[HDR-photo] Introductions:

[rogerhoward at rogerroger.org]

Hey guys, just want to introduce myself. It was kind of Geraldine to  
invite me.

I wear a number of hats relevant to this field. Professionally I  
manage large-scale digital asset management systems, which involves  
not only storage, but workflow for content creation, distribution, as  
well as metadata and content standards, among the many facets of my  
work. The XMP thread is of particular interest to me, as I've done a  
lot of work with XMP in a professional capacity, and maintain good  
relationships with XMP product manager at Adobe among others. Though  
my first concerns are those, I also tend to act as a catalyst for  
adopting new technology; I've introduced color management, panoramic  
and 3D imaging techniques, and even HDR in a production environment -  
for instance, I used an early version of HDRShop and one of the early  
tonemappers to capture backlit antique stained glass in an extremely  
dark gallery setting at The Getty (where I used to work).

Personally I'm a panoramic enthusiast; I shoot every chance I get.  
Over the years I've captured a lot of bracketed panoramas where it  
was useful and practical, but I've always struggled with how to take  
advantage of the extra dynamic range. For my creative work I've often  
been deeply disappointed with the quality of the tonemapping I was  
able to achieve, versus what I could achieve through traditional  
exposure compositing in Photoshop. However, after a week or so of  
playing with Photomatix recently I'm quite deeply impressed by the  
results I can get using its tonemapper, and am about to order a copy  
(as soon as I get home). I'm still struggling to overcome some issues  
with this process, however, that in some cases could prove to make it  
more difficult than my traditional approach (layer masks, curves,  
Blend-If, etc).

My very first HDR experiment was a 20 shot sequence I captured in the  
Temple of Dendur gallery at the Met - it's a large, airy space  
looking out onto Central Park, where a massive stone temple from  
Egypt is presented; when the light is right the DR is huge, and even  
within the limits of the time (7 or 8 years ago I'd guess) the  
results I got were fantastic. I'm going to dig up those source files  
and try reprocessing them when I get home.

Currently I'm in the throes of a new job so I'm not shooting as much,  
or as creatively, as I'd like. For my HDR testing I'm stuck going  
back to my archives for good HDR source material.

I hope I can contribute here; I'm going to try to digest the XMP  
thread, and will certainly have some questions/comments for that when  
I can.

Best,

Roger Howard