Last week I discussed my 32 bit workflow with Photoshop’s Merge to HDR Pro. This week I wanted to show one could process a 32 bit file in Photomatix Pro 4.2 and Adobe Camera Raw. Many people know the 32 bit HDR to Lightroom gig pretty well, but it is just as easy to do it in Photoshop as well. I almost pulled the plug on buying Lightroom simply for the 32 HDR bit processing, but then I did some trial and error and found it was just as simple in ACR.
Below is a comparison between a tone mapped HDR image in Photomatix Pro and a 32 bit processed image. Both were created from the same 5 brackets.
f.64 Academy and f.64 Elite are the brainchildren of Blake Rudis. While he is a landscape photographer, he is most passionate about post-processing images in Photoshop and mentoring others.
For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
Now if you could only clean up those verticals
True, that is a whole different tutorial! I try to keep them basic so they don’t drag on! Nothing a little lens correction or adaptive wide angle can’t fix!
Nice tutorial, particularly regarding desaturating your high pass layer. I never thought of that. Say, while you were hunting around for the zoom tool in the tutorial, I was wondering whether you knew about the Ctrl+Space shortcut to zoom in PS. Hold both those buttons down, click and drag on the image to zoom in or out on the fly. I learned that one a few months ago, and I use it all the time now.
Thanks for that tip Nick. Photoshop and those silly hidden shortcuts! That is how you learn ps better, through community tips like that!
Hi, Blake —
Nice tutorial, thanks for taking the time to do this.
Quick question: In your video, you take the 32-bit TIFF to PS via ACR. There, you change the depth to 16-bit and save it off as a 16-bit TIFF before working on the image.
On my system (iMac, PS6, ACR7.2), after adjusting the 32-bit file in ACR, I open it as an object to PS6, but immediately on opening, I noticed that the bit depth is already 16 bits.
It might not be any different, and perhaps ACR/PS6 is just down-converting on my behalf (?), but I’m concerned that I might be dropping bits somewhere along the line.
Any insight as to what’s going on, or if I need to tweak a setting somewhere? I know that in the past, settings needed to be synched up between Bridge, ACR, and PS.
Thanks,
Rob
Not quite sure what is happening here Rob, I am looking into it with some experiments. I am on a PC so things may be a bit different. I will get back to you when I know what is going on!
Thanks, Blake. I’ll be sure to watch this post.
Hi Blake, just watching your video. When you change it to 16 bit in the mode section, you are not coming from a 32 bits image but from a 8 bit image. Check out your video at 5’45
Best regards
Thomas