I like to play

example:

Its similar to JB way made with PS

Thanks for that very helpful reply John.

I'm lazier than you with my photos. Many are taken when pausing briefly during walks so I rarely have time to consider taking three shots at different EV levels.

I usually do a fair bit of editing in PaintShop Pro (v 8 in my case, so no HDR amongst other things, but I'm comfortable with it). Apart from the usual cropping and brightness (or rather gamma level which I prefer) and contrast, I frequently apply Clarify and Edge Preserving Smooth.

But occasionally, with a particularly dull photo (yet of a view or subject that is important for the video) I'm tempted to go further, such as applying HDR, albeit from a single image.

If you get time, I'd be interested to hear what you and others would do with my three examples.

Hi Terry

I use the MEP HDR feature a lot. Well at least I did up untill it stopped working with MEP on my new 64bit version of Windows10 (see my recent post about that problem). I find that 10 to 20 on the HDR and a small amount  of Contrast (55 or 60) or Selective Brightness adjustment gives a dull picture a lot more "pop". I would not use large amounts of contrast increase as in your examples because HDR is effectively trying to reduce the contrast range by bringing up the dark levels to get the detail. 

I have found that I can not use more than 20 or 30 on the HDR slider without starting to see ghosting around the edge of darker objects as in your 5th sshot and John's last shot. This can be reduced a little by adjusting the blur down around 20 but there seems to be a point where the HDR effect suddenly becomes nullified. I usually leave the blur at the default of 60. I do not fully understand the mechanics of the HDR feature but it appears to be applying something akin to an inverted B&W alpha mask of the image to allow it to then apply brightening to the dark parts. The edges of this mask appear to be blurrring and growing/shrinking depending on the level of the blur slider which may explain the the ghosting.

With photos I usually start by using the auto levels in Photoshop, or the Fix > Auto levels in Windows Photo Gallery that came with Win Vista (that often works better than PS). Alternately I use the Auto Exposure or Auto Colour in MEP as a starting point but all these Auto fixes tend to rely on the image having something that should be total white or total black in the image otherwise they will try to make the picture too contrasty if it only has mid tones to start with. The Autocolour feature may surprise you at how well it works with some seemingly hopeless cases though.

BTW I think John means that he is shooting on a camera that has an HDR effect that is selectable, and this will take 3 exposures and combine them in the background with one click of the button, so it shouldn't take any longer to get the shot.

Cheers

Peter

Hi Peter,

Thanks, much appreciated and lots to experiment with.

My misunderstanding about the multiple shots. I'm at a relatively primitive kit level. Still using a Canon Ixus 220 HS for both photos and video. And as of the last few weeks, my iPhone 6s+. (In fact, as that's also my GPS device for recording walks, I might even try leaving the Canon at home.)

Hope you get your HDR issue sorted with MEP 2016. That's the sort of hassle that holds me back from moving up to Win 10/ MEP 16.

Hi

@ Peter

. . . . I think John means that he is shooting on a camera that has an HDR effect that is selectable, and this will take 3 exposures and combine them in the background with one click of the button, so it shouldn't take any longer to get the shot. . . .

Not at all - the camera (Canon digital SLR) has an auto bracketing mode which takes multiple shots  at the different presettable EV value in 1/3 EV increments within a max range of -3 to +3 stops.

I just turn AEB on, set the EV difference I want and hold down the button - 1 sec later I have three images shot at the different EV values as shown in my example below. 

The bracketed exposures are processed as HDR in PaintShop Pro X7.  That way I have more control over the final result of the HDR image.

For even more control I shoot in RAW format and then generate the HDR image from that.

John EB

Hi,

@John EB,

I have a Canon DSLR and it has a setting for HDR backlight control. I don't have a setting for AEB..........oh, it's under the AV setting. Didn't read that part of the manual. Thanks for that! Time to find time to read the manual.

However, the camera has to be rock steady for the 3 shots with nothing moving. My wife took a whole series of automatic HDR shots (automatically takes 3 shots then combines them into 1 in the camera. Here is the result.

Of course this method only works for photos, not videos.

I'm signing up for a course on treating RAW files.

@Terry,

As I haven't yet mastered PaintShop Pro X8 and my new Topaz filters, I use MEP's and VPX7's HDR Gamma a lot. I am putting together a short video showing the impact of using Brightness, Contrast, Gammas, HDR Gamma and the corresponding blur. Maybe done this evening if I get the time. I have no set parameter as each video/scene usually requires something different. Like Peter, I don't boost the HDR too much.

