A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography

by Klaus Herrmann www.farbspiel-photo.com The Photo Cookbook Series Preface

About the Author About the Photo Cookbook Series My name is Klaus Herrmann. I This is the first eBook in the Photo Cookbook Series (PCS) – a se- have been a computer scientist, ries of practical guides covering different photographic topics. instructor and award–winning The PCS provides in–depth scientific author for 14 years with information on different over 70 publications. But when I photographic topics and discovered my passion for pho- offers practical guidance to tography, everything changed. photographers at all levels. The topics include a variety My second life as a photographer, photography instructor and of areas related to the tech- author started in 2012 when I decided to leave the worn–out nique, the tools and the paths of an academic career and venture onto new territory. I workflow involved with cre- had pursued travel photography since 2008 as a by–product of ating, processing and pre- my frequent business trips when I began connecting this new senting your photographs. passion with my profession as an instructor. Visit http://farbspiel-photo.com/pcs to get more information. This book launches my Photo Cookbook Series – the foundation for my premium educational material on farbspiel-photo.com.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Preface iv

About the Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography HDR (High Dynamic Range) Vertorama photography creates fasci- nating views of interiors. It takes your audience out of the specta- tor's seat and puts it right into the scene. An interior photographed this way literally comes to life. It opens towards the viewer, and in- vites him to immerse into the scene. An excellent HDR Vertorama will be a highlight in your portfolio.

But what does it take to create such an image? Which equipment do you need? What are proper techniques for shooting the photos and how do you turn them into the final image? In this eBook, I will answer these questions and show you how to create your own HDR Vertoramas, taking your photography to the next level.

The 7 chapters will walk you through everything you need to know about the technology, different shooting techniques, and the post– processing workflow for creating your own HDR Vertorama photographs.

Who Is This Book for? HDR Vertoramas are certainly an advanced photographic topic. You should know the basics of photography (exposure, composition etc.) and you should have some experience with HDR photogra-

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Preface v phy. This book is ideally suited for all those who are already practic- dustry–leading and well–accepted in photography: Photomatix (for ing HDR and want to step up their game to extend their skills and HDR creation) and Photoshop (for stitching and post–processing). I ultimately their portfolio. will not cover all possible products and explain how every detailed step is executed in each of them. This Practical Guide to HDR Vertora- To achieve a necessary degree of completeness, I will give brief in- ma Photography is about the principle techniques of HDR Vertorama troductions to basic topics (like HDR imaging). But this does by no photography. It is not a software guide. means represent a complete guide. Instead, it is meant to set the stage for the real subject of this book. Contents at a Glance ●●The technical side: I will explain which camera, lenses and What Do You Need to Follow Along? tripod support you need. We will discuss different features of You should have a decent camera to start with. While it is in principle your equipment and their importance for your HDR Vertora- possible to use a compact camera, this has a number of disadvan- ma adventures. This will enable you to take an informed deci- tages which will let you quickly hit the limits. You are going to learn sion as to whether and how you need to upgrade your gear. how to take interior images under low–light conditions. Thus, you should have a Digital Single–Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera. We are going ●●Rules of composition: Composing your HDR Vertoramas in to discuss the requirements in terms of camera equipment in more the field without ever seeing the final result is difficult. I will detail in Chapter 2. give you extensive advice on how to get appealing compositions nevertheless. You should own software for producing HDR images, for stitching panoramas and for post–processing images in general. There is a ●●Tripod shooting: I will show you how to adjust and use a wide variety of different products on the market that provide these panorama head for highest quality and precision. We will go features. Some are commercial, others are completely free. There is through the shooting process together step by step. no real need to invest in expensive software. However, I will restrict my explanations in this book to a certain set of products that are in- ●●Hand–held shooting: I will give you an in–depth guide on

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Preface vi

how to manage the complexity of shooting the source pho- ●●Hands–on Examples: I will walk you through three in–depth tos for your HDR Vertoramas hand–held. Mastering hand– example HDR Vertorama projects covering the shooting situ- held shooting for your HDR Vertorama work will open a vast ation, the specific challenges and how to master them, the quantity of new possibilities for you. I will give you many use- post–processing approach and the concrete editing work ap- ful tips on how to achieve this. plied to each image. You will learn a ton of tricks which help you achieve the results you look for. ●●Post–production: In the post–processing chapter, you will learn the entire process of creating your HDR Vertoramas Thank you very much for purchasing this book. starting with the selection and preparation of the source photos, via merging and stitching, all the way up to the post– Klaus Herrmann processing work in your photo editing software.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Contents

Introduction 1 1.1 What Is HDR?...... 3 1.2 What Is a Vertorama?...... 4 1 1.3 What Is an HDR Vertorama?...... 5 1.4 What Are the Major Challenges?...... 7 1.5 The Shooting Technique...... 8 1.6 The Workflow...... 9 1.7 Summary and Take–Away Points...... 11

Equipment 12 2.1 The Camera...... 13 2.2 The Lens...... 20 2 2.3 The Tripod...... 21 2.4 Spirit Level and Cable Release...... 22 2.5 The Panorama Adapter...... 23 2.6 The Data Storage...... 27 2.7 The Software...... 28 2.8 Summary and Take–Away Points...... 30 2.9 Checklist...... 31

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Contents ix

Planning and Composition 33 3.1 Planning...... 34 3.2 Composition...... 37 3 3.2.1 Symmetry...... 37 3.2.2 Leading Lines...... 39 3.2.3 Geometric Shapes...... 40 3.2.4 Distance and Position...... 41 3.2.5 The Rule of Thirds...... 42 3.2.6 Leave Room at the Edges...... 44 3.2.7 Vertical Angle of View...... 44 3.2.8 Estimating the Composition...... 45 3.3 Summary and Take–Away Points...... 47 3.4 Checklist...... 48

Shooting With a Tripod 50 4.1 Initial Preparation...... 51 4.1.1 Finding the Nodal Point...... 52 4 4.1.2 Finding the Right Rotation Angle...... 56 4.2 On–Site Preparation...... 58 4.3 Immediate Preparation...... 61 4.3.1 Setting Up Your Camera...... 61 4.3.2 Choosing the Right Exposure...... 63 4.4 Taking the Shots...... 66 4.4.1 Taking the Source Photos Using AEB...... 67

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Contents x

4.4.2 Taking the Source Photos Manually (MEB)...... 67 4.4.3 Taking the Source Photos Semi–Automatically (SEB)..... 68 4.4.4 After You Finished Producing a Set...... 69 4.5 Summary and Take–Away Points...... 70 4.6 Checklist...... 71

