Single Camera Raw File Dynamic Range (EV) 8-16

[WestLothian]

Changing this Advanced setting gives some interesting effects as you would expect.
It can be a bit like limiting the black point and the gamma curves in other HDR tools.

It would be good to be able to alter this aspect in the Tone-mapping interactively to see the results.

[wukong dev team]

Hi West,

Glad to hear that; this thing is my personal invention (although I am sure someone else has done this or better in the past that I do now know) after I think hard about the concept of Dynamic Range.

The hard part of doing what you described is, Raw DR EV value is only used during the construction of HDR image and it will be hard to change once the HDR image is already created without recreating the HDR image again (that can be time consuming considering how many things happening in that process). So, it is only run once at the very beginning of the process right after Raw file is parsed (and color interpolation of Bayer pattern data is finished).

So it is hard to adjust this value during run time like the other sliders.

When I have some time I will write about my current theory and get feedbacks. Throughout EHDR this concept is being used. Today only in single-raw mode we give user some control in the decision. In multi-raw or single or multi jpeg (LDR) situations EHDR pick this value automatically. Maybe we should expose more details and give people more controls.


P.S. It is very different from changing the black point of the tonemapped image. Becuase with this feature you are changing the source of the tonemapping, not the result.

[WestLothian]

Thanks for your very clear explanation.
It is still good to have the selection and by experiment the user can see what results are likely.

[wukong dev team]

Acknowledged. We will find a way to do it.

Just curious, what types of "interesting effects" have you noticed? Any samples? This feature was added to reduce sensor noise.