Why I Hate HDR: Photo Technology Porn

The more I've been viewing photos on various photo sites the more I've been observing an increased abuse of HDR processing. It's taken a while to find the time but I finally put together some thoughts on...
Why I Hate HDR: Photo Technology Porn

Interesting read. Nice over the top title to your essay as well.

I agree that HDR is oftentimes abused, heavily abused by some...however, I don't necessarily agree with all of your assertions. Most notably, the statement "Dynamic range is an interpretive process" as being a problem with HDR. In my opinion, dynamic range is virtually always up for interpretation, regardless of the capture process or media. This is as true of classical black and white prints from St. Ansel, as it is of grad filtered velvia shots from Galen Rowell. As photographers, we make decisions as to how we will render a scene. While HDR may increase the available amount of input in the tonal curve of the final rendering, the tonalities of virtually any form of capture can be adjusted in various ways. In fact, I would argue the very foundation of fine art printing lies in the interpretation of dynamic range...Anyhow, just my thoughts. Thanks for the read.

Do you hate black & white photography?

Pete D.

I, for one, have a hard time doing it right. The images often look artificial. I have seen some here that are outstanding. I guess subtlelty is the key word.

Excellent article Jim. Of course I may be biased owning 11 Singh-Ray ND grads, but I am sick of seeing the ham-fisted cartoon attempts of 99.9% of HDR users. I have not noticed Photomatix to be the main culprit, they all seem uniformly bad. I accept that there are a number (less than the fingers on one hand) who have mastered the process to the point of getting natural-looking results. What I can't seem to understand is why HDR users are not able to see how artificial their work is. I think the main difficulty is interpreting the shadows & highlights. Just because one can open up all the deep shadows or bring back highlights in HDR does not mean you should. There should still be inky black shadows & white specular highlights in most scenes. As you mentioned Jim, paradoxically many of these images appear to have less dynamic range without these extremes of light & shade.

Personally, I disagree with Jim's rant against HDR. At the same time, I don't enjoy the absurd images that I've seen created so often using HDR applications. I have also found that I cannot use HDR applications as they stand today. I get better results from traditional methods such as masking layers or GND filters. But I think there is potential for this type of application in the future. I think either the tools set to apply the tone curves to fit the image in 16 bit or 8 bit have a long way to go, or the techniques are too new to for most photographers to use them correctly. I agree that hardware also has a long way to go, but even if a monitor could display contrast ratios equivalent to the range of human vision, would we want them too?

The critique of HDR because it is a mathematical solution is ridiculous. The entire photoshop application is based upon mathematics as is the translation from a Bayer matrix to the colors we are presented from our digital camera. Photography itself is based on mathematics in f-stops and chemical concentrations.

I do agree that Photomatix is to blame for much of the cartoonish looking HDR out there. I believe the default position of their sliders is the culprit. They create too much dynamic range at the expense of terrible halos and oversaturated colors at the default settings. But if you crank back on the sliders, the results can be much more realistic and pleasing.

I saw some of the photos that were linked from the site, some do go overboard with HDR but there were a couple that were real nice, about 7 of my photos uses HDR but by the most part I don't use it unless I feel the photo could benefit. I will post one of them on the gallery section

It is possible that some of the "HDR" users are actually using the Shadow / Highlight adjustment layer in Photoshop as opposed to stitching images. That tool is very easy to abuse.

Thanks to all for replying. Reading everyones take on this has been great. Just to clarify on some comments...

"Dynamic range is an interpretive process" my comment wasn't to say that this is the problem with HDR. All of photography is interpretive. Physiologically dynamic range is constantly interpreted and processed by our brain. As we recreate a scene photographically there is a spectrum of interpretive steps taken at multiple points. I find the mostly pre-canned recreation of dynamic range with most HDR software solutions to be problematic.

Pete I'm not quite following where you're going with your comment.

Ed it is indeed a tough technique to master.

Kah Kit Yoong I couldn't agree with your comments more.