Hand–Held Shooting 77 5.1 The Challenges...... 78 5.2 The Preparation...... 80 5 5.2.1 Initial Preparation...... 80 5.2.2 On–Site Preparation...... 82 5.2.3 Immediate Preparation...... 88 5.3 Taking the Shots...... 89 5.4 Summary and Take–Away Points...... 94 5.5 Checklist...... 95

Post-Production 98 6.1 Image Selection...... 101 6.2 Image Preparation...... 103 6 6.2.1 Reducing Chromatic Aberration...... 103 6.2.2 Adjusting the White Balance...... 107 6.2.3 Turning Off Noise Reduction and Sharpening...... 109 6.2.4 Exporting the Source Images From Camera Raw...... 110 6.2.5 Optimizing Dynamic Range...... 111

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Contents xi

6.2.6 Noise Reduction...... 113 6.3 Vertorama Creation...... 116 6.3.1 HDR Merging in Photomatix...... 117 6.3.2 Tone Mapping...... 120 6.3.3 Stitching...... 122 6.4 Correction and Cropping...... 125 6.4.1 Rotation...... 126 6.4.2 Distortion...... 128 6.4.3 Warp...... 128 6.4.4 Fixing Minor Stitching Errors...... 130 6.4.5 Merging Layers and Cropping...... 134 6.4.6 Filling the Holes...... 135 6.5 Image Adjustments...... 138 6.5.1 General Advice...... 139 6.5.2 Image Enhancement Software...... 140 6.5.3 Global Adjustments...... 143 6.5.4 Local Adjustments...... 144 6.5.5 Sharpening...... 146 6.6 Output...... 149 6.7 Summary and Take–Away Points...... 151 6.8 Checklist...... 152

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Contents xii

HDR Vertorama Workshops 155 7.1 Basilica St. Martin – Weingarten, Germany...... 156 7.2 Matthias Church – Budapest, Hungary...... 164 7 7.3 Yeni Cami (New Mosque) – Istanbul, Turkey...... 170

Index 177

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The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography ©... Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 1 — Introduction 5 1.3 What Is an HDR Vertorama?

2 3 4 5

If you combine both of these techniques, you get an HDR Vertorama. Figure 1.3 The anatomy of an HDR Vertorama: camera angles (), As you will learn in Chapter 6, there are three different ways of com- exposure series for each section (), the merged and tone mapped HDR im- bining your source exposures into an HDR Vertorama image. To keep ages for each section (), the raw stitched Vertorama image (), and the final it simple, I will pick one of them to show you the general anatomy cropped and post–processed HDR Vertorama image (). of such an image.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 1 — Introduction 6

For each section of the Vertorama, you produce an exposure series. As you increase the vertical field of view (sometimes to as much as The images in such a series are generally referred to as brackets. The 180° or even more), you will naturally get a much larger dynamic example in Figure 1.3 has 6 sections (the rows of images to the left) range than in any single photo you shoot. For example, the floor at with 3 brackets each. The entire set of photos used to produce the your feet (in most cases the first section of a Vertorama) will be rather HDR Vertorama (all brackets in all sections) is simply called a set. In dark while those sections at the top might be very bright since they the post–production phase, you merge the brackets of each section may include windows or portions of the sky. If you do not use HDR, into a single HDR image (). Then, you stitch the resulting HDR im- losing details is almost inevitable, both in the shadows and in the ages together to get the raw Vertorama image (). Finally, you cor- highlights. This leads to some areas being completely white (blown rect and crop the raw image and apply some image processing to it out) and others being completely black. HDR imaging allows you to to get the final image ( ). The result is an image with an increased capture the details in those areas despite the limited capabilities of vertical field of view and an increased dynamic range. your camera.

Click here to view a range of example HDR Vertoramas with specific information on the production process and additional material like Before–and– After comparisons and Making–of videos.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 1 — Introduction 7 1.4 What Are the Major Challenges? HDR Vertorama photography is a combination of two multi–expo- of these locations. This implies that you will need to produce the sure techniques. As such, it involves a number of unique challenges: source images hand–held with low shutter speeds. Blurry images may easily be the result of this.

Producing the source images is not trivial. Keep in mind that you1 may easily need to make 12 exposures (4 sections of 3 different The overall composition of the final image is not visible to you exposures each) or even more for a single Vertorama image. Moreo- when4 you shoot the source photos because the final appearance is ver, these images need to match (alignment within each section and a result of the stitching process. Thus, composing your Vertorama proper overlap between the sections) since you need to combine takes some thought and experience. them in the HDR merging and stitching process.

The size of the resulting Vertorama images can be huge and You will have to take the source images with great precision very5 demanding on your computer. since2 being sloppy will prevent the software that stitches and merg- es the photos from working correctly. This list of challenges may look intimidating, but don’t worry. In this book, you will learn how to master each of these challenges step by step to produce high–quality HDR Vertoramas. Yes, it might take a Some interesting environments (e.g. churches, castles etc.) while and some practice. The results though, will be very impressive have3 a low ambient light level and tripods are not allowed in many images that are well worth the effort.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 1 — Introduction 8 1.5 The Shooting Technique You can generally approach HDR Vertorama photography in two dif- Shooting Hand–Held ferent ways: You can shoot the source photos from a tripod or you The points listed above are compelling, and consequently you may can shoot them hand–held. Both have their purpose, and both have think there is no reason to ever shoot hand–held. However, life is not advantages and disadvantages. always so simple. Often, the usage of a tripod is simply prohibited in certain locations for different reasons. As soon as you set it up, there Shooting From a Tripod is usually somebody approaching you and asking you not to use it. Whenever possible, you should use a tripod for your HDR Vertorama In other situations, you may not have the time to set up your tripod shoots. Not only will this ensure perfectly aligned source photos for properly. You may not have enough space, or there is a danger of later HDR processing straight out of the camera, it will also avoid people tripping over it, hurting themselves and damaging your gear. potential stitching problems in the post–production phase. These problems are usually caused by parallax errors which I will explain in The Necessity of Mastering Both Section 2.5 »The Panorama Adapter« on page 23 and Section 4.1.1 If you rely on being able to use your tripod, you will walk away with- »Finding the Nodal Point« on page 52. Beyond that, using a tripod out a photo in any of these situations. Therefore, learning how to offers the usual advantages of having sharp images irrespective of take high–quality photos under a wide range of conditions is very the shutter speed you use. important. We will discuss the detailed techniques and workflows for both in Chapter 4 and 5.