I usually check what happens with Auto Colour Correction. It does a good job on your second image, but really nothing useful on the first two.

Since your first image was very hazy, I did some research. Searching in PSP forum for hazy, I found Kolor NeutralHazer, downloaded the trial and tried it. Here is the result.

Look in the valley above the lake/reservoir. There is more detail. One user said to do some denoising first. I haven't tried other effects, but a bit of HDR and blue tinge in the sky may help.

For one test on the second image, I used the video effects in VPX7 and added a Pixelan Filmtouch look, with a slight tweak, if I remember correctly.

More later.

BTW, there probably won't be a MEP 2017 or a VPX8. There will be MEP Premium and VPX - no numbers, no dates. Magix is moving to a new system. Here is the message that I received:

"All new product lines are not running version numbers anymore as we are moving to a different model with the software that will remain with one version a lot longer but have more updates."

Here is the text in the Magix.com site for Audio & Music Lab Premium:

"Program update:
•Unlimited use of program*
•Always get the latest version at time of purchase
•Plus: all new features for free for 1 year

 *With the update guarantee you will receive a full year of free new features and updates, which can be used indefinitely. If you reinstall the program after one year, you will have access to the basic version. After the one-year update guarantee has expired you can extend it for a discounted price."

Hi

@ John CB

Interesting result on the image. The ghosting would suggest that the shutter button was 'stabbed' instead of being given a gentle squeeze.

@ Terry

Here is my adjustment - no HDR just a touch of curves to increase the contrast range in the sky and valley and a slight touch on saturation increase.

I am assuming that the view as seen by the eye was misty and a need to retain the 'atmosphere' of the original scene ie cold, damp and misty and get some more detail out of the image eg the flat sky.

Of course everyone will have a different opinion of what the scene should look like, so no one particular treatment is right or wrong.

Here is my treatment of image 3 - again curves, slight contrast adjustment and correction to the colour balance - again I retained the slightly misty view, increased the detail in the shadows and enhanced the village.

Note: the changes I made to the two images were global changes using the adjustments mentioned and at no time did I use selections to enhance different areas.

John EB

JohnEB,

"I am assuming that the view as seen by the eye..."

You put your finger on one key issue here, John. I'm no longer sure what exactly the view looked like! Yes, it was misty and grey, but I suspect I saw quite a lot more detail than I now see in either my original or your improvement. To be honest, I don't see a 'satisfying' degree of difference between those two. Presumably deliberately on your part, to preserve authenticity while adding a tad more detail. In contrast, from my amateur status rather than your professional one, I tend to favour something 'better' than the original - more striking, more eye-catching.

This was one of the factors prompting my original post. IOW, how realistic do I want my MEP images to be? This has always bothered me. For most of my videos I used to barely touch the originals, feeling that to do so was sort of 'cheating'. Yet, when I fail to get photos of important locations or views etc for one reason or another, I quite happily supplement them with others from the web, including Flickr, Google Street View, etc. So I'm now thinking that if a 'needed' landscape photo inadequately captures the real view that I saw, AND if I cannot restore it, then perhaps the best approach is to enhance it, even exaggeratedly. Going further, it seems to me that many (most?) of the images we see in magazines and movies are significantly enhanced and look nothing like what we'd see in reality. Why shouldn't I emulate their approach?

Hi Terry

I am with you on your last post in that it is better to have something that looks pleasing to the eye, but I agree with John EB that it is a matter of personal taste as to how much enhancement is good.

I doubt your modest digital camera would have reproduced the scene as you saw it and if it has, then remind me not to go to Tenerife as it looks bloody gloomy!

See my take on what I would do below which is all accomplished with the Contrast/Brightness window tools in MEP2014.

Settings were:-

1. Contrast55, Selective Brightness (Lows) 20, HDR30, Saturation20.

2. AutoExposure, Gamma20, HDR20.

3. AutoExposure, Contrast55, Gamma10, HDR30.

All Blur at default 60.

Sorry John EB. I reread your post after sending my earlier one and realised what you had done but I wanted to introduce Terry to the idea that cameras have tools that do everything in their image processors.

My Lumix GF6 camera has 3 different ways to create an HDR effect:

1. HDR set on in the record menu - takes 3 shots with a 1/3 stop offset as you are doing with your bracketing and combine them for a final single shot. Of course you need to hold the camera quite still for the 3 clicks but it is possible to tolerate slight movement as in Handheld. I imagine it is processing any slight offset with the same process as it uses to stitch panorama photos together and as a result a slight cropping occurs.