Mel my comment on the reliance on mathematics related to the pre-canned output of many HDR solutions. Photography is built on physics and mathematics, but most other aspects of photographic manipulation provides greater flexibility than what most pre-canned solutions now provide. As a result you get a more formulaic output. Granted PS CS3 has improved on CS2 functionality and so on. It's a matter of time before HDR functionality improves overall. As it stands most HDR output is pretty crappy and many seem to have embraced a really obnoxious output style. Other than that I think we likely see eye-to-eye more than you'd think.

Paul if I miss your HDR submission to the gallery contact me via email. I'd like to take a look.

Richard as with everything Photoshop I'm sure there are multiple ways to achieve the same result. Faux HDR effects likely are easy to achieve.

Jim, you make some very good points and your main point is make natural looking images. But even the use of a slow shuter speed is not what we can see with our eyes and is such a old technique no one questions these images.HDR is a new solution to an old problem. I am experimenting with it and will consider your input in my editing. Making a landscape look like what I see when I'm there is my goal.

"A mind is like a parachute--it only works when it's open."

Which is why I no longer label my HDR images as HDR when posting in forums. I do try to keep them subtle, which is the key. It's nice to get a "great exposure" comment on an unlabelled HDR image--it means I did things right.

-Paul

Photomatix...Photoshop blending....they are all tools used to manipulate images. In all cases the result depends entirely on the user of the tool. I use Photomatix to do multi-exposure blends with the sole purpose in mind of creating an image that actually looks something like what my eyes witnessed. An unaltered photo of a high contrast scene (extremely common in alaska) by any camera presently known to man does NOT produce a natural image that is anywhere close to what the eye sees. It has only become 'natural' because people have been looking at that type of photograph for so many years. I personally am more affronted by over-saturated, color enhanced, over-contrasted images that are so far from reality that I could never hope to go there in person, stand at that same spot under exactly the same lighting conditions and see anything that resembles that image. It makes for great ART and sells very well but it's NOT natural. That's just personal taste, but the point is that saturation, color boosting, contrast and all those other common adjustments are also tools that are subject to the interpretation of the user and can be seriously abused. If you keep up on the latest technology you will see that a significant effort is taking place to create sensors that respond to light in a non-linear fashion that will result in images straight out of the camera that actually look similar to what your eye/brain processes. Basically, the camera will produce a high quality 'HDR' image at the stroke of the shutter. Would that be a 'bad' camera because it doesn't have large expanses of deep black shadows when the highlights are perfectly exposed? Just as Paul has observed, I have posted a number of HDR images without stating that I used that process and more often than not I get comments about the excellent exposure and how 'real' it looks. When I have mentioned the use of an HDR process the comments are almost always that "I never would have guessed if you hadn't mentioned it". I mostly use Photomatix but the difference is I turn most of the special effects to off or very low and adjust as necessary until the scene looks like my eyes remember seeing it. The software has adjustable effects. Learn how to use them and it can become an extremely useful and accurate tool. The results are entirely up to the user. The extremely 'garish' HDR images that you see are because people either don't know how to use the software or because they like it that way and don't care what you think (much like the people that over saturate and over contrast sunsets).

- Gary

I think Pete's comment is coming from the high contrast range the BW possesses. It is something like 9-10 stops - more with appropriate development techniques, papers and darkroom skills, which is beginning the reach the outer limits of even HDR . Even color print film will get you maybe 8 stops of contrast.

The basic problem with HDR, as I have seen it applied, is that it often looks "fake". The dark areas appear too bright, while the bright areas can be just a shade not bright enough. A second issue is that shadow areas are generally bluish and in brightening the shadows, this is not compensated for. In real life, your eye may see the cast there but the brain doesn't. A final third issue is that when it is really poorly done, you can see where the merges are. Those are almost painful to look at.

There is a fine line between what captures the scene and what goes over into the obviously digitally manipulated range. I don't think most users are really clear on the difference - they are happy to have detail in both the highlights and the shadows.

There are a few people, though, who can make this work and have it look natural. They are far and few between.

Subtlety is really the key. Even going 2/3 stop up in the shadows and/or 2/3 down in highlights can make a huge difference, and yet be fairly unnoticeable. Frequently, though, I'll see much larger changes.

