You’re out and about and you find yourself in the middle of a scene that you just have to capture on (digital) film. Do you stop and dig around in your pocket for your camera? Do you even have your camera with you? Maybe not. But you most likely have your camera phone. So you snap the picture with your mobile, and there it is. In your phone. What’s the next step? You can beam it to a friend’s phone. You can download it to a computer. And now that phone companies and printer manufacturers are embracing the world of Bluetooth, you can make a quick, easy, good-looking print.

Although camera companies are quick to espouse the high pixel counts of their latest offerings, the truth is that you don’t really need a 10-megapixel SLR for quick snapshots, even if you plan to print your pictures. In fact, you can make a high-quality 4 by 6 print with only two megapixels. Two! And now that phone companies are installing higher-quality cameras in their products, two-megapixel camera phones aren’t that difficult to find.

Printer manufacturers are also aware of the upswing in camera-phone photography. In response, many have integrated Bluetooth technology into their machines. This means that if your phone supports the Bluetooth Printing Profile (BPP), you can wirelessly send a photo straight from your phone to your printer, and end up with a hard copy to hand to a friend. (Just keep in mind that BPP support is an important detailjust because your phone offers Bluetooth doesn’t mean it supports everything Bluetooth can do.)

If you’re printer does not offer Bluetooth technology you’ll find that many photo printer manufacturers offer optional Bluetooth adapters that plug right into the USB port on the printer.

Article Source: articleco.com

The HDRR concept has been around for a long time, but it wasnt until a couple of years ago that was highly developed and used. We can see it today improving photographs and even in video games. Its mainly used to improve the representation of dark and bright areas in an image, and besides, greatly augments the contrast by making bright things look brighter, and dark things darker. Additionally, flat scenes look much better by using this technology, because light and dark can be represented with a greater variety of levels.

However, we also face some limitations when we want to use HDRR. Most displays can’t represent HDRR images because the values exceed what they display can show. In order to fight this limitations, two techniques are used: Tone Mapping and Light Blooming. Tone mapping is a technique which maps the colors so they can be shown in an output device and stills preserve the image and the colour to appreciate it. Light Blooming is a graphic shader effect that is mainly used in video games. Its used when we need more brightness than the one our output device can show. To do so, Light Blooming expands a source of light by multiplying the image, blurring it and then redrawing it over the original one, that way, if there is a brighter image that needs to be shown, the illusion is created by making the scene softer.

Now that we know what a HDRR is, well talk about how we can create one. The basic thing we need in order to create a High Dynamic Range Rendering are three pictures with different exposures. You can work with more and get better results, but three will work. In order to get different exposures you can either change the exposure compensation of your camera or change the shutter speed. When you take the pictures make sure you use a tripod, that way youll make sure your shooting the same angle, and you can overlap your pictures later (if your camera has the bracketing option use it too). Using ISO 100 is highly recommended since the less sensibility the more exposure time (for the same reason be sure to get a tripod, or else your picture will look blurry!)

When we have our pictures, we can easily create our HDRR images through our favourite image editor, like Photoshop.

In order to create a HDR image using Photoshop, we have to go to the File menu, Automate, Merge to HDR. We select our pictures and make sure we select the Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images option.

Photoshop automatically determines the White Point (Lightest tone of the image), but you can modify it if your lighting tends to be burned. If you choose to work on 32 bit/Channel image, this is pretty much where it ends, but if you want to work with 16 bit/Channel images you will get some more features to improve your photo or create nice effects.

Exposure and Gamma allows you to adjust the exposure (brightness) and gamma (contrast). Highlight Compression applies a tonal curve which reduces highlight contrast in order to restore contrast in the rest of the image. Equalize Histogram is a method which spreads the histogram peaks, making our picture homogeneous. Finally, Local Adaptation is the most flexible way to modify the HDR picture, since it does local contrast enhancement; the tonal curve can be adjusted to get better results.

If you want to create a HDRR image of a moving element you can set up your camera in order to take pictures in a RAW format. A RAW format is a file type proper from every camera fabricator that saves the image just like the camera sensors perceived it. Youll get bigger files but you can change from one single picture the values of exposure of the picture.

But, if with one single RAW image you can create your HDRR image, why bother to take several pictures in a JPG format? Well, since RAW images depend on the cameras sensor also have a limited range, and, even if its wider than JPGs range, doesnt give us as much quality as the one we can get by taking several JPG pictures and overlapping them. Bright objects, strong textures and color differences will look great in the final HDRR picture.

Article by: articleco