This is the README file for Luminance HDR
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Copyright (C)  	2006-2010, Giuseppe Rota <grota@users.sourceforge.net>
				2010-2011, Davide Anastasia <davideanastasia@users.sourceforge.net>
							Franco Comida <fcomida@users.sourceforge.net>
Webpage:       http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net
Sourceforge:   http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtpfsgui

Contents
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1. What it is
2. Dependencies
3. Compiling the sources
4. Workflow in the gui
5. Contact and Links

1. What it is
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This is a graphical user interface (based on the Qt4 toolkit) that
provides a workflow for HDR imaging.

Supported HDR formats:
* OpenEXR (extension: exr, linux and Mac OS X only)
* Radiance RGBE (extension: hdr)
* Tiff formats: 16bit, 32bit (float) and LogLuv (extension: tiff)
* Raw image formats (extension: various)
* PFS native format (extension: pfs)

Supported LDR formats:
* JPEG, PNG, PPM, PBM, TIFF

Supported features:
* Create an HDR file from a set of images (JPEG, TIFF 8bit and 16bit, RAW)
of the same scene taken at different exposure setting
* Save and load HDR files
* Rotate and resize HDR files
* Tonemap HDR images
* Projective Transformations
* Copy EXIF data between sets of images
* Supports internationalization

Raw image formats are supported -and treated as HDRs- thanks to LibRAW (http://www.libraw.org/).

Make sure you read the "Dependencies" Section in the INSTALL file. If you intend to make a package for a GNU/Linux distribution, please refer to the same file for more information.

The code is in part based on the existing open source packages:
- "pfstools", "pfstmo" and "pfscalibration" by Grzegorz Krawczyk and Rafal Mantiuk
- "qpfstmo", by Nicholas Phillips.
Without their contribution all of this would have not been possible.


2. Dependencies
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Please, refer to the INSTALL file

3. Compiling the sources
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Please, refer to the INSTALL file

4. Workflow in the gui
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See also the online help:
Help->Documentation...

Here I'll only describe the basic workflow in Luminance.

From the main window you can see the buttons that enable the user
to work on HDR images:

"New Hdr..." launches a wizard that asks you to select the set of images
(of the same scene, but taken at different exposures) that are going
to contribute to the final hdr (supported input: jpeg and raw).
The wizard will also ask you which kind of configuration you want to use
to create the hdr from the source images: usually the first choice leads
to good results, so feel free to accept the default "Config 1" option
by pressing next.
Only if you feel that the results can be improved you can try one of
the other predefined configurations.
If you want to fiddle with settings you can check the "custom" option and
another page of the wizard will show up with a complete set of configurations.
It is worth mentioning that you should use the custom option as a
last resort because the predefined configurations (which are a sub-set of the
all possible configurations you can have in the custom configuration panel)
are known to yield good results.
The anti-ghosting feature is still beta (even buggy), and very cpu demanding.

"Save Hdr as...", "Open Hdr..." and "Tonemap the Hdr...":
Once the hdr is loaded into the main workspace you can choose to rotate it,
resize it, save it (in one of the HDR supported formats) or to tonemap it.

Through "Open Hdr..." you can also choose to open an existing HDR image 
format and load it into the workspace. The user can now load also a raw image file.

Clicking on the tonemap button will pop up a dialog that will enable you
to tonemap your HDR image and save to one of the plain LDR formats,
like PNG or JPEG.

The tonemapping dialog consists in a series of tabs (and related settings).
Each tab pertains to a different tonemapping operator (TMO).
You can also choose a working size different from the original
one (the TMO will be faster: this is useful for getting
a quick peek at the results of the current settings).

After you're satisfied with the results you can press the save
button to save the results to one of the plain LDR formats,
like PNG or JPEG.

NOTE:
The tonemapping step works like this (as a pipeline, some people would say):
(pre)gamma -> tonemapping operator
The tonemapping operator transforms an HDR into a LDR.
The pregamma changes the gamma in the HDR before the tonemapping:
depending on the chosen tonemapping operator it can yield
unexpected effects like changing color saturation.

5. Contact and Links
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All comments and suggestions concerning this package or implementation
of particular algorithm are welcome. Please report bugs and
comments to Davide Anastasia <davideanastasia@users.sourceforge.net>.

See also:
PFStools:
http://www.mpii.mpg.de/resources/pfstools/

PFStmo (a tone mapping library):
http://www.mpii.mpg.de/resources/tmo/

PFScalibration:
http://www.mpii.mpg.de/resources/hdr/calibration/pfs.html

Dcraw: used for raw images support.
http://cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/