Product Description

The HDRI Handbook reveals the secrets behind High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI). This cutting-edge imaging technology is a method to digitally capture and edit all light in a scene. It represents a quantum leap in imaging technology, as revolutionary as the leap from Black & White to Color imaging. If you are serious about photography, you will find that HDRI is the final step that places digital ahead of analog. The old problem of over- and underexposure in analog photography, which was never fully solved, is elegantly bypassed here. A huge variety of subjects can now be photographed for the first time ever.

HDRI emerged from the movie industry, and was once Hollywood's best kept secret. It is now a mature technology available to everyone. The only problem was that it was poorly documented until now. The HDRI Handbook is the manual that was missing.

Many questions remain open even for the computer graphics gurus that have been using HDRI for years. This is where The HDRI Handbook comes in. Included here is everything you need to build a comprehensive knowledge base that will enable you to become really creative with HDRI. This book is packed with practical hints and tips, software evaluations, workshops, and hands-on tutorials. Whether you are a photographer, 3D artist, compositor, or cinematographer, this book is sure to enlighten you.

Topics include:

• Understanding the foundation of HDRI
• Tools for a High Dynamic Range Workflow
• How to capture HDR images: now and tomorrow
• Tone mapping for creating superior prints
• Image processing and compositing
• All 4 ways to shoot panoramic HDRIs
• Image based lighting and CG rendering
• World premiere of the Smart Dynamic Range toolkit
• Creative uses and unconventional applications

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9266 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-02
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 344 pages

Synopsis
"The HDRI Handbook" reveals the secrets behind High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI). This cutting-edge imaging technology is a method to digitally capture and edit all light in a scene. It represents a quantum leap in imaging technology, as revolutionary as the leap from Black & White to Color imaging. If you are serious about photography, you will find that HDRI is the final step that places digital ahead of analog. The old problem of over- and underexposure in analog photography, which was never fully solved, is elegantly bypassed here. A huge variety of subjects can now be photographed for the first time ever. HDRI emerged from the movie industry, and was once Hollywood's best kept secret. It is now a mature technology available to everyone. The only problem was that it was poorly documented until now. "The HDRI Handbook" is the manual that was missing. Many questions remain open even for the computer graphics gurus that have been using HDRI for years. This is where "The HDRI Handbook" comes in. Included here is everything you need to build a comprehensive knowledge base that will enable you to become really creative with HDRI.

This book is packed with practical hints and tips, software evaluations, workshops, and hands-on tutorials. Whether you are a photographer, 3D artist, compositor, or cinematographer, this book is sure to enlighten you. Topics include: Understanding the foundation of HDRI; Tools for a High Dynamic Range Workflow; How to capture HDR images: now and tomorrow; Tone mapping for creating superior prints; Image processing and compositing; All 4 ways to shoot panoramic HDRIs; Image based lighting and CG rendering; World premiere of the Smart Dynamic Range toolkit; and, Creative uses and unconventional applications.

About the Author
Christian Bloch is a highly acclaimed Visual Effects Artists who has been working professionally in the field for years. He speaks the language of an artist, and he understands that a hands-on tutorial is a thousand times more valuable to the learning of HDRI than scientific formulas.

A native of Germany, he works and lives in Hollywood, California. His work can be seen in StarTrek:Enterprise, Smallville, Invasion, and a growing number of movies. He has been a pioneer in the practical application of HDRI in post-production, especially on a TV budget. Years of research and development went into his diploma thesis about HDRI, which was honored with an achievement award. Since that thesis was put online in July 2004, it has been downloaded more than 10,000 times, and has been established as the primary German source of information on HDRI. The HDRI Handbook is the successor of Bloch's diploma thesis, rewritten completely from the ground up in English, and heavily expanded and updated.

Customer Reviews

5/5 next to perfect
ill cut to the chase, this book is really for peps who work in CG/Computer generated images...if youre looking for a book about tone mapping you would be better off looking else where.

Fot CG people though this book is worth evey penny!

Confused
As a complete novice to HDR imaging I was seeking a guide written in layman's terms to get me kick-started but unfortunately for me this book wasn't it. The HDRI Handbook may present a complete and comprenhensive guide to the topic but I'm afraid I found it disjointed, largely incomprenhensible and much too hard work to wade through, probably due to my lack of technical knowledge. I'm not new to photo imaging nor do I lack the ability to grasp new knowledge and concepts but personally I derived a lot more understanding from the tutorials presented in some of the current photo mags. The search continues!

fascinating, comprehensive resource for HDR photography
The book kicks off with a couple of very technical chapters looking at the background to HDRI, a comparison of the various image formats together with a very comprehensive look at a wide range of HDRI software currently available, from freeware up to the top of the line packages, comparing features of each. This takes up the first third of the book, and I did feel a bit like I was being overloaded with technical info.

However, then the book does it get onto the interesting bit - how to take HDRI images, and what to do with them when you've got them. Suddenly all the dry tech stuff up front makes sense, and you can see where all the bits go, and why. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 look at taking HDRI images, tone mapping and HDR image processing, and cover the subject extremely well, with huge amounts of useful information and clear step-by-step instructions.

The last two chapters cover panoramic HDR images and an interesting (but again quite technical) chapter on HDR in computer-generated imaging.

So, the first couple of chapters could put off a novice photographer, but dig a little further and there is a wealth of information here. If you're interested in HDR images and what you can do with them, then this is a fantastic resource. And it comes with an accompanying DVD packed with software, sample HDR images and tutorial files.