Yes, much of the output from HDR processing is nauseatingly garish and is obviously fake. My point was that B&W looks pretty fake too, but purists seem to love it. Personally, I've become an impurist, or a photographic nilhist. No photograph looks just like the subject really did, unless it's a photograph of a photograph. It doesn't matter how it was made. All photographs are all equally fake. Some look more plausible than others, but I always know they're not the real thing. Just like Galen's dog* did. That doesn't stop me from liking some photos more than others or from trying to make my own good photographs.

Pete D.

* If I remember the story from an old OP column, Galen Rowell had a dog that loved to fly in small planes. He (the dog) would get very excited when he saw the plane. When Galen showed the dog a picture of the plane he was not excited or interest at all. I guess people are a little different judging by the popularity of other kinds of lurid images.

Here's a nice example. Below are two pictures taken at the same spot. One is HDR and the other is not. These were taken and processed about a year apart, and I did not look at one while processing the other. Obviously the white balance is a bit different. Personally, I was very surprised how little difference there is after I opened the older file.

Can you tell which is HDR and which is not? If you think you can, I'd like to see explanations of how.

http://www3.telus.net/plsmjs/share/A.jpg
http://www3.telus.net/plsmjs/share/B.jpg

-Paul

Paul, i'd say A is the HDR. The whites aren't as blown, nor are the darks as black as B. I agree with what your saying Paul, but by blending 2 exposures or two interpretations of the raw image with a layer mask, you could tone down the blown highlights at the extreme top of the image and still keep all of your darkest tones black.

I'd guess A as well, for the same reason. There is a distinct lack of shadows. Even on a completely overcast day, I'd expect more darker areas.

I'd also say A is the HDR. Fewer shadows, whites are balanced.

The inflation of manipulated photographs that have come with the digital darkroom has made me return more and more to straight photography. I am more interested in showing what the camera see than what I remember seeing when in front of a computer. Credibility is allready low for natural history photography, and it ain't getting better.When the public thinks of everything as manipulated, the true images with real impact will fade away in a world of oversaturated colors, blurred backgrounds and composited realities. I hate this new photography as much as I hate plastic surgery. The flipside is that clients love it and want it. The +50% saturation landscapes are easy to part with, but will it last?

Okay, so it wasn't as hard as I thought... Personally I prefer the less harsh shadows of that one--it wasn't sunny, so I didn't see harsh shadows at the time.

Mark writes:

"by blending 2 exposures or two interpretations of the raw image with a layer mask, you could tone down the blown highlights at the extreme top of the image and still keep all of your darkest tones black. "

I'm not sure what the advantage of that would be. I could make the blacks blacker with a simple black-point slider adjustment in Photomatix, if I wanted to. Manually combining images is a lot more work, and is harder to make look real, IMHO. I do use manual combinations when it's appropriate to do so. I just don't think this is one of those cases.

Dan wrote:

"A final third issue is that when it is really poorly done, you can see where the merges are. Those are almost painful to look at. "

Not true with a real HDR application. You can certainly see poor merges with manual combinations of exposures, but not with HDR. The reason is that there *aren't megres* in HDR The program takes the different exposures and uses them to produce a single file with valid data at every pixel. All parts of all images, so long as they aren't 0 or 255, are used in creating this new file. The trick is then creating usable image with that file. That process is called tone mapping.

I think what you are seeing, Dan, and interpreting as poor merges, are haloes. Some tone mapping methods work locally to brighten dark areas and darken bright areas. This causes haloes to appear where there is a sharp transition from dark to light. Good processing avoids this--or at least makes it not painful to see. My technique (using Photomatix) is to do two separate tone maps. One of them does the local mapping (and I adjust the strength to reduce the haloes as much as is reasonable), and the other is global (no haloes). I then combine these two in Photoshop, varying the opacity of the upper layer to get the best effect. Using this technique, I can almost completely avoid the appearance of haloes in my HDR shots.

Svein-Frode: I disagree with your premise, too. No camera has ever or will ever show truth--just a 2D static represantation of a part of a 3D transient scene. You say you want to show what the camera sees. Does that mean you do absolutely no PS work on your shots--not even contrast or saturation adjustments? I doubt it. HDR is no different, IMHO.

