Alexander 6, V7.

After some streak of idleness and a streak of melancholy all over the place, I was able to make one experiment which I cannot say it is sucessful anyway but, well, it was a nice chance to test my softbox again.
I made many sittings and changed the position of the front light many times trying to make that sparkle off from the surface of the turtle but there was no use for that (except a tiny bit of luster). I even used my flash WITH the lights being on. I like the background though and the soft shadow, but I also need a nice sparkle in such images;

 

Exposures made by different apertures merged together and tone-mapped by Photoshop.

I read in some website that Exposure Fusion (which is a new technique that came after HDR), is now a new trend and is pretty much preferable rather than the HDR, mainly because of the skill needed when tone-mapping a HDR. Well, to me, the situation is not always like that. Many times, the EF did not yield the colors and contrast I would like to see in my images. However, there was a bit of information that I really liked to try, but I didn't do well yesterday (my mind was shattered), that is EF is able to enfuse several depth of fields, because the technique mainly compares pixels and picks the best pixel from each image to be represented according to some algorithm. I used EF already to merge pictures of different white balances (WB) and it made some nice images with different, and weird, hues like the locker before;

  

Two different images made by the same collection of images of different White Balances.

I shall try again today if I was able to, and to try out different depths of field to be combined. I think I should have somehow an active background instead of just a plain white background. Anyway, I shall leave you now with Alexander...

__________

145. after finishing their worshipping in a hurry
146. they turned to Alexander with reddish eyes
147. and asked him about his name and origin
148. he answered back and told them the truth
149. they laughed in the beginning so loud
150. because how come the king of might
151. the well known king of Caqobia
152. be walking with no guards or army?
153. then one man showed his dagger to Alexander
154. and threatened Alexander if he did not say the truth
155. then Alexander asked them to see his index finger
156. on his left hand where he kept the royal ring
157. so the men checked his finger and got shocked
158. he was indeed the king of kings
159. the son of Pilippánút, the king of Caqobia
160. the conqueror of Geltans and Ghutans
161. they stood with no motion trying to understand
162. then with a smile Alexander asked them to sit
163. and he told them his story and his destination
164. and how he got down from his riches to poverty
165. then he preached to them about God and this life
166. and why he did what he did for them
167. and then he asked them about their story
168. about their origin and their faith

Alexander 6, V1.

Somehow, it was a tiresome and busy weekend. I didn't post anything yesterday (Saturday) as I promised myself but anyway, it was not much of importance I believe, except to put on with the first verse of Alexander VI.
I made some experiments again with my beloved golden turtle, and this time I used the FEB (Flash Exposure Bracketing) as a substitute, since I can't use it in a completely dark room;



The blue background is actually black. But with some fixes and because of the flash light striking it, it turned bright and blue. Combining the three shots was done with Photomatix (and some values of exposures were adjusted since softwares use certain numbers in the EXIF of the image, i.e. data attached to the image). Yet, tone-mapping was done manually with Photoshop (and also fixes) because the Photomatix version was hard to smooth out and equalize the proportions of light. The image you see was actually like split horizontally in the middle, with bright portion being up and the dark shadow being down. Such thing cannot be done with Photomatix, but rather done easily with Photoshop's adjustment layers and brushes. Hue and Saturation were also fixed to some extent and voila! here you go. As for the time being, I've been using Photomatix to merge the images together and save it as EXR, and then edit them (mostly) with Photoshop. Sometimes, I get them back to Photomatix after adjusting them and saving back again in EXR, because my skills with manual tone-mapping are just novice!
This is some of my summary about using Photoshop and Photomatix in HDR making and Tone-mapping; of course people who read some books don't need it, as these are just my thoughts after working a with them, and there are plenty of softwares out there that are good for things and bad for other things maybe and so on:

Photoshop:

 - Good stuff:

• Gives you the ability to adjust the HDR image in various ways with adjustment layers.
• When joining into HDR, a dialogue box appears with calculated exposure values and gives you a choice to tick-out any unwanted images into the sequence.
• Got instant 32-bit slider to view the image in various exposure settings instantly.
• For those who like to use their own hands with baking the HDR, tone-mapping here with Adaptive settings (and others) are fine.
• Plugins capability makes it easier to do noise reduction after tone-mapping directly, if needed.

 - Bad stuff:

• Memory consumer.
• Exposure values cannot be changed manually (only if the file is stripped out of its EXIF data).
• Does not have a tool to view a HDR historgram.
• Aligning, while processing the images to HDR is not, compared to Photomatix, good enough.

 Photomatix:

- Good stuff:

• Does not consume much memory.
• Exposure values can be fixed in case of some problems with calculations (and you get a dialog box even when the brackets of the exposures are not even or normal let's say).
• Got Exposure Fusion capability (which is not an HDR merging but useful at times).
• Can view a HDR histogram (and this is extremely important for me to check that there are no cut-offs in the exposures sequence; at tails mainly).
• Saves the HDR image in major formats as Radiance (.HDR) and OpenEXR (.EXR, ZIP and PIZ).
• Tone-mapping is semi-automatic, with pre-fixed schemes and the ability to adjust the sliders. This is good for none-experienced manual workers like me!
• Has 2 aligning algorithms embedded and can be used in two modes: normal and high (in case your tripod moves much because of the air or something). It is far better than Photoshop's.

