Tone mapping for beginners

Does anyone have a good reference for the process of tone mapping? I'm new at this and I would like to know what software to look at and how to use it.

Lots of tutorials and advice here:
http://hdrlabs.com/news/index.php

ps: this site still seems to miss SNS-HDR
http://www.sns-hdr.com/

Best book I've found to date is "The HDRI Handbook" by Christian Bloch, ISBN 978-1-933952-05-5. Very comprehensive on theory and with lots of practical examples. Debunks most of the myths too.

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http://www.fachwen.org
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fachwen/sets

for an HDR compositer---one that combines images into one---look at Photomatix and PhotoAcute. Photomatix just does HDR, and is Scott Kelby's choice (google him).

PhotoAcute does other things as well that are very interesting---i've seen great results from this program in its several uses.

TuFuse Pro is a free program for playing around with without committing to a trial that has a deadline: you might want to mess around here until you get a better handle on things, then do the trial on for purchase software.

in certain situations, compositing is not possible, however, and/or you may need to take a shot w/o being set up for a real HDR sequence. in cases like that, you need a different solution. you can use several of the best known PP softwares to do this, but it can often be a bit laborious/moderately abstruse. a program that was designed from the ground up to do this is LightZone---it is my main PP software as well, and i am very very fond of it. it is a great deal more than just a tonemapping program, as it is a raw editor/converter as well and then some, but it is very much a photography program and not a graphics program, so it is limited in what it can do(for instance, it cannot composite, and so cannot collage, etc, or add text, and it is limited in its tranformation properties: you can't makle your photo look like a painting, for instance... (full disclosure: i am now the "super moderator" for the LightZone forums, but i am not an employee of or otherwise paid or compensated by Lightcrafts, the parent company. FYI). check out this comparison (and try and guess!) that was done a couple of years ago:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=24988457

also, check out this recent post on the LZ forums, which i think is excellent:

http://www.lightcrafts.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9661#post9661

a new version (v4) is being worked on now (we've seen a screenshot of the browser window, and i'm guessing it will be ready in the fall. it's currently at v3.9. available in mac, wintel, and linux. email me directly if you wish some assistance with it. hope this is helpful.

mike larsen said:

Lots of tutorials and advice here:
http://hdrlabs.com/news/index.php

ps: this site still seems to miss SNS-HDR
http://www.sns-hdr.com/

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I'd highly recommend SNS-HDR ; it is one of the best of the pack for realistic blending rather than fluorescent, radio-active images. Latest versions do an exceptional job handling noise that can plague HDR images.

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Michael Gove
http://photosignals.smugmug.com

I'm looking for the tone mapping process to make a photo look like a painting. I have the ability with my camera and corel to form HDR photos but what is used to change the image to a painting view?

Hi. Which version of Corel do you have? Depending on the version, tone mapping might be labeled 'local tone mapping' or 'clarify'.

In Corel PSP X3, it's under Adjust .... Brightness and Contrast ....

In earlier versions, the equivalent of local tone mapping is clarify, also under Adjust... Brightness/Contrast...

You might also want to try High Pass Sharpen (under Adjust... Sharpness...)

If you want it to really look like a painting, you might be interested in Corel Painter Essentials.

Hope this helps!

Best regards,
Michael

Crew Chief 571 said:

I'm looking for the tone mapping process to make a photo look like a painting. I have the ability with my camera and corel to form HDR photos but what is used to change the image to a painting view?

Click to expand...