Halo ?

Relatively new to doing HDR Imagery. On a recent photo safari I went on, it was a clear day. Many of my photos ended up with a halo type thing happening. Anything a human can do to help eliminate this happening ?

Oh… using a wide lens.

As per my favorite HDR book, the Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Photography “…The Highlights Smoothing slider (in the Photomatix software) on the Shadows and Highlights tab is very useful for controlling the halos created around objects surrounded by blue sky…” I highly recommend this book. It also mentions another useful technique for HDR photos with people (who normally do not look good in HDR). This technique involves merging the HDR photo with the original photo and using layers and masks to optimize. This is especially appropriate for an image with a normal looking person with their clothes and surroundings in HDR.

Smoothing, smoothing, smoothing! The main smoothing slider would be one piece, and then the highlight smoother and more importantly, the micro smoother. Using all three to varying degrees should help eliminate the halos around objects.

Thanks guys. I’ll give it a spin and see how it goes :-)

Also layer masking with cs4 and the right exposure is helpful for eliminating unwanted artifacts such as halos.

thank you for the advice here. i too have a bit of a problem with the darn halo.

The micro-smoothing slider should be your first line of attack for halos. Slide it to the right. You can use the highlights smoothing slider 2nd.

Form Photomatix page:

› How do I reduce/eliminate “halo” or “glow” effects with tone mapping?

It is impossible to eliminate halos completey using a local tonemapper such as “Details Enhancer”. Some programs allow you to really vary halo width, but not Photomatix. Anyway setting a very small radius leads to very flat and unnatural looking results. Personally, I spend a lot of time post processing to get rid of halos and unnatural tonal variations using a graphics tablet—first in Camera Raw using the adjustment brush and then either with masking or using dodge and burn or both in Photoshop. It is possible to “paint with light” in order both to eliminate or greatly reduce haloing, and to brighten or darken shadows, mids and highlights in details or in larger areas to taste. This can dramatically improve HDR images.

The problem with smoothing is that since it is a global adjustment, you often lose a desired look in the quest to eliminate halos. I adjust smoothing and strength for the general tonal distribution I want, and then work on the halos afterward. Highlight smoothing, though, is an invaluable tool in Photomatix, which allows you to get relatively even tonality in even bright areas like sky, where post-processing adjustment is most difficult.