I certainly agree that it can be overdone--I've seen plenty of examples. Sometimes it's overdone intentionally for effect. Whether you like that or not is irrelevant if it's what the photographer was actually trying to achieve. It's like B&W or Velvia--neither is "real", but some people really like the effect, while others don't. It's not right or wrong, it just is. Do you use GNDs? I've seen lots of shots with GNDs where the transition line is horribly obvious. I've seen others where I wouldn't know it was used if the photographer hadn't said so, and the result was wonderful. Same goes for HDR.

I use HDR to try to make the image more as I saw it, considering my eyes have far more dynamic range than any camera. If I do it right, nobody would notice.

Consider the image on the front page of my website: http://www3.telus.net/avrsvr/ That doesn't look like a traditional photograph. Anyone familiar with HDR would recognize it as an HDR shot. Is it a perfect representation of the scene? Of course not. But I think it represents what we saw that night better than any single frame (with or without GND) could have done.

-Paul

Paul, repeating what I wrote on my blog and at TOP a week ago:

I think the subjects that have been discussed are far more important than many would like them to be. While there is something as being too theoretical, we are in fact discussing the most important aspects of photography as a medium and art form.

We al know that photography isn’t truth in a box and that prints are just paper with images on them. As a visual medium though, there is nothing that comes as close to representing how something looked like at a certain moment in time as photography (including film). It is a far better record than anything stored or made from our own memory and imagination. That is why photography can be used as evidence in a court of law, as a witness statement in newspapers or as snapshots of historical events in a family photo album.

As kids we learn how images are two-dimensional representations of the visual world. Even small children can make the distinction between a cartoon and a film, or a painting and a photograph. The latter two are in fact illusions of a historic reality. In fact we learn through a cognitive process a visual language that makes our brain associate images with real world objects, just as words are associated with memories of objects, feelings and experiences.

The important distinction is one of truth. It is important in many circumstances for a viewer to know if the photograph he is looking at is a record of what the camera captured through a standarized process, or if the photographer has altered the film or RAW file to a degree that makes the image more a subjective than an objective representation of that scene.

The transformation from film to digital is an important one. It is undebatable that manipulation is more widespread and easy than before. As such both photographers and viewers of photography will have to alter their perception of the medium and question it’s ability to represent truth. Art is no exact science, but evolve through discussion and practice. As professional photographers I think we are obliged to reflect on the issue and understand that it affects how the public perceives our work. It isn’t just an aesthetical issue, it is one of credibility that greatly affect the entire medium and profession of photography. A photograph is always an image, but an image isn’t always a photograph.

As you, I see no right or wrong, just a need for honesty, and a sound debate of what is straight photography and what is digital image making. I do digital manipualtion to a large degreee for most of my commercial work. I have to, to make a buck. I also do straight photography. I'll admit that the lines are blurry. What is and isn't manipulation? I haven't got clear answers, but for my fine art work I always enclose a detailed description of what process each photograph/image has been subjected to.

To me straight photography is capturing an image as the camera and film combination sees it, no filters, then developing the film using a standarized chemical process, then printing with no other manipulation than setting blackpoint and whitepoint, adjusting sharpness and resizing. It is of course a lot less visionary way of making a photograph, but I find the destinction important, especially since I do a lot of documentary work.

Each new digital tool is a threat to the credibility of documentary work. I experience this meeting the public every day. On the other hand it is positive that people are loosing their innocence, and becoming much more sceptical of the "manufacturing-conscent-news-media".

We are allowed different opinions!

I see HDR as no further from "truth" than Velvia or B&W film. You are entitled to disagree with that.

-Paul

The significant difference, as I see it, is that HDR isn't a standarized way of manipulating a photo. Velvia, like any other film, will not match real world colors, but will transform real world colors in a consistent way if developed according to the standard Fuji specifications. With a digitally manipulated image I am unable to identify to what degree the photo has been altered, which introduces some problems. Is a HDR manipulated image photography or is it imagemaking with aid from a camera? In some contexts I see this as an important issue, but I am still struggeling to decide where I stand personally on this issue. The discussion is nevertheless interesting.

To me it came off as the latest rant against the latest technology. HDR is one of hundreds of functions in photoshop and everyone one of them can be done poorly by the user, or they can be used successfully. It is one of the newest tools and people probably just haven't learned the nuanses of the function yet. The article should have been titled "I Hate How People Use HDR". I've seen worse photos by people overcranking a polarizing filter using Velvia film. Producing strict reality is often not the goal other than in jounalism.

