Shoot HDR photography with your iPhone
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 12:27PM | Glyn Evans HDR photography (high dynamic range imaging) is normally associated with Digital SLR's (DSLR) and timely computer processes, but with Pro HDR and TrueHDR it is now possible to produce this effect quickly and easily right on your iPhone.
For those not familiar with either of these app, below are their App Store descriptions:
Pro HDR: Automatically capture beautiful full-size HDR photos on your iPhone 4 or 3GS for the first time ever!
Thanks to Pro HDR, you no longer have to choose between a blown-out sky or a hopelessly dark foreground. Bringing automatic high dynamic range photography to your iPhone, Pro HDR captures an image exposed for the highlights and another exposed for the shadows. It then aligns and blends the images, giving you a gorgeous 3- or 5-megapixel HDR image like nothing you've ever seen from such a tiny device.
Unlike fake HDR apps that merely take a single photo and reprocess it (without actually adding any new detail), Pro HDR massively extends the dynamic range of your camera and produces beautiful results that you have to see to believe. Plus, Pro HDR is the only HDR app with an automatic mode, and the only real HDR app that processes your photos at full resolution for the ultimate quality. We also provide an assisted Manual mode for those times when you wish to choose your exact exposures. Finally, you can take stunning high-resolution photos of all those scenes that are just too contrasty to capture in a single picture.
Not only will seasoned photographers instantly fall in love with Pro HDR, one look at our example images should convince anyone that Pro HDR represents a new era in mobile photography.
Pro HDR comes with these incredibly useful features:
- Automatic in-app HDR capture, where all you have to do is tap to start
- Manual in-app photo capture, where you get to choose the exposure of each image in your HDR
- Photo library support, where you can make HDRs from your saved images
- Proprietary image alignment algorithm that precisely aligns full-size images in seconds
- Seamless image blending creates one beautiful output image nearly instantly
- Live-updating image adjustment sliders to perfect your HDR, with auto adjustment option
- Fullscreen image preview in portrait and landscape orientation
- Save HDR images at the full 3 or 5 megapixel resolution of your camera
- Share your HDRs with the world with built-in email support
TrueHDR: Take better full-resolution pictures with your iPhone 4 or 3GS! TrueHDR expands the iPhone camera's limited dynamic range by automatically aligning and merging two photos taken at different exposures, with a result that has vivid colors and details in both bright and dark areas. You can also use TrueHDR to merge photos taken with another variable-exposure camera.
Features:
- Now supports full resolution, including iPhone 4 camera (front and back)!
- Improved UI and support for iPhone 4 retina display
- New sharing features (Facebook, Twitter, email)
- Better image alignment, and more natural-looking results
- Auto-saving option for original pre-HDR photos
- Supports quick app switching - pick up from where you left off when you return
- In-app camera: capture your starting images without ever leaving the app (NOTE: only applies for iPhone 4 and 3GS, not iPhone 3)
- Photo albums integration: create an HDR photo using saved images
- No tripod necessary: We'll align the images and match up the details.
- Sophisticated computational photography algorithms: we use state of the art techniques behind the scenes
- Inspect your results: pinch, zoom and pan around in portrait or landscape to check out the results
- Detailed instructions page with videos: accessible within the app
Use TrueHDR to unleash the potential of your iPhone (4 or 3GS) and create beautiful, full-resolution high dynamic range (HDR) pictures!
Have you taken pictures, only to find out that the clouds were washed out, making the sky look like a white haze? Or how about pictures where everything in the shadows looked like a dark blob with no details?
The problem with taking only one photo of a scene that has a large range from bright to dark is that you have to choose whether you want to capture the brighter or the darker areas.
With TrueHDR, you can get the best of both worlds - capturing the details of bright and dark areas and then merging them into a single photo.
TrueHDR allows you to take HDR pictures with your iPhone 4 or 3GS camera, or to create HDR pictures from images in your iPhone/iPod Touch photo library that were taken with an iPhone 4 or 3GS or another handheld camera with variable exposure settings.
TrueHDR guides you to either take or select two photos, each capturing a different range of brightness in a scene, and then generates one resulting photo that combines the best of both original images into a realistic-looking picture that is much closer to what your eyes originally saw.
The Apps
Both of these apps function in a similar way, in that you can take photos with the app, or load 2 previously taken photos to create the HDR photo; but how do they work?
Pro HDR
Above: This photo was taken using my iPhone 4 and Pro HDR
With Pro HDR you launch the app, and then either load 2 photos for the camera roll or take 2 photos with the app itself. If you choose to take your HDR photo from with in the app, you have 2 choices to make. First you can take the photos in Auto HDR mode (this is a new feature in Pro HDR version 2.0), or you can take the shots in the original Manual HDR mode.
In auto mode the app analyses the scene, identifies the light and dark areas, and then takes 2 photos before merging them together. When merged you then have the option to tweak the result by adjusting the brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth or tint, and this is all done by adjusting the sliders, before either saving or emailing.
In manual mode you are prompted to select a light area of the scene, followed by a dark area, tapping accept after each choice, before the app takes the 2 photo's, and then just as in auto mode, merges the 2 photos to produce the final HDR image, before allowing you to tweak the contrast etc.
In library mode, you simply load 2 previously taking photos that have been exposed for the light and dark areas of the scene, and have the app create the HDR image, and just as with the camera modes, you can then tweak the brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth or tint, before either saving or emailing.
TrueHDR
Above: This photo was taken using my iPhone 4 and TrueHDR
Just like Pro HDR, having launched the app you are presented with 2 options; take pictures (camera) or choose pictures (library), and whilst Pro HDR only has one shooting mode, with basic settings including output size, TrueHDR has no output settings, but has 2 photo taking modes: Standard mode gives the HDR photos more subtle colours, whilst Enhanced mode gives more vivid colours, but takes longer to process.
