Let there be Light (HDR Vertorama) - Before and After comparison (click to enlarge)

Click here to see the final image

This is the HDR before and after comparison of “Let there be Light (HDR Vertorama)“. The final image was created from 4×5 TIFF files (series of 4 autobracketed RAW images, +2, 0, -2EV that were converted to TIFFs using Abobe Camera RAW with the Five TIFFs method creating additional +4EV and -4EV images). You can see the 12 source images in the left three columns. These images were merged into 4 32-bit HDRs and tone-mapped with Photomatix Pro 4.1 (detail enhancer option) using the same settings for each image. The resulting 4 16-bit TIF images where then stitched using Photoshop CS4. The result of the stitching, perspective correction, cropping, and retouching can be seen in the middle column. In the right column, you see the final image after a number of post-processing steps executed in Photoshop CS4.

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Let there be Light (HDR Vertorama)

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Before and after

Making-of

Pics to play with

The story of this photo:

Also view the Before-and-After comparison of this image to see how it was created (click on the image above).

When you are taking photos outdoors, the rule says that you should not do so in the middle of the day. The light is harsh and not very flattering for your subjects. This 12-shot HDR Vertorama image taken in the Basilica St. Lorenz in Kempten, Germany is a good example where photographing around noon is actually a good thing. In this case, the sun was shining through the window and on the floor. It was reflected on the pillars and the other objects in the church. This created a special lighting from below that you don’t get when you go there late in the afternoon or early in the morning.

Note however, that I had to cheat a bit more than usual to compensate the very bright exterior on the right side. In the original exposures, the right window was blown out, and there was nothing I could do to get back those details. This created an asymmetry in the image that was kind of distracting: The left window had the nice blue colors you see in the image while the right window was white. To cure this, I took the freedom to duplicate the left window and copy it over the right side. But pssst – don’t tell anybody!

This is the kind of processing where opinions are divided. What’s your take on this? Do you think that this type of ‘manipulation’ is Ok?

How to do it yourself

Read my recipes for Taking Interior HDR Vertorama Shots, Taking HDR Vertorama Shots with a Tripod, and Creating HDR Panoramas and Vertoramas to learn how you can produce images like this one too.

How it was shot

• Taken hand-held [details]
• 4×3 autobracketed shots (-2EV, 0EV, +2EV)
• Camera: Nikon D7000
• Lens: Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED

How it was stitched and tonemapped:

• CA reduction and white balance correction in ACR
• Created two additional exposures in ACR (+4EV and -4EV) to preserve highlights and shadows [details]
• Saved the images as TIFFs
• Applied noise reduction (Topaz Denoise) to each of the source images [details]
• Resulting TIFF images were then used as input to Photomatix (Details Enhancer option)
• Stitched the 4 tone-mapped TIFFs using Photoshop

How it was processed

• Post-processing was done in Photoshop
• Topaz Adjust on the entire image to get back the colors and the details [details]
• Topaz Infocus on the entire image for sharpening
• Perspective correction and cropping
• Some retouching to fix stitching errors (due to hand-held shooting)
• Global saturation and levels layers for better contrast and colors
• Global levels layer for better overall contrast
• Separate selective adjustments to the following parts: the golden elements, the paintings, the floor, the ornaments on the pillars (saturation layer for better colors, levels layers for more contrast) [details]
• Saturation layer on the white walls (desaturation)
• Levels layer on the white walls (more contrast)
• Copied the window from the left over the window on the right to deal with the blown-out exterior
• Vignette effect using a masked fill layer [details]
• Watermarking

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Family Portraits (HDR)

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Before and after

Making-of

Pics to play with

The story of this photo

150 years ago, photography was a totally different thing. Photographers would haul around huge and heavy cameras and use flash powder. In those days, photography was an adventure and photographs were something special to have. Not everyone could afford to be photographed. Today, everything and every place has been photographed at least a thousand times. Does that devalue photography?

In the digital age, with iPads and iPhones, photos tend to come in the thousands. They get buried on large storage media, and they hardly ever get printed and hung on walls or placed prominently on a table for everyone to see.

Do you still print photos? How do you display the photos that mean something to you? Do you have them on your iPad, in a printed photo book, or framed and hanging on your walls?