- Bad Stuff:

• Once the sequence of the images is made, and when an error pops-up for some problems in the exposure values, you cannot tick-out some images, but only fix the exposure values.
• Generally, it is not an image editing program, thus, you can't do much to your HDR image before baking.
• Personally, I don't trust the "noise reduction" option that is applied to the images before being combined. After all, noise reduction is a must after tone-mapping.
• No plugins capability, thus, you can't work with plugins embedded in it like Photoshop; plugins like NeatImage are deemed useful.
• No instant 32-bit viewer or slider to move and check the various exposures. There is however an option for going up and down with exposure (F11 and F12 keys) which isn't exactly as flexible as in Photoshop.

The term "bake" and "baking" I'm using here, is a term that adapted (and I like it by the way) from Christian Bloch's book, in which he explains how to fix HDR images before tone-mapping, i.e. baking. I think he was hungry when he was writing that section but anyway, it works fine with me... 'cos I'm always hungry.

With points from here and there, it is, at least for me, hard to work with one program alone. I do have to work with both here and there. Yet, my main first step in the workflow, would begin with combining the images in Photomaix first and saving the HDR file. Sometimes, but not often, I do combine the images into HDR in Photoshop but it is rather to check if there is any difference or any enhancement, since the two softwares tend to give me different calculated exposures' values for the same set of images.
I've been trying to do the same FEB trials on my old censer as before, and this time with a black background (from the papers I purchased last week). I did not design a black box yet, but so far I'm putting the paper freely and bend it softly to make a background. In my experiment with the censer (which I did not make up images for it yet), I used the diffuser on the flash head. I did not use it before because, I just thought it is designed mainly for the wide-lens apparatus (as mentioned in the manual) and to avoid vignetting (darkening of edges) when using wide-lens with normal flash. The flash tends to concentrate in one spot then. However, I used it with my 18-55mm lens and it works fine on spreading the flash to a wider area and softening the strike on the body of the censer itself. Why I didn't think of this before? Damn it!
When the diffuser is pulled out, the flash automatically sets the zoom level to that of a wide-lens, and maybe that's why I didn't try to use it in that condition.
Everything was going fine, until it was the time for the third shot which is supposed to have a relative exposure value of +3, when it turned out with a level of "0". This is bad for combining the images later on, even if I fixed the values manually in Photomatix. I made other shots changing from Av (aperture priority) mode to Tv (time priority), but here, the results were not exactly what I want, with the flames of the candle inside were almost turned off and the aperture was set to f5 making a shallow depth and no sparkles (like in the image of the turtle above). It is hard to combine elements from the 2 experiments, but I'm trying still, or I should conduct a new experiment today, completely.
__________
1. thus Alexander decided to leave his people
2. and head to where he never been before
3. alone without any companions
4. weak without any weapons
5. except of his Charnagút
6. and he walked with his torn clothes
7. amid the deserts and mounts and valleys
8. and he stopped at the ruins of Taghlút
9. the capital of the khanate of Ghutan
10. where he crushed some idolaters
11. just like a grain of salt in the wind
12. and he stood upon the ruins of the tower
13. of the mighty castle he wrecked with iron and fire
14. and he meditated and remembered his golden age
15. and the tears could not be kept in his eyes long
16. and he raised his harsh hands up to heaven
17. and praised God and His mercy
18. then he knew for sure deep inside him
19. that nothing in this life remains
20. and like you take, you shall be taken
21. and like you own, you are owned
22. while this life is nothing for sure
23. but like a grain of salt or sand
24. to the wind shall fly away

Alexander 5, V1.

Spent this week with other experiments again, but this time, with something else other than the censer (as in the previous days). However, there was still some business that I did not finish with that censer yet. I gave out a new trial with two ways; one was with the change in aperture values, and one with changing the ISO. In both cases however, the flash was used but of course aiming in some other direction other than a direct hit.
I will forget talking about the second type, with changing the ISO value and combining the results in HDR. This image was horrific after HDR making, and I didn't dare even to minimize it and put it for view over the net! Too much noise and dark areas and the real colors of the censer were not obvious, but only the flame inside was obvious.
In the first trial however, with the change in aperture, I think the result was not bad, but it needs a little fix later on because with small apertures (high f-numbers) a sparkle is made from light sources, and putting these all together then you would end up with some how a weird looking shape and some abnormal color saturations in the areas of the sparkles.

As you can see, the middle area is occupied with a star with abnormal saturation because of the change in apertures. Anyway, I think this is an easy case to be fixed with cloning in Photoshop or even Spot-Heal tool. The flash was pointing up and bouncing from the ceiling. I couldn't do a good job with manual tone-mapping in Photoshop, thus Photomatix is used to produce more saturation and contrast as much as possible.