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The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography ©... Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 2 — Equipment

In this chapter, we will take a closer look at the technology required for HDR Vertorama photography. I will explain which gear you need in terms of camera, lenses, tripod and other equipment. I will point out some important features that your equipment should have. You can use this list to check your current equipment for its adequacy. In case you plan to You will learn about… buy new gear, you will find some features in this list that you should be ff Which features your camera should have looking for. This chapter will end with a brief discussion about the software that you need throughout the post–processing stages. ff Which lenses are well–suited for HDR Vertorama photography Creating great HDR Vertorama images requires two things: the right technology and the right technique. Both depend on each other. If you ff How to build a panorama head that is simple and shoot hand–held, your equipment needs to have certain properties that light–weight are irrelevant when you shoot from a tripod and vice versa. In general, hand–held shooting is more demanding on your equipment because ff Which other equipment you need sometimes you have to shoot in low light. Hand–held and low–light do not go very well together. In the following, I will discuss the features that your equipment needs to have if you want to master both hand–held and tripod shooting.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 2 — Equipment 13 2.1 The Camera Let us start with the camera itself. As you will see, there are a num- practice in order to hold your camera still. It also requires a lot more ber of features to look out for if you want to take up HDR Vertorama time to produce the large number of source photos you need, and photography and you plan on buying a new camera. Not all the it increases the danger of objects moving in the frame or changing features discussed here are equally important though. Table 2.1 on conditions interfering with your shoot. page 19 indicates the importance of each feature for both hand– held and tripod shooting.

Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) (Figure 2.1) is a camera function that lets you take two or more images with different exposure values with a single click of the shutter release button. You can configure the way in which these exposures are taken. The most common setup is a set of three images, one with a normal exposure value Figure 2.1 Typical auto exposure bracket- (0 EV – e.g. the exposure measured by the camera's metering sys- ing (BKT) button on a Nikon camera body. tem), one underexposed by 2 stops (-2 EV), and one overexposed by 2 stops (+2 EV). When it comes to AEB functions, there is a clear difference between the entry–level to mid–range DSLR segment and the semi–pro to AEB is important if you are shooting hand–held since it is the sim- professional DSLR segment: Entry–level and mid–range DSLR cam- plest way to produce the source photos with minimal offset (mini- eras are typically limited to 3 shots with a maximum step width of mal movement between the exposures). If your camera does not 2 EV. This will cover many situations in HDR Vertorama photogra- have an AEB function, you have to adjust the shutter speed value phy. Semi–pro and pro cameras can usually do up to 9 shots with manually between exposures. This is possible, but it requires a lot of a maximum step width of 1–3 EV. Some entry–level DSLR cameras

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 2 — Equipment 14 will only do the 3 shots with 1 EV step interval. Others do not have an the camera sets up the exposure accordingly, and the autofocus ad- AEB function at all. Stay away from the latter two types of cameras. justs such that the scene is sharp (assuming the autofocus is on and the camera is not in manual mode). If you press the shutter release The minimum AEB functionality recommended for HDR Vertorama button all the way through and let the camera take a series of shots, photography is 3 shots with a step width of 2 EV. the metering system will try to adjust to any changes between the shots. This may result in a different focus and an adjustment of the Speed – Frames Per Second exposure value even if you move the camera only slightly. Of course, The speed of a camera is measured in frames per second (FPS). This this is not what we want for an HDR exposure series. Exposures with is the number of exposures the camera can take on average in one a different focus (e.g. one with the focus on a tree in the foreground second under normal conditions. Today, some professional cameras and another one with the focus on a mountain in the background) will go as high as 11 FPS while a cheap compact camera may only are not useful as source photos for an HDR image. do 1 FPS or less. The more FPS your camera has, the less time passes while your camera takes the exposure series (assuming you are us- For an HDR Vertorama, we need to take multiple exposures series ing AEB). This limits the movement in the scene and reduces the ef- with the same focus and exposure settings. The AE/AF–lock Button fect of camera shake and, therefore, the offset in the source photos. You do not need 11 FPS (even though it would be nice to have). A value between 4 and 6 FPS is sufficient even for hand–held shooting.

AE/AF–Lock Button The AE/AF–Lock Button (Figure 2.2) is a button on the camera body (usually to the right of the viewfinder) that allows you to freeze the exposure settings (auto exposure – AE) and the autofocus (AF) of your camera. If you point the camera at the subject and press the shutter Figure 2.2 AE/AF–lock button of a Nikon camera. release half–way through, the metering system measures the scene,

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The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography ©... Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 2 — Equipment 23 2.5 The Panorama Adapter A panorama adapter (also called nodal point 6 5 3 4 adapter – example shown in Figure 2.8) is a device that you mount on top of your tripod. Your camera is then attached to this panorama head. It allows you to rotate your camera/lens combination around the nodal point (also called the no–parallax point) of the lens. If you rotate your camera around the nodal point in your Vertorama shoot, parallax errors are avoided. This means that the overlap of the different sections of your Ver- torama will perfectly match which is important 2 for the stitching process (for details, see Section 4.1.1 »Finding the Nodal Point« on page 52). 7 1 The nodal point is different for each camera/lens/ focal length combination. Therefore, you need an adapter that lets you adjust the camera mounting Figure 2.8 TheDo–it–yourself panorama adapter fully assembled. The panorama plate ( ) accordingly. with the scale () helps you control the rotation. A macro rail () enables you to move the camera back and forth for finding the nodal point (seeSection 4.1.1). Two quick release clamps let you You can buy off–the–shelf nodal point adapters mount the camera on the rail () and the rail on the panorama plate (). An L–bracket () is from various vendors. However, most of these de- used for conveniently mounting the camera in landscape and portrait orientation. A DSLR camera vices have the following problems: is permanently attached to the L–bracket, and a snap hook () is used to connect the L–bracket to the camera strap when it is not mounted to this adapter.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 2 — Equipment 24

●●They are bulky and heavy because they are designed to fit it is constructed. many different camera models and use cases while still offer- ing a stable platform. Panorama Plate The panorama plate (Figure 2.9) enables you to smoothly rotate the ●●They are immensely expensive with prices ranging up into camera around the nodal point. The screw on the right lets you lock the 4–digit dollar figures. the position, and a scale in degrees around the plate helps you rotate the camera in equal increments between the sections. There is If you do not mind any of these problems, or if you already have 1 2 one of these adapters, that's fine. They will do the job. But you can also build an adapter yourself that lets you create the source images for an HDR Vertorama while being light, compact, and comparably cheap. There are different ways of doing this, and you can use different components, some of which you may already have. Below, I show you one alternative. 4

This do–it–yourself nodal point adapter is composed from photo- 3 graphic equipment that you can buy on the Internet without having to handcraft any parts. However, please note that this is a single– row adapter. That is, you can only rotate it in one direction (either Figure 2.9 Novoflex panorama plate: Allows you to rotate the horizontally or vertically). With other adapters that you can buy, you camera. The camera or any other device on which you actually mount the can rotate around two axes, and thus, take multiple rows of images camera is screwed on top (). The knob () allows you to lock the plate which enables you to create complete spherical (360° x 180°) pano- in a certain position given by the scale (). A spirit level () lets you ramas. But for taking the source photos for a Vertorama, this adapter eliminate any tilt of the plate. is sufficient. Let us go through the individual parts in turn to see how

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The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography ©... Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 3 — Planning and Composition 37 3.2 Composition A good composition is essential for a good photograph. Of course, cult. The reason is that you will never see the entire image until you this is also true for Vertoramas. But what exactly makes a good com- have stitched all the sections together on your computer. Overcom- position for this type of image? While you can easily verify the com- ing this restriction takes imagination, experience, and a few tricks. In position of a normal photo simply by looking through the viewfinder the following, I will give you some tips for planning and improving of your camera, composing a Vertorama image is much more diffi- your Vertorama composition.