How it was shot

• Taken hand-held
• Three exposures (-2, 0, +2 ev) – autobracketing
• Camera: Nikon D7000
• Lens: Sigma 10-20mm F3,5 EX DC HSM

How it was tonemapped

• Preparation: developed the raw files with ACR mainly in order to reduce the CA [details]
• Created two additional exposures in ACR (+4EV and -4EV) to preserve highlights and shadows [details]
• Applied noise reduction (Topaz Denoise) to each of the source images [details]
• Resulting TIF images were then used as input to Photomatix
• Tone-mapping: Photomatix Pro 4.1 (Detail Enhancer)

How it was post-processed

• Post-processing was done in Photoshop
• Global levels layer (fine-tune contrast)
• Global saturation layer (master)
• Saturation layer (toning down the reds in some areas
• Levels layer (darkening the reflections on the ceiling)
• Levels layer (darkening the reflections on the table)
• Levels layer on the black parts (darkening)
• Saturation layer on the black parts (slight desaturation)
• Levels layer on the photos (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the photos (desaturation)
• Sharpening using the high-pass filter method [details]
• Slight vignette effect [details]

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Rosánou Abbey - Meteora (HDR)

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Before and after

Making-of

Pics to play with

The story of this photo

Where this was shot

This is an image of the world-famous Metéora site – an amazing place where six monasteries have been built on top of bizarre rock formations. In this image, you actually see three of them. UNESCO has put this place onto the World Heritage List. The term Metéora actually means “suspended in the air”, and that what this place feels like. The monasteries were built at the end of the 14th century on these rocks to protect the monks from political upheaval. If you go to this place, it feels as if you are entering another world.

On that day, the weather conditions were constantly changing. On the way to the site, it was blue skies, then rain, then blue skies again. The haze was a bit of a problem. As I shot this with a 10mm lens, using a polarizer was not possible, and reducing the hazy look in post-processing is always difficult.

How it was shot

• Taken hand-held
• Six exposures (-3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 ev) – semi-autobracketing [details]
• Camera: Nikon D7000
• Lens: Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED

How it was tonemapped

• CA reduction and white balance correction on all source exposures in Adobe Camera Raw
• Saved the 6 images as TIFFs
• Applied noise reduction (Topaz Denoise) to each of the source images [details]
• Resulting TIFF images were then used as input to Photomatix (Details Enhancer option)

How it was post-processed

Go to the before-and-after page of this image

• Post-processing was done in Photoshop
• Topaz Adjust to get back the details and the colors [details]
• Topaz Infocus (sharpening – not on the clouds)
• Saturation layer on the sky (desaturation)
• Levels layer on the sky (more contrast)
• Curves layer on the rocks (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the rocks (yellows)
• Levels layer on the green vegetation (more contrast and gamma)
• Saturation layer on the green vegetation (master / yellows)
• Levels layer on the main abbey (darkening)
• Saturation layer on the main abbey (master, toning down the reds)
• Global saturation and levels layer for global fine-tuning
• Slight vignette effect [details]
• Watermarking

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Rosánou Abbey - Metéora (HDR) - Before-and-After comparison (click to enlarge, click with middle mouse button to open in new tab)

This is the before-and-after comparison of “Rosánou Abbey  – Metéora (HDR)“. In the top row, you see the six original source images straight out of the camera. This image is based on a 6-shot semi-autobracketing series with -3, -2, -1, 0, +1 and +2 ev. On the left side on the bottom row, you see the result of merging those shots into a 32-bit HDR and subsequent tone-mapping using the detail enhancer option of Photomatix Pro 4.1. And finally, the right side of the bottom row shows the final image after a number of post-processing steps executed in Photoshop CS4.

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Happy Hour (HDR) - Before-and-After comparison (click to enlarge, click with middle mouse button to open in new tab)

This is the before-and-after comparison of “Happy Hour (HDR)“. In the top row, you see the three original source images straight out of the camera. This image is based on a 3-shot autobracketing series with +2, 0, and 2 ev. On the left side of the bottom row, you see the result of merging those shots into a 32-bit HDR and subsequent tone-mapping using the detail enhancer option of Photomatix Pro 3.1. And finally, the right side of the bottom row shows the final image after a number of post-processing steps executed in Photoshop CS4.

