HDR: Luminance Smoothing visual comparison

Greetings,

I am not sure whether this is of any value for most of the much more experienced photographers around, however, for my personal learning and interest, I shoot a series of picures to observe the effect of changing the luminance smoothing parameter in Photomatix.

For this I used a bacardi glas filled with wet molusca that I got from the beach. The light came from the left 5PM sunlight.

If you are interested, here is a download link to the PDF.

http://www.mediafire.com/?4ktw5xwzymy

Georg Baumann said:

Greetings,

I am not sure whether this is of any value for most of the much more experienced photographers around, however, for my personal learning and interest, I shoot a series of picures to observe the effect of changing the luminance smoothing parameter in Photomatix.

For this I used a bacardi glas filled with wet molusca that I got from the beach. The light came from the left 5PM sunlight.

If you are interested, here is a download link to the PDF.

http://www.mediafire.com/?4ktw5xwzymy

Click to expand...

Hi Bear!

Could you give a deeper explanation of what you mean exactly? "Luminance Smoothing" can be done in many ways in Photomatix and in a wide range of settings.
What i see in you pictures is a changing degree of intensity of the overall aspect. Not in specific "luminance smoothing". The exampes are nice shots - but not so good to judge the effect.

best, Klaus

Hi Klaus,

I have to get back to you on that specific, my other computer where I did it with just died on me. ____fill in cursing dockers language_____

From memory.... if you create the HDR and then go to tonemapping afterwards, I think there is a slider luminance smoothing if memory serves with 5 settings:

-2,-1,0,+1,+2

So the series represents the five settings, whereby the rest of the paramters stayed constant of course.

You are certainly right, there are possibly better ways to judge the effect. I just tried a visual comparison of the 5 settings with sorta closeup and identical light conditions to observe the change.

Hi George

thanks for these examples.

As far as I understand Photomatix, luminance smoothing is just one parameter, amongst lots of others.
Basically, I' use identical settings on one picture only, as the next one might - due to different exposure, colors, etc - require different settings.

Interesting thagt the different setting alter the 3D effect of the letters and also the distribution of light over both sides of the image.

Are these two effects linked?

Asher

Michael Fontana said:

As far as I understand Photomatix, luminance smoothing is just one parameter, amongst lots of others.

Click to expand...

Hi Michael,

that's correct of course! It was the nature of the exercise to alter just this specific paramater, which I in deed had trouble understanding and visualizing in depth what it alters.

Asher Kelman said:

Interesting thagt the different setting alter the 3D effect of the letters and also the distribution of light over both sides of the image.

Are these two effects linked?

Click to expand...

Hi Asher,

Yes, I would assume so given the fact that the distribution alters the appearance of the light.

To me this is the most powerfull slider besides the "strength" of tone mapping of course, and it is the both together that can cause pictures to enhance in a subtle, or totally whacked and hyped up way. For example:



When I showed this to Klaus a few days ago, I think his first thought was that I would have used a PS "Chrome?-Filter", which I did not, in this case it was an extreme dose of HDR settings that I applied on this ~245 degree panorama shot of my desktop setup, as well as further shadow/highlights on the resulting HDR afterwards.

Luminance smoothing, that's what the reference says:

"Controls the amount of smoothing of luminance variations. Setting a higher value tends to give a more natural look to the image and reduce halos. A lower value tends to increase
sharpness. The default value (Medium) is the optimal value in most cases. "

I often keep it on 0, or + 1.....