Click here to view a range of example HDR Vertoramas and examine their composition.

3.2.1 Symmetry Due to their inherent distortion, there are only a few compositions (e.g. pillars, arches, gates etc.) work best in most cases if they are ar- that work really well for Vertorama images. If you scan through this ranged symmetrical in your image. As with every photographic rule, book and browse the Internet, you will find many Vertorama images you may deliberately break this rule, but in general, it is useful to with a symmetrical composition. In particular if you are photograph- start out by looking for a way to compose your image symmetrically. ing architecture, an asymmetric composition often has a distracting effect on the beholder (Figure 3.1). Of course, there are asymmetric If you go for symmetry, it is vital to take the source photos with preci- elements in many scenes, but the main architectural components sion. Due to the distortion of ultra wide–angle lenses and of the Ver-

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 3 — Planning and Composition 38 torama itself, any sloppiness will am- 1 2 plify in the final image. Most often, you will find your Vertorama image drifting away from the symmetrical composition in a curved line towards the top of the frame. This is very hard (sometimes even impossible) to correct in post–processing. Therefore, when you are choosing a position, you need to make sure

●●you are on the axis of symmetry of the scene,

●●your camera is level (not tilted to the left or right) and

●●your camera’s optical axis is parallel to the axis of symmetry of the scene. Figure 3.1 An asymmetrical Vertorama () compared to a symmetrical one (). While image  is This holds irrespectively of whether compositionally balanced, the strange bend towards the left side shown in image  has something disturbing. you shoot hand–held or from a tripod. Note that image  still has many asymmetrical elements (e.g. the people on the floor) but the main architectural features (ceiling and dome) are in perfect symmetry. (Note: Image  is non–HDR and mostly unprocessed)

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The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography ©... Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 4 — Shooting With a Tripod 52

4.1.1 Finding the Nodal Point In Section 2.5 »The Panorama Adapter« on page 23, I have ex- 3 4 plained how you can build a solid and yet simple panorama adapter. Irrespective of whether you use this device or some off–the–shelf adapter, you need to find the nodal point of your lens before you head out to shoot your first HDR Vertorama. I will explain this process based on my adapter, but it is essentially the same for any kind of adapter. Note that we will find the nodal point using a panorama setup (camera is rotated horizontally). For the actual Vertorama shoot, you will simply put the adapter into vertical orientation using your 2 1 tripod head. The nodal point is exactly the same for both setups.

Finding the nodal point for a specific lens involves some testing and 5 6 incremental adjustments of the panorama adapter. You need to ad- Figure 4.1 Possible adjustments of the panorama adapter in lat- just the camera position on the adapter both in longitudinal direc- eral () and longitudinal direction (). The adjustments are made by tion (parallel to the optical axis) and in lateral direction (perpendicu- sliding the long rail () and the L–Bracket () in the respective clamps lar to the optical axis). For doing this with this simple adapter, use ( and ). the two quick release clamps as shown in Figure 4.1.

In Figure 4.2, you see a typical example of a parallax error: Two verti- ure 4.2  and , you see the two photos taken with a panorama cal poles are positioned at different distances from the camera. Two adapter that is not adjusted well. In the magnification ( and ), photos are taken and the camera is rotated by about 30° between you see that this results in a parallax error: The two poles are shifted the exposures, just as in a real panorama/vertorama shoot. In Fig- relative to each other to an extent where they even switch positions.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 4 — Shooting With a Tripod 53

1 2

Figure 4.2 Example of a parallax error (/ and /) occurring if your camera is not rotated around the lens' nodal 3 4 point. After you adjust the adapter care- fully, the overlap regions match (/) and /), and the photos can be stitched without any problem ().

5 6

7 8

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The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography ©... Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 4 — Shooting With a Tripod 63

4.3.2 Choosing the Right Exposure When you shoot from a tripod, you may use a wide range of different blown–out highlights and no blocked–up shadows), stick with this aperture values. Your only restriction is the slowest possible shutter method. speed of your camera. Most DSLR cameras available today have a slowest shutter speed of 30 seconds. If you want to go beyond this limit, you need to use bulb mode. In this mode, the shutter will open Manual exposure bracketing (MEB): This method is the most for as long as you press the shutter release button, and in order to flexible2 one. It allows you to cover virtually any dynamic range you time your exposure you need an external clock. This raises the level may find in your scene since it is based on manually measuring the of complexity even higher. Thus, we will limit our discussion to shut- right exposure. Revert to the MEB method if the dynamic range is ter speeds of 30 seconds or less. In an environment with low ambient too high for the AEB method. light, this may limit your choice of aperture values.

There are many ways of finding the right exposure values for your Semi–automatic exposure bracketing (SEB): This method is source exposures. Some involve auto exposure series, others involve a3 combination of the AEB and MEB methods. You measure the expo- manual exposure series. Additionally, manual and automatic exposures manually (as with the MEB method), but instead of proceeding sure series methods can be combined in many different ways. I will through all the shots manually, you produce consecutive AEB series explain three basic methods: for every section to cover the measured dynamic range of the scene.