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This ‘HDR Pics to play with’ archive is containing the source exposures of the HDR image ‘Izmir Harbor (HDR)‘.

Download

Below is the ZIP archive with the images. Make sure you read the information in Read This First.txt (included in the archive).

Pics to play with – Izmir Harbor – by farbspiel-photo.com.zip

(md5 checksum: 782287a29d15299fcfa541e51fd5ef64)

Image Information

• Taken hand-held
• Six exposures (-3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 ev) – semi-autobracketing [details]
• Camera: Nikon D7000
• Lens: Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED
• Aperture: f/11
• ISO 100

Below, you find the details for each of the images:

Processing Information

The images have been pre-processed in the following way: The original RAW files where converted to TIFFs in Adobe Camera RAW with the default settings. Any noise reduction and sharpening was turned off. The CA (Chromatic Aberration) was removed (see Correcting Chromatic Aberration for details). The images where saves as TIFFs and watermarked in Photoshop. No noise reduction or any additional processing was applied.

Processing Tips

Use the source images as you feel appropriate. It is not strictly necessary to use all of them. Visit the photo page at to get information on my personal workflow for this image. It may serve as a starting point. Aligning the source images and reducing chromatic aberration is not necessary. In Photomatix (or any other HDR software you use) you should turn off these options. Ghost removal and noise reduction may be useful, depending on your workflow.

Additional Resources

A before-and-after comparison that includes the intermediate tone-mapped image is available for this HDR image. Take a look at my HDR Cookbook for a lot of useful post-processing tips that may help you in improving your techniques.

Sharing Your Results

Go to the ‘Pics to play with: Izmir Harbor‘ thread in the flickr HDR group. You will find a discussion thread where you can share your result and see and discuss the results of others. You may find additional versions at Google+. Try the same search term as above.

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A Dog's Life (HDR)

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Before and after

Making-of

Pics to play with

The story of this photo
This photo was taken in one of the small alleyways of Santorini, Greece. When I came around the corner (with about 20 people behind me) that dog was lying there completely unimpressed. Apparently, he got used to so many people running up and down his street snapping pictures of just about everything. In this shot, it actually seems as if there is a lot of space, but that’s more the effect of the ultra-wide-angle lens I was using. Those alleyways on Santorini are really small and picturesque.

How it was shot

• Taken hand-held
• Three exposures (-2, 0, +2 ev)
• Camera: Nikon D7000
• Lens: Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED

How it was tonemapped

• CA reduction and white balance correction on all source exposures in Adobe Camera Raw
• Saved the 3 resulting images as TIFFs
• Resulting TIFF images were then used as input to Photomatix (Details Enhancer option)

How it was post-processed

• Post-processing was done in Photoshop
• Topaz Adjust to get back the details and the colors [details]
• Topaz Denoise for noise reduction [details]
• Topaz Infocus (sharpening)
• Levels layer on the sky (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the sky (master)
• Saturation layer on the clouds (desaturation)
• Levels layer on the white walls (more contrast)
• Saturation layer on the white walls (desaturation)
• Ground: separate image layer with more color adjustment in Topaz Adjust
• Global saturation and levels layer for global fine-tuning
• Slight vignette effect [details]
• Watermarking

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Over the last few weeks, there has been an enormous amount of controversy about the Pinterest Terms of Service (TOS). Many photographers are in great fear that Pinterest might start selling their photos since the following part of their TOS apparently gives them the right to do so:

By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.
[source: http://pinterest.com/about/terms/]

Update – March 24th 2012

Yesterday, Pinterest made the long-awaited changes to their terms of service. One of the most important points is that they removed the their option to sell the stuff that members pin.

On the Pinterest blog, Ben Silbermann (Pinterest CEO) wrote:
‘Our original Terms stated that by posting content to Pinterest you grant Pinterest the right for us to sell your content. Selling content was never our intention and we removed this from our updated Terms.’ [ bit.ly/pin-tosc ]

Read on to see why selling member content was never an option for Pinterest anyway.

Before we start

I build my profile at Pinterest as an easy way to show you what I like.

