The Ohanaware Weblog

While we’re still working hard on Fun Photo 2.0 we’ve also been working hard on a Professional version of our ever popular HDRtist. For a vast majority of people, HDRtist has been their first step into the world of HDR, providing people with an easy way to get great results. However there’s a huge gap, if you want more than HDRtist. HDR software with more control and flexibility can cost as much as $150!

Enter HDRtist Pro, which aims to provide you with more control, features and flexibility than HDRtist, wrapped up in an Ohanaware easy to use interface, all without the heft of a huge price sticker.
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The guys over at ZDNet did a nice article about low-cost HDR, and they featured HDRtist!

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=6750&tag=col1;post-6750#more-6750

Today’s I’m gonna talk about something, which I think almost everyone should have. Their own personal Time Machine.

Before Ohanaware was born, I was developing other image manipulation programs. About once every two months, I’d get someone who had done something to their photos and wanted me to undo it. Imagine taking a permanent marker to your photo. I’ve received threats of death and legal action, thankfully neither have come to fruition. In the previous product we gave people multiple warnings, which legally protected us, but ultimately didn’t stop people.

When Funtastic Photos was being designed, this very problem was taken into consideration. We designed it so that your original photo would be protected and it can be recovered even without the use Funtastic Photos. This does only work if you use the Funtastic Photos file format, if you use “Save A”s and replace your original file with a JPEG. Your toast!

In HDRtist, we tried something else. If you try to replace a file, HDRtist offers to take a backup of your file, again you can choose not to and voila your image is gone.

Why do we let people replace files, because at one time we didn’t. We refused to save over people’s files. You got it, this made people upset also.

The solution: Isn’t expensive (providing you’re running Mac OS X 10.5), buy yourself an external hard disk that’s larger than your internal hard disk. Hook it up to your Mac, and it’ll ask you if you want to start the Time Machine. This is superb, as it’ll preserve everything, including your photos! If you overwrite your photo and want to remove the permanent marker, you simply rewind in the Time Machine. I even take mine in the car when we go out, incase, some limey half inches my computer, or anything else happens while I’m out.

Hard drives are prone to failure, it doesn’t matter how old they are. They all fail at some point, photos are precious. So please please back them up and never overwrite the original files.

Today we’re very pleased to announce the latest release of HDRtist. Version 1.1 adds the #1 requested feature, which is Image Alignment. We’ve tapped into align_image_stack, a very powerful automatic image alignment tool. Simply click the “Align Photos” button and HDRtist will automatically figure out and align the images for you. This means that HDR’s taken without a tripod can now be used in HDRtist, making the whole HDR photo taking process simpler.

The update weighs in at 5.5 mb compressed and can be downloaded by clicking on the following link.

http://www.ohanaware.com/hdrtist/HDRtist.zip

Today’s post is from my forthcoming guide: Sam’s Complete Guide to HDR Photography. It’s a short guide that aims to help everyone get started with the beautiful world of HDR Photography. I’m aiming to release it some time in November. If you’re interested in taking a look at it earlier, please use the contact us form, otherwise either check here or follow me on twitter (http://twitter.com/sam_ohanaware)
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