ISO and Aperture Auto exposure bracketing (AEB): If the dynamic range of the Irrespective of the method you use for finding the right shutter scene1 is not too extreme, this is the quickest and simplest method. speeds and for executing the shoot, the first two things you need So, to keep your shoot simple, you can produce a set using the AEB to do is to choose your ISO sensitivity as low as possible (ISO 100 method. If you find that the source photos are well exposed (no in most cases) and find an adequate aperture. Aperture values be-

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 4 — Shooting With a Tripod 64 tween f/8 and f/16 usually give you the best sharpness. Note that if possible dynamic range. If it can do 5 or more, 1 EV steps should be you hit the 30 second shutter speed limit or if you exceed the high- chosen. est possible shutter speed of your camera in your exposure series, you have to adjust those settings accordingly. But you should always Your camera is now ready to take the source photos by going try to keep the ISO value as low as possible to get the best image through all the sections one by one and firing off an AEB series for quality. each section. Note however, that this method involves some guess work as you did not really measure the exposures necessary to cover Measuring the Exposure for Auto Ex- the actual dynamic range of the scene on the dark end and on the posure Bracketing (AEB) bright end of the spectrum. Instead, you hope the series is sufficient. If your camera has an AEB function, the simplest method is the following: Moreover, with a standard 3–shot AEB function, you will sometimes have a hard time covering the dynamic range. In these cases, you should revert to the MEB method. If you have 5, 7, 9, or even 11 shots Measure the correct 0 EV shutter speed by pointing your cam- available in your AEB mode, this is much less of a problem. era1 to a section of medium brightness. Measuring the Exposure for Manual and Semi–Automatic Exposure Brack- Set your camera to manual mode and dial in the 0 EV shutter eting (MEB/SEB) speed.2 A more systematic way to produce the right exposure series is to actually measure the darkest and the brightest spot in the scene and arrange your exposure series between these two values. The photos Set your camera's AEB function to as many shots as possible are then also shot manually by iterating through the different expo- and3 chose an adequate step width. If your camera can only do 3 ex- sures section by section. This requires more work and more thought, posures in AEB mode, use a step width of 2 EV to cover the highest and it is slower. But you are not restricted by any limitations of the

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The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography ©... Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 5 — Hand–Held Shooting

In this chapter, you will learn how to produce the source photos for your HDR Vertoramas hand–held. I will first go through some of the challenges you are facing when you do so. Then, I will give a detailed You will learn about… explanation of the entire workflow and the shooting technique. ff The challenges of hand–held HDR Vertorama In a nutshell, the workflow can be divided intothe preparation and shooting the shooting itself. In the preparation phase, you will set up your camera and plan the shoot (the composition and how you divide ff Important camera settings the scene into different sections). During the actual shooting, you will apply a special technique to take all the photos fluently and with ff Finding the right exposure in low light high precision. ff The right shooting technique To illustrate my points, I will show you how different camera settings can be achieved with a typical Nikon camera. This may not directly ff Avoiding parallax errors despite not having a pan- apply to your camera model. But it will at least give you some hints orama adapter on how to set up your camera accordingly.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 5 — Hand–Held Shooting 78 5.1 The Challenges If you shoot the source images for your HDR Vertorama hand–held, shooting hand–held, your shutter speeds will usually be 1/10 s and you are facing a number of challenges. However, you can actually higher. This is fast enough to let moving people appear in your im- produce good results with source images that are taken hand–held. ages. Thus, you need other techniques to deal with crowded places Mastering the challenges only takes the right technique and a bit of when you shoot hand–held. practice. In the following, I will discuss the challenges briefly. Later in the chapter, I will give you detailed instructions and tips for deal- Lack of Alignment ing with these challenges in order to produce high–quality images. The camera movement caused by the inevitable movement of your hands and body will cause the exposure series for each section to Low Light not be perfectly aligned. That is, for each exposure in a section, your Since the HDR Vertorama technique is ideally suited for creating framing will be slightly different, and the images will have a relative stunning presentations of interiors, you will find yourself in situa- offset to one another, creating a challenge for the HDR merging tions where the ambient light is low, irrespective of the time of day procedure. and the weather. Low ambient light means that your shutter speed will be low, down to a point where the natural movement of your No Rotation Around the Nodal Point hand and body may introduce blur and lead to a lack of sharpness. Since you do not use a tripod, you cannot rotate your camera / lens around the nodal point (see Section 4.1.1). This potentially intro- People in Your Shots duces parallax errors in your stitched image. You will learn how to If you use a tripod, you can use shutter speeds in the range be- avoid these errors as much as possible by adjusting your composi- tween several seconds and several minutes. At these speeds, most tion. In Section 6.4.4 »Fixing Minor Stitching Errors«, you will also moving people will simply disappear from the scene in the final im- learn how to fix this type of error in post–processing if necessary. age as they move too fast for your camera to depict them. If you are

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 5 — Hand–Held Shooting 79

No Support for Fixed Rotation Angle camera to use any arbitrary exposure series that may be required In order to create enough overlap between the images of two con- by the scene. This may be a more or less severe restriction, depend- secutive sections, you simply rotate the camera for a predefined ing on your camera. In Section 6.2.5 »Optimizing Dynamic Range«, number of degrees when you shoot from a tripod. When you shoot you will learn how to work around this problem (at least partially) in hand–held, there is no panorama plate that supports this rotation. post–processing. However, there is a simple technique for controlling the rotation based on visual cues. Limitation of the Image Buffer Your camera will have a limited image buffer that most likely cannot Limitation in Autobracketing Range hold all the images you are going to produce in some hand–held Shooting hand–held makes you dependent on the auto exposure HDR Vertorama shoots. You have to consider this in your planning bracketing function of your camera. Manual exposure bracketing as in order to avoid the unfortunate situation of being bent over back- we applied it on the tripod takes too much time and requires too wards for the last section while you are waiting for your camera to much interaction with the camera. Therefore, you cannot set up your store each image on your memory card.

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The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography ©... Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 6 — Post-Production 103 Image Preparation 6.2 1 After you have selected the best set, you need to prepare the images before you start merging and stitching them. In the following, I will explain the steps of this preparation phase. Note that I assume your source exposures are in RAW format. We will execute all the preparation steps in a single run in Adobe Camera Raw (the RAW converter 2 software that comes with Adobe Photoshop) and then save the corrected photos at the end.

6.2.1 Reducing Chromatic Aberration Chromatic aberration (in short CA, sometimes also referred to as 3 color fringing) is an effect caused by most lenses, in particular cheap- Figure 6.1 Example of chromatic aberration (CA) er models and wide–angle lenses. It is caused by the failure of a lens at the edge of an image (): high–contrast edges with CA to focus all colors to the same convergence point. The effects are () and without CA (). color fringes, especially at high–contrast edges and a generally more blurry image (see Figure 6.1). The fringes tend to get worse towards the edges of the image. age. Most RAW converters will let you correct CA. If you are using Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) in version CS4 and above, HDR software is typically not very good at removing these artifacts you can proceed as described below. Note that the screenshots are automatically and the usual HDR workflow tends to amplify the ef- of CS5, but the manual reduction of CA is basically the same. Let us fect, creating visible strange–looking fringes and blur in the final im- look at the manual correction steps:

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1 2

Figure 6.2 Adobe Camera Raw – main window: To reduce CA, select the Lens Corrections tab () and the Manual tab () and make the corrections in the Chromatic Aberration section ().

Load all RAW images of your set into ACR by selecting them Go to the Lens Corrections tab on the right side of the window. in1 your file browser and by dragging them onto the Photoshop win- 2 dow. The main window (Figure 6.2) of ACR will open. 3 Under Chromatic Aberration, you will see three controls: two The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 6 — Post-Production 105 sliders for correcting different fringes and a generalDefringe drop– ging your mouse. To pan the view, hold the Space bar and click–drag down list. with the mouse.

