When wanting to combine two or more photographs for a higher dynamic range (HDR) or correcting an overexposed photograph, I mostly use programs like Photomatix, however it is sometimes too difficult or frustrating fiddling with the settings for minutes getting nowhere. So, there is an easier way and in certain cases much better than an HDR especially if you want to avoid those really surreal photographs - Digital Blending is the way to go, you can be much more selective with your increases/decreases in dynamic range and get more realistic results.

http://www.scottphotographics.com/digital-blending-dynamic-range-gimp/

Welcome to Gimp Chat, Michael.

I had to browse your gallery. What an awesome photography collection.

Very interesting tutorial on the front page.

Thank you. Visit us often.

I'll try again, but the website froze me up and dumped me offline!

*tried again, but no joy.
XP/ie7

Thanks!

I'm sorry you can't reach it but it seems to be working now

The luminosity mask and contrast mask work people have done seems to be effective with these sort of issues as well; they are in older versions of gimp so using linear light will not give expected results though is good at preserving highlight detail and worth experimentation
https://pixls.us/articles/basic-landsca ... and-g-mic/

some helpful yorkshire as well above

Using Raw processors to preserve detail in highlights before going to gimp seems to work well, some open source being well ahead of the game with luminosity masks
Developers say that camera manufacturers are selective as to who they give the relevant algorithms to when wanting to get realistic colour; this then creates issues if you want to work exclusively open source. Color calibration might even lead to a better solution or Adobe DNG converter is worth looking at and free. Rawtherapee help is a good start
also
https://pixls.us/articles/profiling-a-c ... ble-chart/



Can be difficult if people get more realistic color on their phone or worry about familiar scenes looking different doesn't seem to happen with artificial light

I'm going to try having bright, shadow and cloudy settings I can maybe blend



I guess you can can use the free programs provided by manufacturers to produce a 16 bit TIFF image which you then manipulate in the gimp if you don't have the time to go reasonably deeply into open source Raw which I think is necessary but also a good thing to do particularly if a blend is based on a single image processed by Raw editors

Must also try the colour/ exposure method that seem to have clear tutorials

I'm wondering if setting the camera control to take three exposures for each image: correct exposure ,+ 0.7 of a stop and - 0.7 with an overall exposure compensation of -.3 which will affect all the previous three on my camera helps

that way you will have have one exposure which is a slightly exposed to the right which I am told gets more information and two which have preserved all the highlight details to varying degrees

I don't know if people know good way of aligning these sort of images in layers, by eye seems to work for me doing similar

If you're going to do that ^^, then you should use a tripod and remote shutter button.

I think that point is right ^^ I notice it made less strongly in one of the legacy tutorials on blending where it is put as being the ideal and then a successful hand-held blend is made using a lot of other techniques as well
I'm hoping currently Raw editor variations on a single exposure will do

There is software that has an auto align but I suspect that it also would need the Clone tool etc to work a lot of the time maybe someone will improve it with artificial intelligence although if there are moving subjects that would be challenging.

Gimp is good at cutting subjects out of there are backgrounds and photo composition etc so maybe there would be a case for doing this with the same bracketed photo and exposure blending by hand

I'm thinking most of the time of underexposing by one-third and having a JPEG and Raw setting simply because the the luminosity mask and floating point colour exposure techniques that people have developed work so well. I guess the skill is knowing the situation when it might be good to have more resources at your disposal

it might be that better pictures will be taken with a compact camera because the subject will be more relaxed or it might be that a full frame camera with large dynamic range has a noisy shutter: under fluorescent light its electronic silent shutter is going to do all sorts of undesirable things

it's easy to miss the affect a camera will have on the subject: in this photo I used a 1930s camera and it helped gets the response which aids the picture


I think I agree with Miro who said that you do not have the christening before the birth; that is the more conceptual/philosophical side comes after the artwork has been created; what I like about photography is that the more technical side can as well allowing taking the image to be free and intuitive in a way Susan Sontag's famous quote implies is best

https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Tone_Map ... MP_Levels/

helps

and the more retro

https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ContrastMask/ :

works well with luminosity masks set to Mid tones and inverted box ticked on the contrast mask layer as a layer mask, from https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Luminosity_Masks/

bit confusing, you have a double mask: a contrast mask layer with a luminosity mask applying it to highlights and shadows

https://discuss.pixls.us/t/luck-luminos ... ings/33032

I found a gimp 2.4 technique which used the levels tool after duplicating a layer and using the value setting for the layer mode; setting to luminosity seems good in gimp 2.10

Hugin can align and blend photographs very effectively. For a quick result it is not even necessary to open Hugin. Aligning or blending can be achieved from the terminal (or the command prompt in Windows).

https://petapixel.com/2021/12/30/how-to ... re-one-22/

Apologies for the closed source

I do use the free version of this no longer available

I think this is the best tone curve tutorial I have found so far so wanted to share

As many of you will know this is is a good tool in the context here

it's hard to get a cheap haircut round here nowadays without looking like the tutor although I wait till I look like one of The Monkees before getting another one

I'm proud of it now though