

Use a flash? That would be my very last resort. 

This has been a bit frustrating at times, but looking on the bright side, I've learned so much from just this one photo. 

And that is how you get better.

Thanks again,

Jon


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## manaheim

Yeah, masking was something I also considered.  There really should be a way to do this, however... I suspect its something in the exposures... like perhaps you only use flash for your brightest exposure.  This will compensate for the exterior light being SO bright while bringing up the interior... and the flash will likely barely be  noticed when you combine all the exposures together.

Oh you know I think I have a set of HDRs where I did the same position with and without flash.  I could probably test the theory by combining them a bit.


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## Jon_Are

Just thought I'd clarify my 'flash as a last resort' statement.

I know that flash, used properly, can produce some beautiful shots and solve some complex lighting issues.

The reason it's not for me, though, is because part of my marketing strategy will be that I utilize only natural lighting. For good or for bad, it has a nice ring to it and seems like a desirable quality to promote.

If I get caught using a flash, though, there goes my niche.

So, I'm determined to overcome this challenge in a non-flash fashion.

Flash: The Devil's Sunshine. :mrgreen:

Jon


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