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Creaceed's HDR photography contest

by Steven Sande Dec 26th 2008 at 3:00PM

Although many TUAW contests are limited to North American participants, here's a contest sponsored by a Belgian Mac development firm that is open to everybody!

Creaceed's Hydra 1.6 software is a Leopard-only solution for creating HDR (High Dynamic Range) photographs. If you're not familiar with HDR photography, it's a way of creating photographs that are closer to what the human eye actually sees (view Flickr gallery). To do this, you take two or more photos of the same scene; some are overexposed, some underexposed, some are just right.

For example, if you see a beautiful sunset with your own eyes, you can see details in both the sunset and the surrounding landscape. Since digital camera CCDs don't have the same dynamic range as your eyes, photos of the sunset usually show the landscape as being too dark. If you get the landscape "right", the sunset is washed out.

Hydra takes those photographs, aligns them, and then performs some algorithmic magic to create HDR images that are perfectly exposed across the entire photograph.

If you got a new digital camera for Christmas, give Hydra a try, and then enter your best HDR images into Creaceed's contest. Entry details can be found here -- good luck!



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Although many TUAW contests are limited to North American participants, here's a contest sponsored by a Belgian Mac development firm that...
 

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Mike

Why do I keep seeing the phrase "it's a way of creating photographs that are closer to what the human eye actually sees" ad nauseum? These photos look NOTHING like what I see, that's for sure. It is the photographic equivalent of synthesizers in the Eighties replacing real instruments: They may have been called "Saxophone" but they sounded nothing like a Saxophone. The sooner this style of photography disappears the better.

December 27 2008 at 4:35 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Mike's comment
Tony

Sounds like you're referring to the tendency of many people to over-use the technology and pump everything up to incredibly fake proportions. (Photomatix Pro is well known to make it easy to over-produce HDR images, creating interesting effects but not very realistic looking images.) When done properly, HDR does actually create photographs that are closer to what the human eye actually sees...

December 27 2008 at 3:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Michel

because it's true

it's a way to expand the dynamic range of the photography and so to create something more like the eye see

but yeah, you can also create fantasy-like pics.

December 27 2008 at 5:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Christian Bloch

For what it's worth, I wrote a book on HDR and I'm maintaining a website with plenty useful information: www.HDRLabs.com . See the "Tools" section for a surveyed list of HDR software, and the "Tutorials" section for tips and tricks.


December 27 2008 at 12:42 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rob

I've just gotten a paper on using HDR in scientific photography in press, and I have to say, from the survey of applications I did for it, Hydra is pretty far from my recommendation for a first-time HDR application. It's unstable, its user interface follows Apple style guidelines and traditions about as well as I follow the plot on _Lost_, and it tended to take pretty much every computer I ever ran it on down, and down hard. Its alignment tools can be useful, when all the planets are in alignment and Cthulhu is not angry, but, really, there are easier ways to break your spirit, destroy your sanity, and send your soul shrieking into the nether abyss.

Use Photoshop. Use FDRTools. Use, if you must, Photomatix Pro. But, for the love of the Elder Gods who sit and gibber in the center of the universe, tread warily around Hydra.

December 26 2008 at 7:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Rob's comment
reilly

@capnrob -- I'd be interested in reading your paper on HDR. Is it in a journal or do you have a link to it?

December 26 2008 at 7:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rob

It's not out yet; it'll be in the next issue of Paleontologica Electronica , but I wouldn't urge anyone who's not a working paleontologist to read it. Throw a rock, and you'll find a better general purpose intro to HDR - we just felt we should write it up for the paleo community because they wouldn't encounter it otherwise.

December 26 2008 at 7:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Andrew Bash

Just remember that HDR looks best when done subtly. That cartoony "HDR look" is a neat trick, but once you get over the wow factor the pictures look pretty ugly.

December 26 2008 at 4:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jonathan

Hooray for Belgium!

finally a contest here on TUAW I could join if I had Hydra instead of Photomatix, which I don't, so I don't.

December 26 2008 at 3:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Austin

Yea, great marketing for that company. Just use Photomatix instead of this program.

December 26 2008 at 3:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Cygnus

I would enter if they didn't make you buy Hydra 1.x first; it just seems like a trick to make you buy their software.

Aside from that I'm glad to see some Leopard-native HDRI software, and maybe I'll give Hydra a try, but for the most part CS3 + Photomatix Pro have been doing fine.

December 26 2008 at 3:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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