Before I tell you why I don’t think there is a need to be afraid here, let me make four things clear:

1. I am not a lawyer and this is not a legal advice. It is just my personal assessment as a photographer. After reading this article, you will have to make up your own mind about whether you should be on Pinterest or not.
2. The line of arguments that I am going to present does not imply that everything is fine with the Pinterest TOS. On the contrary, their lax way of dealing with their members’ copyrights and other issues is questionable and needs fixing.
3. I am on Pinterest because I think it is a great way of presenting who I am and what I am about. Moreover, it enables me to share my work and ideas with more people which is great for me as a photographer. I am fully aware of the TOS and I have taken a personal decision that the value I gain from being a member of Pinterest outweighs the risk of them selling low-res versions of my work.
4. If you happen to be a lawyer and you have the feeling that any of my statements here are inaccurate, please comment and let me know. I’d be very interested to hear an objective expert opinion.

The business model of Pinterest

Despite their fast growth, rumor has it that Pinterest is currently struggling with their business model. They are making money using an affiliate program where links to products you pin get them a few percent of the product’s price upon a successful transactions. Experts estimate that this does not currently amount to large sums.

In the future, they may seek other models for generating income. But does that mean they will start selling your images? Whatever they choose to make money with in the future, it will be vitally depending on their continuing growth and popularity among the creative people on the Internet. This is what they have. This is their asset. If people would stop using the service (stop pinning stuff) or start blocking their content from being pinned, Pinterest would be dead, no matter what their business model was.

What is member content?

Again, I am not a lawyer. But my understanding of the term member content (the things they may potentially sell) is that it’s the small versions of any image that is associated with a pin and the images that people actually upload to the service. If you only pin your images, Pinterest will have a small version of it on their server (about 600px by 600px) – a version that has limited use for commercial clients.

Why blocking them may work against you

If you are afraid that your work may get pinned and then subsequently sold by Pinterest, you have the option to include a meta tag in the header of your website that tells Pinterest to not accept any pins from your site. However, if somebody really wants to pin your work, they can still do so  by grabbing your work off your site and uploading it to Pinterest directly. If somebody does that, then Pinterest may have a larger version of your image without any pointer to your site or you. This may come across as blackmailing where you have to choose between two evils, but it’s just a though that may be worth spending.

What if they started selling their member content?

Ok, lets come back to the question raised in the title of this post: Will Pinterest sell your images? Here is my take on this, and I am going to present it as the most probable way in which things may evolve in the event that Pinterest really sells any of the images that their members pin.

The moment the first case is published where Pinterest sold an image pinned by a member, the following things would happen:

1. It would get picked up by social media and communicated to the global photography community within hours. By now, everybody is really waiting for this to happen, so this news would spread in no time.
2. The vast majority of photographers would stop using Pinterest immediate and delete their accounts. I would do that certainly.
3. People all over the Internet would block their content from being pinned. I would do that too.
4. Other people would stop pinning  and wait to see how things develop.
5. As a consequence of the above, the core Pinterest service would lose most of its active members within a short time span.
6. Investors would pull their money from the company as all the prospects of a bright future would be gone with a wink of an eye. They would not find any new investors anywhere.
7. As a consequence, the company would have no venture capital and no income. Thus, it would effectively be broke.
8. There would certainly be a few law suits. Since member content can come from anywhere and the pinner is not the creator in most cases, many people would sue many other people (creators sue Pinterest, creators sue pinners, pinners sue Pinterest, investors sue Pinterest etc.)
9. As a consequence of #7 and #8, the Pinterest owners would spend all their time in court without having much money to actually pay for all of this.
10. Chances are that at least some of the law suits would end in the Pinterest owners being sentenced to pay a lot of money.
11. Even if the Pinterest Owners would eventually win each and every law suit after many years, no investor would ever care to give them any money in the future because they proved that they can trash one of the most promising business opportunities in recent years.

Of course, this is a worst-case scenario for Pinterest. But when a company takes a major business decision that’s what they do: They sketch worst-case scenarios and decide whether these are acceptable. Would you want to be the Pinterest owners in this type of scenario? I would not, and I am pretty sure that the Pinterest owners themselves don’t want to. Moreover, I am pretty sure that they are smart enough to recognize this.

