[HDR-photo] Introductions: (was: xmp files)

[listmail at mab3d.com]

On Dec 10, 2006, at 4:54 PM, Jack Howard wrote:

> I'm working on some replies to these questions/comments, but first
> off, it might be nice for everyone to give a short introduction so we
> all know who's in the room, so to speak.

Good idea, Jack!

(ahem)
I'm Mark Banas, a jack-of-all-trades in the "imaging for advertising"  
business. I've been a professional retoucher (fashion and product)  
for 15 years, specializing in compositing 3D imagery with  
photographs. You can see examples of the finished work (but no HDR  
panos) at www.bendinglight.com

Since 2001, I've been using HDR spherical panoramas as part of a  
process to "light" 3D objects on the computer to closely match the  
lighting of an associated background photograph. It's hard to explain  
in full, but let me just say that I *do not* tone-map these HDR  
images before using them, and they typically have 20-30 stops of  
range in them! (But this is fairly particular to 3D photorealistic  
rendering...) If you are interested, I was interviewed about the  
process in the November Photo District News (PDN) magazine, and it  
generally explains things in the context of a job for Saatchi &  
Toyota. That said, I also shoot traditional photographs (as an  
amateur) and panoramas in HDR and tone-map them for final output.

-Mark