COMPANY: Imaging Luminary, LLC | WEB: www.imagingluminary.com | TYPE: Standalone | PLATFORM: Windows | PRICE: $48.99
		High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography is the technique of taking photos with a higher dynamic range than normal cameras can provide. HDR Tone Mapping is the process of transforming HDR photos into normal dynamic range photos suitable for display and print. Essential HDR is a revolutionary new HDR Tone Mapping software. It includes two proprietary tone mapping operators: Fast Tone Balancer, a "global" tone mapping algorithm, and Detail Revealer, a "local" tone mapping algorithm. Both tone mapping algorithms provide superior results and lightening fast performance. Fast Tone Balancer: "Visualize HDR images, instantly" Imaging Luminary's Fast Tone Balancer tone mapping technology is one of the fastest and most effective global tone mapping operators. It compresses the overall contrast using the most mathematically optimal "curve" and provides immediate visualization of HDR photos. Detail Revealer: "It simply reveals what's already in there" Imaging Luminary's revolutionary tone mapping technology Detail Revealer is based on how the human visual system copes with high dynamic range scenes. A sophisticated mathematical approach was introduced to simulate how humans perceive the real world. As a result, Detail Revealer successfully reveals local details in the same manner that human eyes observe local details and lighting variations. Detail Revealer starts with an explicit and correct definition of the human visual system when coping with high dynamic range scenes. This is very different from other tone mapping algorithms such as Fattal02[1]. The result is greatly improved image quality and speed in comparison with other approaches that are heuristic and intuitive in nature. This definition is formulated as a mathematical optimization problem. This problem is solved through advanced algorithm innovation. In comparison with other popular detail tone mapping technologies used by most mainstream HDRI software in today's market, the Detail Revealer technology has the following advantages: •Detail Revealer's preview result and full size results are almost exactly the same The preview image is usually a smaller sized version of the full image. The size reduction will cause changes in local detail data. As a result, many local tonemappers will suffer. If you use the same set of parameter values, the results from the preview image and the full sized image are usually dramatically different. This widely reported issue caused a tremendous amount of frustration among photographers. Often the user spends a lengthy amount of time working on the preview image to fine-tune it to perfection, only to discover that the full image that is tonemapped using the same exact set of parameters appears very different and totally unacceptable. The superior algorithm of Detail Revealer successfully avoided this problem. Detail Revealer is able to maintain a very high level of consistency between preview image result and the full image tonemapped result. •Detail Revealer does not produce "halo" or "glowing edge" artifacts Detail Revealer is based on the most natural vision system, your eyes. It first detects and understands the edges of the objects and background. For instance, sky is treated completely differently than buildings. •Lighting consistency is maintained without sacrificing details. The result is clean and clear images In other local tonemappers, to reduce "halo" or other artifacts, you have to reduce the level of local details. The result is usually described as "haze". Detail Revealer is a brand new algorithm from a totally different approach. The result does not have this issue at all •Detail Revealer does not render random brightness variations Just like the human vision system, Detail Revealer is based on a sophisticated Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) engine that can regoconize the pattern of large bright areas. For example, sky is recogonized as one entity, so it is treated consistently regardless of how tree branches separate different areas of the sky. •Fast, and scales well with dual core CPUs Speed is well above 2 million pixels per second for large images using today's mainstream PCs. You don't have to wait several minutes any more! System Requirements 32-bit Windows XP SP2 and above or Windows Vista SP1 and above 1GB main memory minimal, 2GB preferred 1.6 GHz CPU minimal, Dual-Core CPU preferred Screen resolution: 1024x768 minimal, 1280x1024 preferred Essential HDR can run on 64-bit Windows XP or Vista. However, current support efforts focus on 32-bit OS. Supported image file formats: JPEG: 8-bit per channel RGB BMP: 8-bit per channel RGB GIF: 8-bit per channel RGB PNG: 8-bit per channel RGB TIFF: 16-bit per channel linear RGB Canon Raw file, *.CRW and *.CR2 Nikon Raw file, *.NEF Pentax Raw file, *.PEF Sony-Minolta Raw file, *.ARW and *.MRW Adobe DNG Radiance HDR OpenEXR Resulting image can be saved in the following formats JPEG: 8-bit per channel RGB BMP: 8-bit per channel RGB PNG: 8-bit per channel RGB TIFF: 8-bit and 16-bit per channel RGB Radiance HDR