Frequently Asked Questions - About Unified Color Software Products

Most other HDR programs available today are "tone-mappers" — although they merge to 32-bit floating point HDR format, to process the image these applications have to convert it to 8- or 16-bit integer mode. Unified Color products are the only HDR digital photography software applications that edit and save full HDR images in the 32-bit floating point format, which preserves most of image definition in dynamic range, color range and retains its precision. Every tool and operation in our products always works in the high-precision 32-bit floating point/channel mode (96 bit/pixel). Other HDR tools may claim 96 bit/pixel processing, however it is very easy to check on this claim — just try to save the resulted image in 32-bit/channel format (32-bit TIFF, Radiance HDR or OpenEXR). You'll see that only Unified Color provides true 32-bit editing capability.

In the tone-mapping workflow paradigm you lose image quality when you convert to 8- or 16-bit representation. This significantly reduces the dynamic range, clips the color range and degrades the precision of image data definition. Keeping image data in the 32-bit floating-point representation ensures that none of these essential image qualities are lost.

Unified Color tools use the Beyond RGB™ color model, a significant science and technology breakthrough. Beyond RGB is directly based on the human vision and was specifically designed to address the needs of high dynamic range imaging. Tone-mappers typically rely on output-based RGB models, which were not specifically intended to work for HDR applications. In addition to the mentioned image quality degradation, such issues as color shift during image editing can be experienced in result.

Human vision color modeling lets you manipulate image information independent from the image output, which becomes a separate stage in the Unified Color HDR workflow. First, you create and process the image using a device-independent (human-vision referred) representation; second, you output the image using available color reproduction device (i.e. a monitor). This approach lets you have the most image information preserved at the first stage, even though some of this information may exceed the capability of your device at the output stage.

Some programs support-limited options for the 32-bit floating point processing. For example in Adobe Photoshop, although the 32-bit/channel mode is supported (starting from version CS2), most editing operations and plug-ins are disabled. This is because the color models that Photoshop offers are not suited very well for HDR (32-bit) application. Thus, in order to do anything useful in Photoshop, you're forced to degrade image quality to a lower bit definition. With Unified Color tools you can keep the image quality at highest level at all times.

From a practical perspective Unified Color software has been praised by the photography community for the crisp, photo-realistic results that it can deliver. Those who wish to push their images into the surrealistic side, have those options as well — the software gives you, as an artist, the adjustments with a much greater range vs what's offered by other products. Many industry experts have noted the advanced capability of Unified Color products to control every visual aspect of the HDR image, with easy-to-use operations in a WYSIWYG workflow.

Dynamic Range Mapping is a more proper term for "tone-mapping" used by other HDR products. The term describes the same technique of mapping one dynamic range (in image) to another dynamic range (output device, such as computer monitor).

The primary difference between Dynamic Range Mapping and Tone Mapping comes from the underlying color model. Traditional HDR imaging applications are typically based on the RGB model, and this is why the tone-mapping technique is referred to as "mapping of tones" — that is the R, G and B tones. But HDR Expose is built on the Beyond RGB™ color model, which separates brightness (luminance) information in image from color (chromaticity) information. Therefore HDR Expose can use mapping in only one brightness channel without affecting color channels.

In HDR Expose and 32 Float, the Dynamic Range Mapping refers to 2 things:
First, it is the name of a one-click operation that maps the dynamic range of your picture into the dynamic range of your monitor automatically once you designate a mid-tone point (typically a subject of greatest importance in your image).
Second, and more generally Dynamic Range Mapping refers to manual adjustments that you can make using Brightness channel operations (Brightness/Contrast and Shadow/Highlight). With manual DRM you have much greater control over the choices that need to be made for your images.

Yes. All our products are implemented natively for the x64 computing architecture. If you're running an x64 capable system with a 64-bit OS, we strongly recommend installing the x64 version of a product.

You can verify what version of product you are running in the About box of the application (on Windows it is available in the "Help" menu; on Mac in the "HDR Expose" application menu). The application will report what computing architecutre it is using — 32-bit or 64-bit in the About box.

Using the 64-bit version will let you have such advantages as the ability to work with much larger megapixel files (upto gigapixel range, depending on your available RAM), as well as the increased performance of operation.

Note that on Mac OS, installation packages contains both 64-bit and 32-bit builds of the application. By default the product works in the 64-bit mode. If desired, although not recommended, you can switch it to 32-bit mode using the standard "Open in 32-bit mode" option in the "Get Info" preference pane.

All Unified Color products are full color managed applications.

For image visualization we use a selected color profile (ICC profile). Click on the small display icon at the lower left corner of the product window to access the color profile menu. By default your primary monitor's ICC profile is selected. When you recalibrate your monitor, use this menu to point to the new color profile. Note that it is not recommended to specify other that your monitor's profile in this menu, as this may lead to inaccurate colors in the image.

For file input we will accept any embedded color profile in any type of supported image format. The image will be read according to its color profile.

When saving image files (in JPEG or TIFF formats) you can embed any color profile with the image data. It is recommended to use a color profile for any non-HDR format (e.g. JPEG or 8/16-bit TIFF), to achieve best color matching in your workflow. Color data in BEF format does not require a color profile, since BEF always represents visual data in full, unclipped color gamut.

BEF plug-in enables support for BEF file format (which is HDR Expose native file format). By default HDR Expose will install BEF plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, so that you can open and save BEF files in Photoshop.

BEF is a Unified Color HDR file format, similar to such formats as Radiance HDR or OpenEXR. It is however much more capable format, allowing you to store HDR images with high precision and high compression ratio. It achieves an impressive 2x-3x lead in compression efficiency over Radiance or OpenEXR, while preserving image data with full dynamic range, full color range and high visual precision.