In summary, among all the different business models that a rising star like Pinterest may choose, selling their members’ photographs based on their current TOS seems to be the one with the least favorable outcome.

Why would they put up these TOS then?

I think, Pinterest is fully aware of all of this. But why did they put that strange selling thing into their TOS then? In the first place, I think it was one of these cases where they just wanted to make sure that their normal operation would be covered by their TOS under any circumstances. Social media platforms have a history of claiming quite far-reaching rights in order to be on the safe side. I think, the word sell was not actually put in there such that they could sell all the stuff that was pinned, but that it was a precaution.

Then the buzz started, and people started citing the TOS and discussing it vividly everywhere. Pinterest’s first reflex may well have been to change their TOS straight away. But wait! The world was talking about them day after day. Can you think of a better type of advertisement? Sure it’s a controversial one, but you could never pay for that type of viral global PR. So why should they change their TOS just yet? I think, they are following all of our discussions very closely and the moment they start dying out, Pinterest will announce a change in their TOS. This in turn will trigger the second wave of viral PR as everybody will talk and write about it again – only this time, it will be positive PR and even those people who were reluctant to join the service will come in large chunks.

I am not a PR guy, but if I was, and if I was responsible at Pinterest, that would be my strategy.

Closing statement

I am not encouraging or trying to persuade any of you to join Pinterest and start pinning on the basis of this discussion. Everyone has to decide for themselves. What I have tried to do in this post is to give you a perspective that is a little bit broader than most of the articles and posts that I have read so far about this controversial topic. Now, you have to make up your own mind.

If you did make up your mind and decided to be on Pinterest, I am maintaining a List of Photographers on Pinterest. Check it out and join if you like!

Your comments please

I am sure, you have lots of comments, so bring them on!

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Izmir Harbor (HDR)

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Before and after

Making-of

Pics to play with

Download the source exposures of this HDR image and test yor processing skills.

The story of this photo

Where this was shot

This image was shot from a cruise ship in the harbor of Izmir, Turkey. On this day, the weather conditions were changing so quickly that we had blue sky in one minute and pouring rain the next. Fortunately, when we arrived, the weather was basically fine, and we had a few clouds. This made this shot more interesting.

I know that the purists and those that like more natural HDR images may be turned off by the colors of the water. I am not going to pretend that this was actually the color of the water when I was there. But that is actually what Topaz Adjust gave me when I played with the adjustments. I went on processing the image, pushing it a bit into that ‘green’ direction. Then I thought that this may turn off many people, and I started thinking about changing it to something the was closer to the original (dull) color. Now, if you are serious with your art, that should be the point where you say: ‘Wait a minute! I’m about to produce something just because more people may like it???’ I decided against the change and went with the version I liked most.

What can you take away from this little story? Don’t let the taste of other people influence you too much. Do what you like and what you are passionate about. That’s the best way to find your audience and to stay authentic.

How it was shot

• Taken hand-held
• Six exposures (-3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 ev) – semi-autobracketing [details]
• Camera: Nikon D7000
• Lens: Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED

Do you want to try processing this image for yourself? Go ahead and download the source files here!

How it was tonemapped

• CA reduction and white balance correction on all source exposures in Adobe Camera Raw
• Saved the 6 images as TIFFs
• Applied noise reduction (Topaz Denoise) to each of the source images [details]
• Resulting TIFF images were then used as input to Photomatix (Details Enhancer option)

How it was post-processed

Go to the before-and-after page of this image

• Post-processing was done in Photoshop
• Retoucing to remove dust spots
• Topaz Adjust to get back the details and the colors [details]
• Topaz Infocus (sharpening)
• Curves layer on the water (more contrast for a more reflective look)
• Saturation layer on the water (master)
• Saturation layer on the blue parts in the sky (master)
• Saturation layer on the clouds (desaturation)
• Levels layer on the clouds (fine-tune contrast)
• Levels layer on the buildings (more contrast and brightness)
• Levels layer on the mountains in the back (darkening)
• Saturation layer on the mountains (slight desaturation)
• Global saturation and levels layer for global fine-tuning
• Slight vignette effect [details]
• Watermarking

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