Which ever mode you choose to use to create your HDR image, from the apps home screen select Take pictures (camera), and you will be prompted to tap a bright area of the scene before tapping the camera icon and taking the first shot. Having taken the first of the 2 photos your are prompted to touch a dark area of the scene before tapping the camera icon again, to take the second shot. Having taken both shots, you will see 2 thumbnails appear with the option to clear and take again, or merge.
After both photos have been aligned and merged by the app, you are presented with the HDR image, which you can then save or share via email, Facebook or Twitter.
Just as with Pro HDR, TrueHDR let's you create a HDR image from 2 previously taken photos, by using Choose pictures (library) mode.
So what do I think of Pro HDR and TrueHDR?
Both apps do a good job of producing a HDR photo on the iPhone, and both have some strengths and weaknesses.
First let's look at TrueHDR: TrueHDR does not produce the punchy and vibrant colours that I associate with HDR photography even in enhanced mode, but does produce an evenly exposed and balanced photo, especially in standard mode. The speed that the app processes the images to create the HDR effect, whilst in standard mode is OK, in enhanced mode takes waaaay too long, which means you need to have patience whilst shooting with this app.
Above: The light, dark and TrueHDR version
Now let's look at Pro HDR: For me this app produces the best looking HDR images, with nice exposure and vibrant colours, and in all 3 modes processes the images quickly, making this app a dream to use. Of the 2 shooting modes I preferred the manual mode as this allowed me to have full control over the selection of the light and dark areas of the scene.
Above: The light, dark and Pro HDR version
I do have one issue with Pro HDR however, and that is, the app has a tendency to produce a slight glow around the darker parts of the photo, kind of like a halo effect, something that TrueHDR does not suffer with.
So which app is best?
Both apps save at almost full-res, with Pro HDR saving the image at 2573x1930, with TrueHDR saving at 2480x1808 on my iPhone 4, compared to the original image that was 2592x1930, but this is probably due to the need to align the 2 images.
Both apps produce HDR results in their own way, with Pro HDR producing results with higher contrast and more vibrant colours, which I preferred, compared to TrueHDR. Pro HDR also has the ability to tweak the results, something that TrueHDR lacks, again something I preferred.
So, as to which one is best. Well this will depend on your view of what a HDR photo should look like. For me I like the results to be punchy, and so for me it has to be Pro HDR, which despite the halo effect I would rate at 5 stars, with TrueHDR coming in second place with 4 stars.
Oh, one last thing...
Just as I was finalising this article, Steve Jobs announced that the next version of the iPhone OS, iOS 4.1 would include HDR photography built right in to the OS, however looking at the sample shown (see below) they resemble those of TrueHDR rather than those of Pro HDR, giving a more evenly exposed result.
We will have to wait and see just what Apple's HDR process produces, but if the samples are correct, then this could be bad news for the developers of TrueHDR.
App Store Links:
Glyn Evans
I missed a crucial part out of this review, and that was camera zoom functionality.
TrueHDR allows you to use the camera zoom from with in the app, whilst Pro HDR does not.
The addition of zoom with in TrueHDR does not affect my ratings, as it is the final image that for me is the important factor.
Also at time of review neither apps supported the facing camera, although at time of posting this update, TrueHDR 2.0 does.
Reader Comments (12)
Build-in HDR will be in 4.1, not 4.2.
Thanks for this fine review.
I have only one remark. I think HDR will be introduced in iOS 4.1 already (and not in 4.2).
The example pic under the "Pro HDR" heading has gradients/banding. Is that a result of the software, or did you compress it too much for posting here?
I think it would be great if you could post links to the full resolution pics so we can compare properly!
The glow problem you mention is a classic artefact of HDR tone map processing. I would suggest that really the only way to get a good result with ProHDR is to use Camera+ as the original image capture app and select the focus point the same on each shot then try not to get extreme exposures for bright and dark if it's a really high contrast scene. Just expose enough to get bright detail in and dark detail and then run them through ProHDR and you should not get the halo effect
Pro HDR's haloing is absolutely shocking and would rule it out completely for me, based on the sample images. in your test
I'd also like to point out that the colours you are used to from HDR images are a result of the tone mapping process which many - me included - would see as an abuse of the process rather than a consequence of it. again +1 to true HDR.
@Greenek and @fomu thanks for pointing out my typo.
@Gordon. Although I mention the glow effect, for me it is not a problem, and thanks for the tip.
@Cody. Yes the banding is caused by the compression, which I'm now having to do, to try and reduce my bandwidth usage, which is also why the full-res images is not available.
@Barry. HDR is very subjective as is most photo processes, and what one person like another may not. Both apps do a good job, it's just I personally prefer Pro HDR, even with the halo effect.
Apple's HDR on iOS 4.1 will work only on the iPhone 4.
@Glyn couldn't you offload it by putting the originals on flickr or something? :)
i've been lookin at these two for quite long and today i made my choice, pro hdr!
why?mainly because it has a built in editor for saturation, contrast, brightness etc, and that's not a little detail! with true hdr you have to use another app to adjust saturation..and that's time wasted!
the glow problem is not a big issue, it depends on the kind of pics you take and btw you can lower that effect messing up the postprocess controls.
the automatic mode is really impressive!it auto selects brighter and darker part within 2 seconds and also the processing is quick. this is the first quick try http://yfrog.com/mksojyj not that bad!
great review, i bought pro hdr because the edition tools, great results ¡¡¡¡
Can we zoom in while taking pictures on the Pro HDR app? please advise thanks alot
@James. Sorry for the delay answering your question, but TrueHDR allows you to use the camera zoom from with in the app, whilst Pro HDR does not.