Get HDR Image from Bracket Exposure

Bracket Exposure (The term bracketing usually refers to exposure bracketing: the photographer chooses to take one picture at a given exposure, one or two brighter, and one or two darker, in order to select the most satisfactory image. Many professional and advanced amateur cameras, including digital cameras, can automatically shoot a bracketed series of pictures. Exposure bracketing is indicated when dealing with high-contrast subjects and/or media with limited dynamic range, such as transparency film or CCD sensors in many digital cameras.)
When camera's auto metering system cannot calculate Exposure Value (EV) correctly, you may shoot several images (3 images are recommended). Set a "camera estimated" correct exposure value 0 EV and take the first image. Then take a second and third image at +2EV (over exposed) and -2EV (underexposed). From these images you may choose one with the best exposure effect. Panoweaver 8 just takes advantage of the bracket exposure. At each direction, you may shoot several images with predefined exposure values, and then place images with the same exposure value into the same group to stitch them; finally, you may combine the stitched panoramic images to create HDR images.

Basic Steps with Panoweaver Professional Edition
Basic Steps with Panoweaver Batch Edition
How to combine the generated panoramic images into an HDR Image
Combine multiple groups of images with multiple stops into an HDR Image

Basic Steps with Panoweaver Professional Edition

1. Shoot several groups of image (e.g. three groups) with three stops. Import each group of images into Panoweaver 8 pro and stitch to get three panoramic images.

2. Access Tools>Create HDR Image to execute the .exe program, or access Start menu: Start>Programs>Easypano>Panoweaver 8 Professional Edition>Create HDR Image, then the Create HDR Image window will pop up.

3. Import the three panoramic images into Create HDR Image window and click to create an HDR image. Refer to How to combine the generated panoramic images into an HDR Image

Basic Steps with Panoweaver Batch Edition

1. Access Start menu: Start>Programs>Easypano>Panoweaver 8 Batch Edition>Batch Processing. The Batch Processing window will appear. Or in Panoweaver, access Tools>Batch Processing to open Batch Processing window
2. Select Batch Stitch as the batch processing mode. Click to import all sets of bracket exposure images.
Note: Please make sure the image format is JPEG; otherwise you cannot use bracket exposure.

3. Make some adjustments in the Settings window (Check the Bracket Exposure box and select the corresponding stops).
4. Click Begin Processing button to batch stitch panoramas.
5. Click Create HDR Image button to combine the generated stitched panoramic images into an HDR image.

How to combine the generated panoramic images into an HDR Image

After stitching each group of images, click on Create HDR Image, a window will pop up. Before combining, you need to check if EXIF information of each panoramic image is complete and to specify the camera response curve.
A: Source Images: select the images first and check the EXIF info before combining (Images formats like *. jpeg; *. jpg; *. tiff; *. tif; *. png; *. bmp are supported).
B: Camera Response Curve: specify the camera response curve for generating an HDR image.
C: Result Image: edit or save the generated HDR image.

A: Source Images

• Select a file in File name to preview the image at the left side. The selected images will be combined into an HDR image.
• You may view and modify aperture, shutter and exposure compensation value in Create HDRI window.

How to Edit EXIF information?

Click table cell and the figure will become editable. You may enter a value directly or click the arrow of the drop down list to select one.
Note: File name (image name) cannot be edited. Images in the same group should have the same parameters.

B: Camera Response Curve

You have to select or generate one camera response curve (Camera response curve refers to light inductor's response to light with different intensity) before stitching HDR image.

• If you select Use existing camera response curve, please use the specified value in drop down list to stitch HDR image.
• If you select Calculate camera response curve, the system will calculate curve value before creating HDR image.
• You may save this curve value by selecting Save Curve and specify its name in Curve Name. Once the curve value is saved, next time you may use it directly from the drop down list below Use existing camera response curve. The curver value can be saved to a file with extension .crv.

C: Result Image

• After the process finishes, thumbnail of the HDR image will appear under the Result Image tag, with ratio 2:1.
• Switch between 32bit (HDRI) and 8bit (LDRI) under Bit Depth.
• Adjust Exposure and Gamma by moving sliders after tone mapping.

You may save the HDR to local by clicking Save icon. Select 32bit (HDRI) from the Combobox, then click Save. You may also select 8bit (LDRI) option to convert HDRI to LDRI then save it. A dialog will pop up after clicking Save, please refer to Save Panoramic Image for the details.

Tip: To combine panoramic images of different exposure value together to create an HDR image, access Start>Programs>Easypano>Panoweaver 8 Batch Edition>Create HDR Image or Start>Programs>Easypano>Panoweaver 8 Professional Edition>Create HDR Image to open the Create HDR Image window, then load the images directly by clicking New icon, finally click to create an HDR image.

How to combine multiple groups of images with multiple stops into an HDR Image

• Open Create HDR Image window, access Tools>Batch Fusion. Then Batch Fusion window will pop up, import multiple groups of images with multiple stops (e.g. 3 stops), select the corresponding stops, set output format and output path, then click OK. Then three HDR images will be generated. image (batch fusion window)
  Tip: By accessing Tools>Memory Settings, you could set memory size which is used when creating HDR image (ranging from 512M to 2048).
  image (memory settings)
  
  
• Start Panoweaver program, import the three HDR images to Panoweaver.
  
• Stitch the three images into one HDR panoramic image.
  

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