2. A HiDynamic filter in the "Creative" setting position of the main dial. This actually seems to give the most pleasing result.

3. iDynamic in the record menu setting which can use Auto, Standard, and a few others from Hi to Low.

A good discussion which has inspired me to have a play!

Cheers

Peter

It is very intresting to have a look to all this interpretation.

Normally i am also lazy with the correction of pictures - often I think: this is what I have seen.

Otherwise it is sometimes a really new picture - not in this case here

I had the pic in two tracks - one normal, the other daker and higher saturation

and a soft alpha mask from black to white between..

Hi Wabu

I use that technique too sometimes.

Peter

Thanks all.

I also posted in the Corel forum (asking about PaintShop Pro 8 HDR capabilities - there are none in this very old version) and received this enhancement from an expert there.

Hi Walter,
It certainly qualifies for your label of "a really new picture", but I'm mightily impressed with the detail that he extracted from those virtually grey slabs in my original!

Here's his 35 MB TIF:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e53c67v2dks0zrm/Untitled.tif?dl=0

Reading how he did it, you will understand why I'm unlikely to aspire to such efforts for my large number of JPGs!

"I opened the image in PhotoLine (because it fully supports 16-bit images for all its functions) and converted it to a 16-bit TIF image. This is so the extreme adjustments would not cause banding, etc. Then I used PL's external programs feature to send the image to RawTherapee. In RawTherapee, I threw everything at it -- wavelets processing, retinex, tone mapping, Lab adjustments (and the cropping). Saving the result automatically re-opened the modified image back in PL, where I added adjustment layers for DeHaze, Hue/Saturation and Curves (working in Lab mode). The rather extreme settings used in RT resulted in noticeable noise, so I added a DeNoise adjustment layer in PL.

Even so, there is a noticeable halo along the edges of the mountains where they meet the sky. Lessening the strength of some of the RT adjustments would likely eliminate that halo, but I had no desire to fuss any more with this."

It's a bit dark so I've added gamma of 60, resulting in this version that's now on my video timeline:

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi all,

Terry, I don't really like result, too grainy. What I have below is simpler and, in my opinion, better. The colours can be tweaked in MEP.

Here is my latest attempt. I bought Kolor Neutralhazer and I have 2 Topaz plugins, Adjust and Detail, all accessed from PSP X8. I first used Adjust with the Vibrance preset, then Neutralhazer default.

Dropbox copy.

Now imported into VPX7 and I added some builtin effects, including a bit of blue to the sky and reservoir.

And Dropbox copy.

My experience is that reality looked better than the hazy picture that I took.

There are other things that can be done. I would remove the power line and pole. If you want a hazy valley but a brighter sky, mask off the sky in Xara or PSP and change it for something more vibrant. I saw an example of this somewhere. But then, this adds more work.

Still working on my video to show impact of video effects in the meters.

@John EB,

The boat was moving forward and up and down on waves. The time it takes for the camera to take 3 photos, the boat and my wife's hands likely moved, resulting in the ghost image. She took quite a few like that, some better than others, but still with a ghost effect.

After doing the ones in my last post, I thought that I would go back and redo a photo that I had visited a year and a half ago without getting what I wanted.

I ran it through PSP X8 with the following steps, Smart Photo Fix (under Adjust menu) - default, Topaz Adjust - vibrancy preset, Kolor Neutralhazer - default, PSP Digital Noiser Removal (under Adjust menu) - it selected a couple of parts of the sky, I simply accepted.

Here is the before:

After, which is closer to what I remember - there was some haze on the mountains. It could probably use a little less blue:

What I used was an artsy type that I think I made using Pixelan Posterwise:

Terry, since you use macros and scripts, then my method is a good fit if you have a lot of similar photos. I'll have to try to script what I did in PSP; haven't done one yet.

Hi

@ John CB

. . . . The boat was moving forward and up and down on waves. The time it takes for the camera to take 3 photos, the boat and my wife's hands likely moved . . . . .

That does not help - the boat must have been rocking some!!!

A little trick to get a relatively steady image is to hold the camera somewhere near your belt buckle - this is easier if you can flip the screen - there is a point there where you can use the arms as a Steady Cam.  To find the exact point practice running up and down stairs, walking and turning quickly while holding a glass of water,   steady in one hand - you will quickly find the correct point     and will be surprised at how fast turns and movements you can make once you have got it.  I would recommend a plastic glass to practice with.  Once you have the point makes it a lot easier to hold a camera steady on boats, planes trains etc.