We may as well rant against Ansel Adams for taking B&W photos, manipulating them using the zone system, and spending days and weeks in the darkroom altering a single image.

Honestly I couldn't be bothered to read it in detail but the whole tone of it kinda puts me off. Are you just looking for attention or what? A lot of bullshit if you ask me.

Wow! This really took off. I'll have to read and digest everyones comments over the next day or two...
Paul the "A mind is like a parachute--it only works when it's open." quote is classic!
Thanks for all the input.

Oh and really quick ...
Scott F. my thoughts weren't oriented around hating people choosing to use a technique. Unlike the other techniques you've alluded to they're engineered to work with in the parameters of the what our computers and printers can display. HDR on the other hand is not. HDR output is handicapped as current monitors and printers can't output 32-bit files. People seem to be pushing the limits to show on 8-bit devices that they can achieve a "difference". Unfortunately most output (not all) is truly a waste and an over-extension of the technique.

I really find it hard to fathom that Adobe would spend the time and effort to develop and release a feature that you say it utterly useless. Especially since I've seen HDR processed photos that look great (IMO). Your last sentence in the previous post was really the only thing I agree with and was the point of my previous post - if you don't try to overprocess with the technique it can work, just like any other photoshop feature. You crank the sliders on the Contrast tool (or any other tool) and it will look bad too.

I think that some HDR images are absolutely out of this world......and some aren't. Much like photography in general isn't it

Hello Jim,

You end your article/essay with the following sentence.

Amidst the flood of these sub-par images there are some photographers producing very naturally looking HDR images, but regrettably they are the exception.

If HDR is indeed handicapped by design (as you claim), can I ask how these photographers have managed to produce images, which you acknowledge are natural looking?

Best regards.

Read your blog essay Jim condemning HDR. Mostly out of my usual interest in keeping minimally tuned into what's happening with you digital users. Although I'm rather ignorant of HDR beyond the basics I've read about the process, you have enlightened me that its current applied use given most users are in an experimental stage is controversial. I won't adrress HDR but rather how its discussion reflects on some more subtle attitudes in our community. A bit of irony involved because HDR processes aim to improve fidelity of images.

It seems the unspoken status quo of those that embrace creative post processing of photographs is that processing techniques ought to result in images that look believable. Ahh but I wonder to whom? Else peer pressure is exerted by the rest of your serious photography community that a result is considered too unnatural looking such that even the less savvy public may not trust or believe what they see. And behind that is if I might speculate, the unspoken fear that increasing numbers of unnatural looking images made by pros and wanna-be-pros tends to damage the reputation and trust with the whole nature and landscape photography community. Somewhat amusing situation because a person that has developed over years of outdoor photography a keen sense of light and how that illuminates natural subjects, would view a fair number of images that seem to be roundly praised on forums as NPN, as quite unnatural. Of course leading that assessment would be with the image parameters of saturation, contrast, and hue.

Because much of the public and commercial clients apparently accepts unnaturalness at that level or is too ignorant due to lack of experience as with many ordinary urban people, the bar tends to rest at the level where images are valued at instead of resting at the level of those far more sensitive photographers creating images. Thus the target is to be creative with images so they will be acceptable to receive artistic praise from that public, and at least for those at the more professional end, generate print sales and commericial client sales. Same forces that drove Velvia to the forefront in the early 90s.

The above noted, I would also add there are others with more conservative post processing creative styles that are keen on creating images that will even be roundly considered believable by our own more discerning peers. Always am amused to see how a few of the more accomplished pros on this board will jump right in and nitpick some images of other more serious pros that are less than optimal below the believable threshold. At the same time they will stroke all the lessers despite the fact they are probably aware what they created was obviously over that threshold. And sometimes when a more serious pro is obviously pushing that threshold, with some garish magenta sky or such it is laughed off as probably good for sales haha. Of course one needs to nurture those up and coming photographers without scaring them off with too tersely offered criticisms while the thicker hide of other pros are more of fair game.