Use the sliders Fix Red/Cyan Fringe and Fix Blue/Yellow Fringe to 1 remove6 the visible fringes. The specific setting is highly dependent 2 on your lens. As you experiment to find the right settings, you can observe how the fringes increase or decrease when you move the 3 sliders. Finding the optimal settings should be a matter of a couple of minutes. Note that the same lens used at the same focal length Figure 6.3 Chromatic Aberration controls: Slid- and aperture produces very similar CA across all photos. Since you ers for changing Red/Cyan shift () and Blue/Yellow will likely take all your HDR Vertorama source images with the same shift () and the general Defringe option (). lens and focal length, you can save a lot of time by storing your settings as a preset

First open the drop–down list and select All Edges. This en- sures4 that the color fringes are reduced on all edges in the image, not only on specific ones. Click here to learn how to save your settings in Adobe Camera Raw as a preset. Zoom into a suspicious part of the image (e.g. high–contrast edge5 to the far right or left in the image) using a zoom factor of 200– 300%: Hold down the Z key and select the area by clicking and drag-

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When you are satisfied with the result, you 1 1 can7 apply the settings to all loaded images (Figure 2 6.4): Press the Select All button in the upper left cor- 2 ner of the ACR window and then Alt –click the Syn- 3 chronize… button.

From Photoshop version CS5 upward (ACR 6 and 4 above) the CA removal (along with other lens correction features) can also be done based on a lens profile (Figure 6.5) if you are working with RAW im-

ages: Go to the Lens Corrections tab, choose the Pro- 5 file tab and select your lens profile in theLens Profile section. All corrections stored in the profile will be immediately applied to the selected image. If there Figure 6.5 Lens corrections is no lens profile for you, choose theManual tab and using lens profiles: Go to the Lens Applying the go through the steps explained above. Figure 6.4 Corrections tab () and choose the settings to all loaded images: Click Profile tab (). Click Enable Lens Select All and then Alt –click the Profile Corrections (). If your Synchronize… button. lens is in ACR's database, the make,

Click here to get more information on model and profile will appear in the Correcting Chromatic Aberration. Lens Profile (). Fine tune the result in the Correction Amount section ().

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The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography ©... Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 6 — Post-Production 125 6.4 Correction and Cropping

Figure 6.25 The HDR Ver- torama in Photoshop right after the 1 stitching: You may have to rotate the resulting image (). In the Layers panel, you find each source image in its own layer (). Photomerge created a layer mask for each image to hide the parts that do not con- tribute to the final Vertorama. Note the rough edges that are a result of 2 distorting each image to make the overlapping regions match.

The image resulting from the stitching process is far from being fin- pressing Ctrl + ' on your keyboard. Go to Photoshop > Preferences > ished. It has rugged edges and needs some very basic perspective Grid, Guides & Slices and set the options in the Grid group to display corrections before we can work on things like contrast and color a grid line every 10 percent. Next, enlarge the canvas to create more (Figure 6.25). room on the edges of the image. This will give you some more space to maneuver. To do this, open the Canvas Size dialog (Figure 6.26) by Before you start with the correction work, make the grid visible by going to Image > Canvas Size… in the main menu of Photoshop. Set

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 6 — Post-Production 126 the Width and Height fields to about 10% of the current Figure 6.26 Increasing size of the image and check the Relative box. Make sure the canvas size: Set the Width and the Anchor is set to the middle. This adds the amount Height fields ( ) to about 10% of pixels to the width and to the height and centers the of the current size of the image image on the enlarged canvas. and check the Relative box (). 1 Make sure the Anchor () is set 2 In the following, I will explain typical correction steps. to the middle. For this purpose, I will use an image that makes the ne- 3 cessity and the effects of the steps more obvious.

6.4.1 Rotation In many cases, your composition is symmetrical along the vertical of the image. Most images have a natural line of points that define axis (like the examples shown before). For such a composition, the the vertical axis of the image (e.g. the top of arches, the middles of image needs to be exactly aligned with that vertical axis. There- an aisle, the center of paintings on the ceiling). Drag the guide onto fore, the first correction step is to rotate the image (if necessary) to that imaginary vertical center line. If all the points on that line are on achieve this alignment (Figure 6.27). or very close to the guide, you are done. If the guide and the vertical center line are not parallel, you need to rotate the image as follows.

Define a new vertical guide by clicking with your mouse on the1 left ruler (make the rulers visible if necessary by selecting View Choose Edit > Transform > Rotate from the menu to activate > Rulers). Click on the ruler and drag the new guide into the middle the2 Rotate tool. A bounding box will appear around the image.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 6 — Post-Production 127

Click on one of the corners of the bounding box and drag the When the vertical center line of the image and the guide are mouse3 to rotate the image. It does not matter which corner you use. parallel4 to each other, hit Return to apply the rotation permanently.

1 1

2 3

Figure 6.27 Rotating the image to get the Figure 6.28 Distort the image to tune the vertical lines straight: Create a vertical guide () horizontal and vertical symmetry: Create guides () to align the vertical features (in this case the center at the elements that need to be symmetrical and drag of the tower). Drag the corners () of the bound- the corners of the bounding box () until the image ing box () with the mouse to rotate the image. is symmetrical.

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The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography ©... Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 7 — HDR Vertorama Workshops

In this chapter, I will walk you through three exemplary HDR Vertorama projects. I will give you details on the settings used in the camera as well as in the post–production steps. This will help you approach your own projects. You will learn about… The emphasis in these examples will be on the post–produc- ff The challenges and the thought process behind tion side. The chapter picks up where Chapter 6 left off – with different HDR Vertorama projects examples of the image adjustment steps that are specific to each image. ff The specific steps taken to post–process each of the sample images Remember that each project will be different in terms of post– production. Therefore, it is not easy to give you a general pro- ff The individual adjustments applied to each image cess that applies to each and every HDR Vertorama. Demon- and the ratio behind these adjustments strating the process by using examples will give you enough insight into the general process to enable you to apply it to your own projects.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 7 — HDR Vertorama Workshops 156 7.1 Basilica St. Martin – Weingarten, Germany Location Composition This image was shot in the Basilica Note how the four main pillars serve St. Martin in Weingarten, Germany. as leading lines towards the central The basilica was built between 1715 element of the image – the paintings and 1724 in the Italian–German Ba- on the ceiling. The location of these roque style. With 102 meters, it is the paintings in the frame obeys the rule longest Baroque church in Germany of thirds vertically. today. Post–Processing Ap- Challenges proach The specific challenge with this Ver- At the start of the post–processing, torama was to capture the afternoon it turned out that an appealing color light falling through the windows contrast between the white walls, onto the white interior. This light cre- the paintings, the floor and the win- ated a large dynamic range, and it dows would be the biggest asset of was imperative for the image that the this image. Therefore, these elements spots where the light hits the pillars had to be processed separately. The (for example) was not blown–out but white areas had to be desaturated still had enough details. and the colors in the other areas had to be enhanced to create the desired contrast.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 7 — HDR Vertorama Workshops 157

Basics and Major Milestones The 15 source photos () were taken hand–held with autobracketing series of 3 shots (+2 EV, 0 EV, -2 EV). The exposure series are shifted a bit towards the dark end to capture the light reflections on the pillars.

