[HDRI] Re: NYT article

[E. Reinhard]

Hi Santiago and All,

I've just had a look at this article, and the images are
quite obviously created with a program called Photomatix.
This program combines multiple exposures, and also has a
tone reproduction algorithm built-in.

Unfortunately, most people on Flickr using HDR are using
this program. My annoyance stems from the fact that the
tone mapping algorithm produces very unnatural results, and
is about the poorest algorithm that I know for dynamic range
reduction. It is very easy to recognize Photomatix output as
a result --- it looks too compressed with too much local
contrast.

The apologetic comments at the end of the NYC article about
the unnatural look of the Photomatix output makes no sense to
me. There is no good reason to offer such a poor tone mapper
as the only choice in any program.

As a result, the Flickr community is starting to equate HDR
with non-photorealistic rendering, which in my view is very
undesirable. The NYC article is not helping in that respect
either, as it does not present a balanced view of the state
of the art in HDR.

High dynamic range imaging is an exciting technology for many,
as it allows us to take pictures and do image processing that
we couldn't do before. However, I feel that Photomatix, in
combination with its apparent, but undeserved popularity on
Flickr, is doing more harm than good to help establish HDR as
a useful technology.

Right, that's me finished venting.

Cheers,
Erik