...David

A good post! False HDR is something I have just started experimenting with, and I have many of the concerns expresed here, especially those of the original poster. I have no problem experimenting with images, or even taking them to an extreme using the HDR process, but they are what they are (or it is what it is), and that is just a interesting special effect. The question here for me is where to draw the line. With some of these false HDR scripts, I can tweak a photo just enough where it is hard to tell what the heck is going on. And I believe that this is what is happening with alot of photographers. They are putting their stuff out there, after having partially tweaked it, and not alerting the viewer to what was done to the image. I think if a person is going to experiment with HDR, or false HDR, then a photo should be identified as such when it is placed for public viewing. Personally, I enjoy looking at these HDR images. I don't, however, like having to figure it out for myself.

Maybe we should look at this as Spiderman would look at it.........with great power, comes great responsibility. :)

Here is an image I took recently. I do architecture and real estate photography. I've been researching ways to do blends that allows me to forgo the use of a lighting kit of any flavor. I agree with many here that it is vastly easy to do HDR way wrong. And god knows I did a bunch of testing that created way wrong HDR images before I was able to get the kind of results I was willing to take to clients.

Photomatix Pro does some nice work but I found it too labor intensive for my purposes. Instead I use LR/Enfuse which is a plugin for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Enfuse itself is a command line based program that does blends minus that dreaded HDR smokey room effect. The plugin provides an easy to use interface within Lightroom.

As in all things photographic it's all a matter of using the right tool for the right job correctly. Horses for courses as the Brits say.

Using LR/Enfuse allows me to accelerate my on site capture workflow significantly while still giving me the results I and my clients demand. Many of my clients come to me because I provide naturally lit results that properly capture the true lighting of a home or commercial space.

And of course I'll be thinking of ways to use this same workflow in my nature work!

I am by no means declaring that my methods will work for everyone. I will say that they do work VERY well for me. Your mileage may differ.

And please forgive me for posting a non-nature image. I'm just happy with the results this represents and I figured I'd share a success story with a new tool I now have in my tool bag!

Here is a link to LR/Enfuse: http://timothyarmes.com/lrenfuse.php

If we all had to label our prints with every single technique we used to make them, there'd be a thriving business in pre-produced "photo disclaimer" forms! If "unaltered" photos were the hot seller, then digital cameras would be Right Out, since the simple act of translating the raw camera data into a usable image involves some transformation of the data according to someone's idea of what the results "should" be. Everyone taking photos makes choices when exposing and developing their images; that is a large part of what makes a great photographer great. Criticizing a tool because of those who use it poorly seems a waste of time. Criticize the individual work of art (or photo-journalistic result) instead.

On the article itself, I don't think there's an accurate portrayal there. First, HDR isn't meant to be displayed on a monitor any more than ProPhoto RGB or CMYK can be displayed on a monitor. What it's meant to be is a very nuanced colorspace that allows for detailed adjustments. Second, some of the problems noted in the article are probably not occurring because of true HDR adjustments. HDR images tend to be "foggy" and low-contrast without skilled user intervention. Halos, bad contrast, etc. are caused by non-HDR effects. I haven't used Photomatix, so I'm just guessing here, but it sounds like most of the complaints in the article are caused by some poorly applied mathematically created digital neutral-density filters.

Like Rick, I use an Image Fusion program to do my exposure blends; while he uses EnFuse, I have had more experience with TuFuse; both do the same thing, and they do it incredibly well (and easily) compared to HDR. I've had a number of compliments on the blending of the images I've posted using this technique. As these programs gain acceptance, I think you'll see HDR move back into the very tiny niche it really was designed to serve, and hopefully you won't have to put up with people doing Bad Things to what might have been decent images any more.

Mr. Armes has created a nice product but it seems he's not overly interested in supporting his users. I downloaded it and made a donation to get the full working version (without a donation you're limited to a small output image). I also made the mistake of leaving the necessary files on my desktop and when I did cleanup I deleted them by mistake. Sent an email to Mr. Armes asking if he could provide me with a download link to the full version again, explained the reason why and that I had made a donation and would provide him with the PayPal transaction ID if he wished. No reply.

Ya know, if you're going to put a product out there and ask people to pay for it, then dammit you better be prepared to provide support if something goes amiss.