HDR (32 bit) support

suggest a way to improve Neat Image
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makyen
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:40 pm

HDR (32 bit) support

Post by makyen »

Suggestion:
Add support for HDR formats (i.e. 32 bits per pixel; e.g. .exr and .hdr).

I am doing a lot of HDR photography. Based on what I have experienced, I believe that the best time to eliminate noise would be in the HDR image after the base images have been combined. Filtering prior to combining often results in considerable loss of detail. Combining reduces some noise, but not close to all of it. Noise is often enhanced in the Tone Mapping process (reducing an HDR image down to a 16 bit, or 8 bit, image) due to some tone mapping algorithms assuming the noise is detail to be enhanced. It would, probably, be best to eliminate the noise prior to tone mapping (i.e. in the HDR image itself).

Are there any plans to support HDR formats? If so, is there a known ballpark time frame?
NITeam
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Joined: Sat Feb 01, 2003 4:43 pm
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Post by NITeam »

Thank you for the suggestion.

There have been not many requests for this kind of features so far so the HDR support is in the wish list but not top priority. One of the important considerations here is the fact Neat Image works best on images that are not post-processed yet, so from the standapoint of NI, it is better to process those individual original frames and only after that combine them in your usual HDR process. A combined HDR image may in fact be more difficult for NI to work with because noise in it is not uniform anymore, unlike that in base images before combining.

So, thank you for the suggestion regarding the HDR file support in general, but I do think it is better to apply NI before the HDR process anyway.

Vlad
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