I’ve been playing with tone mapping HDR (High Dynamic Range) images. Basically you take three images of the same scene with different exposure settings, then combine them into one file to retain all the details from each. The resulting HDR image won’t be able to display on your screen because a computer screen can’t display the full range of tones. To solve this problem, you apply a tone map to the file so that it pulls all the details into one finished image. The HDR files are massive and difficult to work with, but the results are weird and sometimes beautiful. Here’s my first real attempt at it. I’ll post more info about the technique after I get a bit better at it 🙂
Ah yes, these are massive files indeed. I use them a lot when im taking scenery images in which the sky and the landscape require different lighting to showcase detail. The trick is trying to make it natural 😮
You can also take like……..3 dustbunnies and make a huge dustrabbitfromdonniedarko.
you mean a dustrabbitfromdonniedarkoz0rz?
but really, i think the coolest thing about these tone-mapped HDR images is that they don’t look too natural. it’s kind of like IR… there’s a distinctive look to it that makes it interesting.
yeah, you lost me on the tone map thing. i’ve seen a lot of HDR photos recently floating around, and been impressed with the color – i even started shooting triplets etc of nice scenes, just never get around to editing them 😀
yeah an HDR image isn’t really anything special until you combine it with the tone map. probably all of the HDR images you’ve seen online have been tone mapped to “compress” the dynamic range into colors that you can see on the computer screen. 🙂