Dynamic Photo HDR

36 Dynamic Photo HDR

This Method is suitable for images with enough contrast and details such as landscapes, skies with

clouds etc. It is not as suitable for scenes with many flat surfaces or smooth gradients. If your

camera/lens has vignetting this process may increase its effect.

A typical process would be:

• Start form default values (press R button right of the blue Settings label)


• Set Gamma value to 1.0


• Adjust Brightness of the image


• Move Dramatic Light Strength a little bit up (to about 0.5) to temporarily emphasize the effect


• Change value of the Dramatic Light Radius in smaller steps to see the different fill-in effect. Each
  value can give a different feel to the image


• Lower the Dramatic Light Strength back to more reasonable values


• If a banding or added noise is still visible in flat and smooth areas, increase the Surface Smoothness
  until you are comfortable with the tradeoff between the effect and noise.

Note: Surface Smoothness has certain counter effect to Dramatic Light Radius and Strength.

Therefore it is difficult adjust these parameters with Surface Smoothness increased too much above

0.5. If you want to adjust the effect of Dramatic Light, do it while Surface Smoothness is lowered to 0.5

or lower. When you are satisfied with the effect and you see some banding or grain noise in smooth

surfaces, you can start increasing the Surface Smoothness.

Ultra-Contrast

More dynamic process than the previous method with more grainy, contrast result, but also more

saturated colors. It could be adjusted to the point where the image looks more like a graphics.

Instead of Saturation parameter we have Natural/Saturated slider. This is named like that because the

saturation itself is not actually adjusted. When the slider is in right position (1.0) the image is

processed using a process that saturates images but it also better suppress grain noise in flat areas.

In the left position (0.0) the image is processed using similar process that0 however produce more

natural looking image, reminiscent of a grainy contrast photography, with a grain noise in flat areas.

Choosing values in between will mix the processes.

This Method is suitable for images with enough contrast such as landscapes, skies etc. It can

significantly add grain noise in a smooth areas. You cam try to suppress the grain and banding with the

Surface Smoothness, but it will also lower the overall contrast.

Sometimes, during the preview this method may show number of crossing lines in a very bright areas:

This is an artefact of preview scaling that is amplified by the grain process and it is a good indicator

that there is not enough dynamic data in that particular area. It will disappear completely during final

export. Nevertheless the area will still be over-exposed as result of not having enough dynamic range.