P#18 Q3B: What is Tone Mapping?
If the words "tone mapping" leave you dazed and confused, Tony Sweet offers some words of clarification
Tony Sweet mentioned tone mapping more than once or twice during his 7 Photography Questions interview. I knew some of our listeners would be thrown by this technical term, so I asked him to elaborate on what it was and how it applies to HDR photography.
Tone Mapping 101
Tony Sweet: Tone mapping is a way to present the image on your monitor and to print it so that it looks like something. You can't print the HDR file.
When an HDR image shows up on your monitor, you can't do anything with it until you tone map it. Tone mapping allows you to interpret the image the way you want it to look.
Tone mapping is just a way to interpret the HDR image that you see on your monitor. It's got controls that control luminosity, white balance, white point, black point, micro contrast, etc. Things like that. Once you get in there and mess around with it, it's very obvious.
Tone Mapping in Photoshop?
Audri Lanford: Some people asked if you can use Photoshop for your HDR photographs. Would you recommend that or you would definitely recommend Photomatix?
Tony Sweet: I recommend Photomatix. It's not just me. Even Photoshop gurus that I know who usually prefer Photoshop will do their HDR work in Photomatix.
The Photoshop HDR automate command is a really good start, but I think Photomatix is pretty much concentrated on that specific aspect of photography.
Photomatix software far surpasses what Photoshop can do right now. I'm sure they're tossing it around for a future version, but as of now, Photomatix is the software of choice for many reasons. The ability to have total control over your image is the main reason why.
Audri Lanford: We just got Photomatix and I am really looking forward to using it.
Tony Sweet: It's really fun stuff. Again, you got to experiment a little bit and mess around with the controls. There's no real formula for this stuff -- as far as interpreting the image using tone mapping, there's no formulas to that.
In Closing
Tone mapping is a critical component of HDR photography and the outcome of your HDR images. It's critical you work with software that gives you full control over it. That's one of the main reasons why Tony Sweet recommends Photomatix for tone mapping of HDR images.
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