The other experiment was to snap a picture of my beloved golden turtle which was a gift from my sister in one of my old birthdays (I really can't remember which one was it but for sure I was younger than 26 I remember).
Anyway, the thing here, it doesn't have a flame inside, and the body is rigid and won't give a very strong reflections of the flash like the censer did. It has a Unique body color almost, thus the contrast bit is a bit resolved to some extent. My aim was just shoot and see what happens really, and while I'm writing this I've just reckoned that I was supposed to put on a small aperture (high f-number) in order to make some sparkling from the surface. Anyway, I guess this would be my aim next time.
The shooting was made in several changes of camera modes and some were bad and some were good relatively:

1. Bracketed shot. The normal procedure that I usually follow; Av mode, the room light was on, and 3 bracketed shots (-2,0,+2). Photomatix was used here as I SUCK with manual tone-mapping in Photoshop.

2. Changing Shutter: With Tv (Time-Value priority) mode on, and working with my flash, I started to take a picture in the darkness with almost one third of the time value each time, starting from 30 seconds. That would be make it like: 30 seconds, 10 seconds, 3 seconds and so on. I got many that way and most of the images exceeding the time of one second were almost similar and dark even with a flash (the limit is 1/200 when the flash is in the work).
The images were combined, but apparently because of the noise coming from the dark images mostly, there was some weird noise and spots that appeared even before the tone-mapping, but in this small version here, it is not so much obvious, but it was apparent in the mouth area mostly, as some pinkish and bluish lines. Tone-mapping was also carried by Photomatix as usual and I kept these settings almost the same for the previous image and the coming images as well.

3. Less of Shutters: After making the previous one and knowing that many dark images can corrupt and add more unpleasant noises, I've picked up 3 shots from the series and combined them, then manually tone-mapped it. Although I don't like this tone-mapping really because it is too bright, some people already said it is better than the one I did in Photomatix.

4. FEB: Flash Exposure Bracketing. I was really not sure that this method would work at all. Of course it was not an option if I was using the camera flash, but here I'm able to do the same thing (almost) with the camera auto-bracketing but in the flash itself and in a range from -3 to 3, in 3 shots. What I really like about it is the saturation (done in Photomatix of course) and the clean background. This thing really can save lives!

 

5. The Dim Light: Here, I didn't use the flash at all, but rather I used my flashlight and pointed it to the white ceiling and that gave out a very dim light over the turtle. I've fixed the camera on Tv mode and set it out for auto-bracketing, and the shot started for 30 seconds for each of the 3 shots. The result was not bad even though with a yellowish hue all over because of the flashlight itself but this all can be fixed with a proper tone-mapping; which I did manually and with Photomatix here.

 

Manually tone-mapped. I'm bad with this though and the shadow of the head looks faint.

 
 

Tone-mapped with Photomatix.

In general, and since I was shooting without an aim at mind, I didn't care much about the angle, which later on sounded not a good one here . I think lowering the tripod a bit would be more pleasant, if I should say. Also, most of these images were taken with a wide aperture (low f-number) and hence, they have a shallow depth of field. Can be an advantage OR a disadvantage, but I would prefer to make a low depth with a more close-up version, probably to the head.

I'm starting to use Photomatix more here not only for the tone-mapping, but also for its superiority in aligning images, and also for its HDR histogram option. It is important to check the HDR historgram to check that you wouldn't have a cut-out in the tails of the histogram, or in other words, a chop in shadows or highlights. It is really weird and strange that Photoshop still does not include such an option. Photoshop is favorable though, sometimes, for editing work in 32-bit mode just before tone-mapping. 

I sent a suggestion to Canstockphoto people, asking them if they are willing to allow people to upload HDR images. The response was positive I can say and who knows, they might be the first website I've ever known that allow upoads for HDR images. So far, I don't know of any website that does this. HDR images (and specially panoramas) are important for cases of Computer Graphics and making up an environment with good lighting.

Today I begin posting the 5th part of Alexander's story. Hope you enjoy reading it, if you will...

__________
1. and the hero moved out of the forest
2. with sadness filling his heart to the fullest
3. and he left some of his men to manage the forest
4. but now he has no power to fight or to war
5. for only one hundred men are left with him
6. and he wondered about his next direction
7. is it south or to the land of day and night
8. for he knew he will be back there one day
9. he decided to go south and pass on the middle land
10. and see what wonders might come or commands
11. while his one hundred men were his faithful and closest
12. then at night they camped in the wilderness like nomads
13. tired from all the troubles they tried and saw before
14. and the heaviness of metals broke their backs
15. at night time they slept and Alexander had a dream
16. weird it was and Alexander could not explain
17. he saw people like monks covering their heads
18. they were telling him to come down to them
19. because life is such an agony and wild
20. where no love remains and no soul
21. they asked him to come and see
22. the wonders of God that none did see
23. he then woke up with a fast heart beating
24. and spent the night awaken by the shock