Selected Product:
| Mastering HDR Photography: Combining Technology and Artistry to Create High Dynamic Range Images
Paperback
Author: Michael Freeman
Publisher: Amphoto Books
Release Date: 2008-04-15
ISBN-10: 0817499997
ISBN-13: 9780817499990
List Price: $24.95
Average Customer Rating:
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
High dynamic range imaging, or HDR, is the latest challenge for those who are serious about digital photography. But with that challenge comes an opportunity to expand skills and repertoire into exciting new areas. HDR, originally developed for use with computer-generated images, captures the full range of tones in a scene, reproducing human perception down to the finest detail without lens flare, burnout, or underexposure. Mastering High Dynamic Range Photography explains exactly how to shoot specifically for HDR, and how to use the new software that lets the photographer combine several images into one glowingly accurate final photo. Step-by-steps and sample photographs reveal how to apply these techniques to many different genres, producing results that are part photograph, part work of art.
A waste of my money!
| Customer Rating: | | More like a textbook for grad students than a lesson in mastering this technique. If you are looking for an understandable explanation of this technique, this is not the book for you. I tried several times to get through this book and I just kept putting it down. I am HIGHLY interested in this subject, but this book does nothing to help me understand it, it only serves to make me less interested. I also bought The HDRI Handbook and it is much easier to understand and more user-friendly. Most of what I know about photography is self taught and I have more books on photography than all the libraries in my tri county area, combined. But this book, I should have passed over. If I had looked through it inside a bookstore, I would have put it back on the shelf so fast the words would blur on the pages as I slammed the book closed. |
Excellent HDR Book.
| Customer Rating: | | Detailed instructions. Covers multiple software packages. List of settings for each piece of software. Tells how to set-up and get proper composition for good HDR images. This is important. You're going to like this book. |
Broad and Buggy
| Customer Rating: | I liked this book for the most part. It covers HDR software fairly well, especially Photomatix, which is an industry leader. The author includes a substantive discussion of dynamic range in terms of seeing, capture and printing, and you do get a good introduction to the vocabulary.
I only gave 3 stars however. There are a number of issues. 1) Some of the images are mis-captioned; usually you can figure out which is which, but better proofing would have helped. 2) Many of the images are simply too small to see the effects he says they represent. 3) The subjects of many images are so abstract, you cannot tell what the subject is or what it should look like. I would strongly recommend that the author provide links to downloadable copies of the images so a reader could follow along. (This seems to be a problem with other books on this topic.) 4) There are a few errors regarding dynamic range and LAB colors, although these do not affect the usefulness of the book. There is no errata available on the author's site or the publishers site. 5) The screen captures are for an earlier version and some confusion, though small, results. This is really due to the fact that the software is evolving rapidly and not the author's fault.
The book convinced me the value of the Photmatix software. I have been struggling with the HDR feature of Photoshop CS3. The trial version of Photomatix adds a watermark to saved images but is not so intrusive that it prevents learning or evaluation the software. (Bravo! Photomatix!) I shoot landscapes, and moving water is simply beyond the capabilities of Photoshop, but handled very well by Photomatix. (I would very happy if Adobe acquired Photomatix much like they did Pixmantec.)
If you are interested in starting with HDR imaging, this book and a trial version ot Photmatix will give you the tools you need to decide if it will work for you. Well worth the Amazon discountprice!
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Compares poorly to other books on the subject, bad print quality
| Customer Rating: | Having already Christian Bloch's and Ferrell McCollough's texts on HDR imaging, I was intrigued by the accolades given to Michael Freeman as a writer by some of the readers here, and I got this book as well.
In fact, this book does not stack up to the both other works on the subject. Author often meanders into philosophical issues of composition, like the "Gestalt theory", instead of analyzing the issues of high dynamic range.
Bad are the example images, in many cases almost in the size of a post stamp. I could not make up any details in many of them, they are often that small. This problem was amplified by the print technology used by the publisher. Do you remember the early color print, in which you could see strange hexagonal patterns of color dots? Well, you can see them here too, and when such artifacts appear on these tiny images, their practical value is close to zero.
Some other critiques here called this book too technical. I am sorry to disagree. On this aspect I am on the very opposite side of the scale: This book is virtually devoid any technical details. It is the "blah blah" type of text, to use the vernacular.
Take rather Ferrell McCollough (not too technical, fantastic photography) or Bloch (technical and very comprehensive, rich in detail). You can skip this book. |
Sad what could have been
| Customer Rating: | It's sad that Michael Freeman's Mastering HDR Photography wasn't handed over to a publisher that cared more about the reader. Freeman manages to pack a lot of information into the text, but the type--it's an ultra light sans serif type that my middle aged eyes had trouble reading in all lights--kept me from reading all the material. There are reasons why there are so many fonts available; the publisher should give them some thought. I wrote to the publisher, but received no answer. That tells me they don't value their readers' input.
I gave up on the Freeman text and went back to Amazon for McCollough's Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Digital Photography and am completely satisfied. McCollough offers a different approach to HDR than I had used, and it makes complete sense. Even nicer, I can read his text. |
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