@ Terry

I agree with John CB on the result of that image.

@ Peter

. . . . I reread your post after sending my earlier one and realised what you had done but I wanted to introduce Terry to the idea that cameras have tools that do everything in their image processors . . . .

No problem - I particularly like your camera's HyDynamic filter option - while not a true HDR treatment - it does extend the apparent dynamic range of dark to light and gives a very pleasing result which is probably very close to how the human eye perceives the scene..

Cheers

John EB

Hi John CB,

Nice result. Probably a bit too nice though. More like the sort of view we were hoping to get if the weather had been as it had been in the previous two weeks of February.

Hi John EB

A little trick to get a relatively steady image is to hold the camera somewhere near your belt buckle 

Nice tip, you cetainly get less rocking / swaying if you are walking and shooting video.

OTT - Not something I had thought of although I do use this a lot when taking candid shots because it alarms the subject less as they do not usually think you are shooting them but just reviewing or fiddling. Maybe this was the secret in the old days with the Rollei Flexes and the likes of Vivian Meyer.

John CB.

I don't really like result, too grainy. What I have below is simpler and, in my opinion, better.

Your example has a lot of blotchy colour noise but otherwise quite pleasing. Reducing the saturation somewhere in the chain would likely help this.

That particular photo of Terrys is perhaps not such a good example of what HDR can do as it's main issue is a lack of contrast due to the haze so it is 2 steps, increasing the contrast to bring out the detail and blacks, and then selectively brightening the dark area's either through Selective Brightening of the Low Gamma areas or some HDR. A little extra colour does help though in increasing the definition by differentiating between objects of the same tone eg. in the brown and green foliage.

Hi

@ Peter

. . . . Maybe this was the secret in the old days with the Rollei Flexes and the likes of Vivian Meyer. . . . .

Very true - another problem with SLR's is that most people use them at eye level, for taking photos of people this is one of the worst positions.  People end up looking long bodied and short legged, you can see this most often with pictures from any of the 'big star' red carpet events eg the Oscars etc.

. . . . That particular photo of Terrys is perhaps not such a good example of what HDR can do as it's main issue is a lack of contrast due to the haze . . . .

Agree entirely - the mist is a big issue in that image - there is no definitive colour except at the bottom closest to the camera. 

I have tried using 'plate substitution and blending' and working with the individual colour channels, however in the three modes RGB, HSL and CMYK there is no means of getting a good image - either the mist is in all the seperations or the colour shift is too dramatic for correction.

Cheers

John EB

@John EB,

I was driving the boat.

I did some almost running up and down the stairs with my coffee this morning, cup half full. I noticed that coffed stayed quite level when the cup was held lower. Even standing still, there was a noticeable difference between holding the cup high rather than at waist level. However, I noticed that this steadiness decreased with the amount of coffee consumed.

"Plate substitution and blending?" Can you provide some details?

@Peter,

Didn't we used to kneel down when we took pictures of people? The old knees aren't what they used to be, but I still try to get lower when photographing people.

The reddish splotches in the image are rock outcrops, the green splotches, trees. Due to the resolution, this is the result. However, my image has too much red/yellow, which makes the rock look more like laterite. Judging from the piece of wood at the upper left, I think that it should be more grey rather than red, so the colour is off. As well, there is a halo around the piece of wood that can be reduced by reducing the HDR blur to about 11.

I did a couple of tweaks in VPX7. I reduced the noise slightly using NewBlue Denoiser (first use of this), reduced HDR blur to 11, reduced Colour saturation to -9 and dragged the hue slightly towards magenta, and in Colour correction, changed Mid colour angle to 286, correction level to 9 and saturation to 98. The wood is still too red for my liking, but the shrubs are less yellow. Here is the result. I hope that it looks better.

I have so many effects on this that it takes a few seconds to render when I scroll on it.

@Terry,

Never satisfied! I cut through the haze for you. I suspect that your real motive was to make us jealous - Tenerife! Well, it's working. Here is what we woke up to this morning.

There was no snow yesterday.

Actually, this was an excellent exercise and I was very pleased to see an interesting topic come up. I learned a lot and went through many features that I hadn't tried before in both VPX7 and PSP. So thank you for bringing this one up and to John EB and Peter for the many tips. I'll now get back to my video on the meters in VPX7.

With so many brilliant candidates I found it hard to choose, so I decided I'd get the oils out and just paint it from memory.

Now that is the best one yet!

 well done