viscountdriver Loc: East Kent UK

A recent contributor said that Tone mapping is different to HDR. I was interested and went to my edit programme (Serif PhotoPlus) which indicated it was the same.
Interested in replies.

gemlenz Loc: Gilbert Arizona

Tone Mapping function is part of Photomatix Pro.

viscountdriver Loc: East Kent UK

Thanks for reply but what's the difference?

Wahawk Loc: NE IA

With the original 'intent' of HDR you do not see the 'wild' colors and 'over the top' look of tone mapped images. Originally HDR images were ones that you really didn't notice anything different except that you could see detail and great color in all areas of the photos.

Tone-mapping is an 'extension' of HDR in some programs.
In PaintShopPro x4 there is a section for HDR (multiple images) and then under the standard adjustments/effects you can find the tonemapping.

dirtpusher Loc: tulsa oklahoma

1)tonemapping is just creating and applying a color map. Lets say that RGB(100,100,40) will be in the mapped image to the RGB(140,20,50). If you do this table for every color it is ToneMapping.

2)HDR is a technique that allows you to fuse several images into one. Its original idea is that images will have different exposure. But nobody will forbid you to create several tonemapped image from one and fuse them afterwards

cheineck Loc: Hobe Sound, FL

also NIK software

UP-2-IT Loc: RED STICK, LA

It is basically the same, HDR might require more editing depending on the effect you are working toward.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

This is in the help menu tutorial of Dynamic Photo HDR 5 software that I use:

Once you created an HDR file you have an image that has expanded dynamic range. One problem with HDR has always been viewing the images. CRTs, LCDs, prints, and other methods
of displaying images have a limited dynamic range. Various methods of "converting" HDR images into a viewable format have been developed and are generally called "tone mapping."

It is important to realize that there are many different algorithms to tone-map an HDR image and there are many scientific papers and books written on the subject. There is no single "correct" way to do it.

The goal is to take the high dynamic range data and "compress" it into a low dynamic image in such a way that will still show details in both dark and light areas (where normally the details are clipped).

For our purpose the result has to also be more pleasing than a truthful representation of the scene. The top two tone-mappings algorithms we use tend to create a "wow" factor while the bottom two algorithms are more for a natural look.

You can also tone map an HDR created here in any other tone mapping software if you'd like different results.