HDR-C: High dynamic range cat

My namesake on an evening prowl yesterday. The sunset was beautiful and I tried to capture both kitty and sky in one shot. The data is there (as in: no clipping) but I struggled a lot to compress the dynamic range to match what my HDREyes made of it :wink: .

I would be curious how you guys would handle this - especially the transition from the sky to the foreground. I struggled getting that right with TE.

260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (25.8 KB)
260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW (23.6 MB)

This file is licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike.

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260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (14.2 KB)

A little more pastel than yours, and I arranged the light and dark areas a little differently than you did. Thank you for sharing the photo.

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Your colours are a LOT more natural, great job!

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RT and GIMP


260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.pp3 (16,0 KB)

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Interesting… brought it to light with RT 5.13 and GHS pre-tine mapper again, and went for the square crop to highlight the little fellow…


260824_203703_DSC07493.jpg.out.pp3 (19.3 KB)

To be fair… GHS did a pretty good job with the sky and sunset (sunrise??) colour…


260824_203703_DSC07493-1.jpg.out.pp3 (19.3 KB)

Thanks for sharing!

I decided to bring the cat just barely in, to my eyeballs, the mid-tones. I think it winds up being a bit darker overall, which might be something I would change after sitting with it a bit.


260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (20.4 KB)

EDIT: Yeah it needed a little more light and saturation. I was losing contrast between the cat and the lawn, so did not push it. Obviously masking the varmint would probably be a smart move (but that is against my religion).

260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (24.3 KB)

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260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (16.5 KB)

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260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (15,5 KB)

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260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (16,2 KB)

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I can’t do much with the sky, either. It is as much as 3.5 EV higher than the reach of the Tone Equalizer. Color Balance RGB brought in some out of gamut color (like a vivid pink). I’m still looking at things.

You did very well, IMO.

PS - This sky is beyond my ability to deal with.

Recovered from the dark side: Gamma, shift, Hilights and Shadows, Inverse vignette at the bottom, vaguely colorized, and maximum sharpening.

Need to try again “aping” Uli’s crop choice…

Created 2 passes in RapidRaw to create targets that I blended for the result. Not my best work by any stretch. lol

:slight_smile:

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I don’t typically try to squeeze dynamic range so much, but here is an attempt.


260824_203703_DSC07493.arw.xmp (17.0 KB)

I suppose I could have tried to avoid crushing shadows on the upper left, but hey, it’s just a PlayRaw. :wink:

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Thanks for posting this! I had a lot of fun here trying to keep the sky and bring out the cat, whilst keeping it an ‘evening’ shot.


260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (23.2 KB)

I don’t usually go with double tone mappers, but this seemed to fit the bill. I think the clouds lose some contrast behind the plants and there’s an annoying fringe on the building now. Otherwise quite pleased with the result. :slight_smile:

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I’ve used Contrast & Texture again. 5.7.0+611


260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (21.0 KB)

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260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (51.0 KB)

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Bingo!

Zoom right in to the cat and grass only…Great processing.

I nearly threw this into the too hard basket. I am glad I didn’t. I tried loading the xmp file from @Attila_Low but the result was scrambled. What software was used for that please. I then loaded @Popanz xmp and seeing how he used the exposure module set me on a decent path to editing. Also @mino I show my ignorance, but what is HDRE?
260824_203703_DSC07493.ARW.xmp (36.1 KB)

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