Create HDR photos and tone map them in a single step.
HDRtist is a new Mac HDR photography tool from Ohanaware. HDRtist is easy to use HDR software with an intuitive design that makes it simple to choose from our 4 different tone mapping techniques. Even if you're not into HDR photography, HDRtist is a great tool to have for dramatizing dull photos, livening dark photos and boosting sunsets. We've included some HDR tutorials to help you get started with the amazing world of HDR photography. HDR Photography is a relatively new type of photography. It involves capturing multiple photos at different exposures, then using software to combine these exposures into a single High Dynamic Range Image. Tone mapping is then required to compress the tones of the image into a range that the computer can display. The reason for this is simple, the High Dynamic Range Image contains far more detail in the highlights and shadows, these can then be used to create an image closer to what the human eye can see, or to create punchy dramatic images.
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Yesterday (by coincidence) I tried 1.0.0, and the resulting image was fuzzy. Today I saw this update, downloaded it, and tried the same images again. What is really significant for me is the inclusion of software to handle image alignment.
The results were great! Fuzziness is gone, but I do have a bit of clean-up to do on the photo as a result of the alignment (I need to crop some artifacts from the edges of the images.)
There are other tools that provide more control (here there's just a slide for 'strength') but if you want something to play with HDR, this is a great start.
One point (from another tool's FAQ): When shooting bracketed images for HDR processing, you should shoot in an "Aperture Priority Mode" so that each image has the same aperture. This prevents problems caused when the camera in its default mode if it decides to shoot your set of images at different apertures (which will cause image alignment problems due to depth-of-field differences.)
Cute, Simple
StoughMA
Pros
Cons
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />HRDtist is a simple, fun program for the beginning HDR photography artist. It has only one control, a slider, which sets one of four tone mapping algorithms (or a blend of any two contiguous algorithms). The Save command is slow as the program apparently re-renders the blended image, re-applies the chosen algorithm, and writes to disk. (Ref: 24" iMac 2.8 GHz Intel Core Duo Extreme). Fun to use for quick looks but if you need more control, look to other products.