Tone Mapping

[Zander85]

I was wondering if any of you guys have experience or at least attempted tone mapping in Keyshot? I am going to attempt this myself but I was hoping some of you guys may have already tried this and could share your thoughts on this process. For those that are not familiar with what tone mapping is, it is when you render multiple exposures of a scene and then later composite them together in photoshop or a program like Photomatix. Which can be purchased here: http://www.hdrsoft.com/

I have simply downloaded the trial to see how well it works. The purpose of this idea is to basically increase the depth of light information and have a greater range of lights and darks. I will share my testing of this method later this week.

[Speedster]

I tried (in KS2) to render three different "range" or "bracketed" images and then bring them into Photomatrix, which is a really useful app for "real" photography.  However, it did not work, as Photomatrix would not recognize them as "bracketed" shots.  It probably reads camera info or something.  For individual image tweaking it's awesome.  Never got around to asking them about this.  I'll try again using KS3, but I doubt it will work.

That said, I'm not convinced that you would need to tone map a KS3 rendering anyway!  They're already just about perfect!

Bill G

[m2tts]

You should be able to save your rendering in HDR format which is exactly what tone mapping is trying to achieve? (not totally sure in that though). An HDR format is a 32bit image file.

[Zander85]

I just tried to tone map using Keyshot 2.3 and Photomatrix and I had the same problem. Photomatrix did not recognize the 32 bit tiff images as hdri images. I think you are right about Photomatrix needing raw camera data. So basically I couldn't get it to work either.

[jhiker]

For general photography I tend to use this little program. It will produce a pretty good 'psuedo HDR' from a single image by 'local tone mapping' and the results can be stunning using the built-in pre-sets. It also has the option of manual settings if you want to experiment.
I think you can also use bracketed exposures too if you prefer.

I tend to reach for this in preference to Photomatix (and it's free  )

http://www.autohdr.co.uk/

[Speedster]

Photomatrix is a powerful app that I often use on real photos.  But nope, no luck with KeyShot brackets.
Bill G

[Terr11]

For general photography I tend to use this little program. It will produce a pretty good 'psuedo HDR' from a single image by 'local tone mapping' and the results can be stunning using the built-in pre-sets. It also has the option of manual settings if you want to experiment.
I think you can also use bracketed exposures too if you prefer.

I tend to reach for this in preference to Photomatix (and it's free  )

http://www.autohdr.co.uk/

​I've been using Picasa because it brings up thumbnails a lot faster than my Windows folder, but it sounds like LR has more advanced search/catalog functions than Picasa, is that right? For instance, in Picasa you can only star photos (not grade them on a scale, for instance, or sift them into customisable categories). I using mac now and search for new editors like this one http://aurorahdr.com/ and a gimp is nice too