The source images were merged in Photomatix Pro and then 1 2 3 stitched, corrected and cropped in Photoshop () before I applied a series of selective adjust- Exposure Data ments to get the final image (). 5×3 auto–bracketed shots Nikon D90 Camera: Exposure series: (+2 EV, 0 EV, -2 EV) Sigma 10–20mm F3,5 1/40 s, 1/160 s, 1/640 s Lens: EX DC HSM Shutter speeds:

Focal length: 10mm Aperture: f/7.1

Method: Hand–held ISO: 800

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 7 — HDR Vertorama Workshops 158

Tone Mapping I used Photomatix Pro's Details Enhancer for the tone mapping. To create a good local contrast, I set the Strength and the Detail Contrast fairly high. To avoid ex- cessive noise due to the high Detail Contrast, I increased the Micro–smoothing, and to prevent the white walls from showing color artifacts, I slightly decreased the Color Saturation.

I set the White Point to 0% to keep the bright spots on the white pillars and walls from loosing details. To bring some brightness back into the image, I increased the Luminosity setting to its maximum. A secondary effect of the increased Luminosity is a slight painting–like style that fits the image quite well.

The Lighting Adjustments were set to 4.0, a value that puts the image well on the natural side. Values of 0 and below would have created a grungy surreal look with the danger of causing halos. Finally, I increased the Smooth Highlights setting to avoid grayish–looking highlights.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 7 — HDR Vertorama Workshops 159

Post–Processing Stages Essentially, the whole post–processing was structured into four steps:

●●The source images were merged, tone mapped and stitched, resulting in the raw image () that was the basis for all the work done in Photoshop.

●●Topaz Adjust was applied to the entire image to bring out the details and the colors (). 1 2 ●●Selective adjustments were applied to the key elements of the image ().

●●The global contrast was increased, a vignette (darken- ing the edges) was added and a spotlight was put on the paintings in the ceiling (). The vignette and the spotlight support the composition and lead the viewer's eyes to the paintings.

The adjustments were executed coarsely in this order, but the whole process was an iterative one where the global and the local adjustments were refined step–by–step. 3 4

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 7 — HDR Vertorama Workshops 160

Selective Adjustments In the following figures, you see a summary of all major adjustments applied to the different areas of the image according the general post–processing approach sketched above. The presentation is basically arranged in 4 columns: In the left column, you see the final image. The second column shows the masks applied for selective editing. In the third column, you see the relevant part of the Layers panel in Photoshop. Each adjustment is residing inside a group, and the respective mask affects the entire group. The fourth and final column shows the settings of the respective adjustment layers.

So, you can easily follow each of the adjustments by going from left to right in the figures.

Click here to read the article Structuring a Photoshop Project for information on using groups to keep your project tidy when you have many local adjustments.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 7 — HDR Vertorama Workshops 161

The largest and most important adjustment to this image is the de- I increased the saturation on the window areas () to bring out the saturation of the white walls (). This was achieved by putting a blue tones, and I added a slight Curves adjustment to the floor ( ) Hue/Saturation layer onto these areas and decreasing the saturation to pronounce the dark and reflective look. to a value of -71. This removed the slight pink color cast that was a result of the tone mapping and of applying Topaz Adjust on the image.

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 7 — HDR Vertorama Workshops 162

2 1

The paintings () are the actual star of this image, and quite a bit may also have been achieved with the Vibrance layer, but the Hue/ of work went into making them vibrant. I applied a Color Balance Saturation layer gave me more control. layer () to remove a reddish color cast. A Vibrance layer () helped boost the less saturated colors in the paintings, and finally I used a To get a bit more contrast into the image, I added a Curves layer to Hue/Saturation layer () to control the intensity of the colors. This the ornaments around the paintings ().

The Photo Cookbook Series A Practical Guide to HDR Vertorama Photography © Klaus Herrmann 2013 Chapter 7 — HDR Vertorama Workshops 163

The finishing touches consist of a spotlight on the paintings (). This is simply a levels 1 layer with a decreased white point to make the areas brighter. The mask has an oval shape 2 and a Gaussian Blur filter with a large radius was used to create a very smooth transition.

As a result, it appears 3 as if an additional light source was present that illuminated the area around the paintings. Finally, I used a Levels layer to fine–tune the overall contrast ( ). The This spotlight effect goes hand–in–hand with a slight vignette () mid–tones are slightly brightened, and the white and black points applied to the edges of the image. The darker edges and the bright- are pulled inwards to increase the contrast. Note that a layer mask er paintings help leading the eyes of the viewer towards the paint- protects the highlights on the pillars and walls. These would have ings and create a subtle sense of depth. lost details if the Levels layer had been added to the entire image.

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Symbols A mode bulb mode 63 32–bit image 3, 99, 116, 119 See aperture priority mode angle of view 20, 44 C A aperture 15, 61, 63, 82, 164, 165, 171 CA ACR aperture priority mode 15, 82 See chromatic aberration See Adobe Camera Raw aspect ratio 20 cable release 16, 22, 61 Adobe Camera Raw 103 auto exposure bracketing 13, 63, 67, camera 13 Defringe 105 85, 157, 171 compact camera 18 Exposure 111 AEB series 111 DSLR camera 18 Lens Profile 106 auto-bracketing range 79 features 13, 19 main window 104 step width 13 mode 83 Save Options 110 autofocus 14 setup (tripod) 61 Synchronize 106 Av mode shake 16, 89 AE/AF–lock 14, 84, 88 See aperture priority mode support 89 AEB challenges 7, 78 See auto exposure bracketing B chromatic aberration 103 alignment 78, 101 ballheads 21 color cast 107, 161 Align source images (Photomatix) barrel distortion 20 See also white balance 118 black point 121, 144, 163 color fringing ambient light 78, 81, 170 brackets 6 See chromatic aberration See also source photos

color temperature DSLR v F See white balance dynamic range 2, 34, 69, 101, 111 f–number composition 37, 41, 58, 156, 164, 170 optimization 99, 111, 171 See aperture See also symmetry focal length 20, 54, 80 asymmetrical 38 E focusing 61, 83, 86 distance 41 equipment 12 distance 86 estimation 45 preparation 9 mode 87 position 41 EV FPS symmetrical 37, 43 See exposure value See frames per second continuous mode 17 EXIF 118 frames per second 14, 17 control points 124 exposure 63, 86 full–frame sensor 18 coverage 69, 101 adjustment 168 crop factor 18 compensation 15, 87 G cropping 44, 100, 125, 134 exposure series 3, 13, 82, 157, 165, gear 171 See equipment D automatic 67 geometric shapes 40 depth of field 20 , 83, 86 manual 67 golden section 42 desaturation 156 semi–automatic 68 See also rule of thirds destructive editing 139, 141 exposure value 13 details 121 EXR 119 H distance 41 eyepiece cap 62 hand–held shooting 8, 78 distortion 40 HDR 3 DoF See high dynamic range

See depth of field HDR image 2

HDR merging 99, 116, 117 image enhancement 138 kit lens 20 HDR software 28, 117 software 140 rectilinear lens 20 HDR workflow 113 image preparation 99 ultra wide–angle lens 20, 45 HDR Vertorama 5 image quality 16, 17, 85, 110, 140 Levels layer 163, 168, 174 anatomy 5 image rotation 126 lighting conditions 16 workflow 6 , 9 image selection 99, 101 See also low light high dynamic range image stabilization 80 change of lighting 69 See HDR indoor photographs 1 location 34, 156, 164, 170 high–ISO 16 indoor Vertorama 2, 40 accessibility 35 highlights 87, 111, 121 interior iv weather 35 blown–out 67, 156 ISO sensitivity 16, 28, 63, 81, 83, 113, low dynamic range 3, 99 gray 121 170 low light 78, 83 recover 111 See also ambient light histogram 120 J JPEG 9, 15, 27, 28, 149, 150 M I macro rail 25 image adjustments 100, 138 L manual global 138, 143 layer mask 138, 140, 146, 160 exposure bracketing 63, 67 local 138, 144 L–bracket 23, 25 focus 61 image buffer 79 LDR mode 64, 88 size 17 See low dynamic range MEB image correction 125 leading lines 39 See manual exposure bracketing image Distortion 128 lens 20 memory card 17, 27 image editing software 28 corrections 104 memory consumption 140

metering 86 O Align source images 118 mode 83 opportunistic shooting 34 Black Point 121 mirror lock–up 61 optical axis 25, 52 color artifacts 158 M mode overlap 43, 53, 56, 90 Color Saturation 158 See manual mode areas 92 Detail Contrast 158, 166, 172 moving objects / people 69, 78 Details Enhancer 120, 158 multi–exposure techniques 11 P HDR Viewer 119 panheads 21 Lighting Adjustments 158, 166, N panning 4 172 nodal point 23, 52, 78 panorama adapter 23, 26, 52, 58 Luminosity 158, 166, 172 finding the nodal point 52 adjustment 25, 52 main window 119 nodal point adapter 26 do–it–yourself 23 Micro–smoothing 158, 166 See also panorama adapter mounting 58 parameters 121 noise 16, 18 off–the–shelf 23 Preprocessing Options 118 level 87 single–row adapter 24 Shadow Smoothness 166 noise reduction 28, 99, 109, 113 panorama plate 23, 24, 56 Smooth Highlights 121, 158, 166 automatic 109 parallax error 23, 42, 52, 78 Strength 158, 166, 172 noise reduction software 28, 109, avoiding 91 Tone Mapping view 120 114 parallax problem White Point 121, 124, 158 non–destructive editing 139 See parallax error Photomerge 116, 123 no–parallax point perspective 45 Photoshop 29 See nodal point distortion 39 Adjustment layers 139 Photo Cookbook Series iii Adjustments panel 143 Photomatix 29, 117, 158 Blending mode 136, 147

Brush preset picker 133 Magic Wand Tool 135 Q Brush Tool 145 memory consumption 140 quick pan method 45, 92 Canvas Size 125 Merge Layers 129, 134 quick release clamp 23 Clone Stamp Tool 131, 136, 173 Opacity 136, 148 Color Balance 162 plugin 114, 138 R Content–Aware Fill 135 Rotate 126 RAW CS4 103 toolbar 134 converter 28 CS5 103, 106, 135 Vibrance 162 See also Adobe Camera Raw Curves 143, 161 Warp 129 development 99 Distort 127 zoom 136 image format 15 Eraser Tool 133 pixel per inch 150 images 9, 28, 104 Exposure 168 planning 9, 34 mode 85 Filter menu 141 position 38, 41 remote release 16 Flow value 145 post–processing rotation 24, 78 Free Transform 132 approach 156, 164, 170 angle 56, 79 Gaussian Blur 163 stages 167, 173 hand–held 91 Grid 125 preparation 51 rugged edges 125 group 160 image 103 rule of thirds 42 guide 126 immediate 61, 88 Hue/Saturation 144, 161, 169 initial 51, 80 S image size 149 on–site 58, 82 saturation 144, 161, 169, 174 Lasso Tool 131 prints 149 SEB Layers 125 See semi–automatic exposure Levels 143 bracketing

section 1, 5, 42 source photos 9, 157, 165, 171 Topaz Adjust 139, 140, 142, 159, 161, selective adjustments 168, 174 export 110 167, 173 selective editing 138, 140, 160 managing the source photos 9 Topaz Adjust main window 142 self–timer 16, 61 preparing the source photos 10 Topaz DeNoise 113 semi–automatic exposure bracketing speed See also Noise Reduction Software

63, 68 See frames per second presets 113 set 6, 101 spirit level 22, 59 tripod 8, 21, 35 shadows 87, 111, 121 spotlight effect 159 , 163 head 21 blocked–up 67 spot metering 65 setup 58 recover 111 stitching 100, 116, 122 washed out 138 errors 124, 131 U sharpening 109, 146 major stitching error 123 ultra wide–angle lens 45, 83, 86, 102 high–pass sharpening 147 Minor Stitching Errors 130 sharpness 87 software 28 V shooting technique 8, 14 straight lines 42 Vertorama 4 breathing 89 subject 42 anatomy of an HDR Vertorama 5 dry run 59 symmetry 37, 59, 126, 134 creation 99, 116 hand–held 89 axis of symmetry 38 viewfinder 62 rhythm 89 symmetrical composition 43 vignette 159, 163, 174 with a tripod 66 shutter speed 65, 67, 80, 84, 157, 165, T W 171 TIFF 28, 110, 122 white balance 62, 107 single–point focusing mode 86 tone mapping 99, 116, 120, 158, 166, tool (ACR) 108 software 28 172 white point 121, 144, 158, 163

workflow 9 post–production phase 99 Vertorama creation 116