I was waiting to write today until the canvas wraps I ordered from Canvas On Demand had arrived. I have always wanted to do a canvas wrap of a picture, but never really knew which one to do.

As it turns out, we are decorating one room of our house in a ski theme, and the two pictures here seemed perfect for it. So last week I sent the pics off to Canvas On Demand and waited anxiously. Once I got the shipping notice on Tuesday, I knew they would arrive today.

They come packed very well so nothing gets damaged in transit. Standard shipping is via FedEx ground, but you can pay more to expedite it. The quality of these images is superb. After having these two made, you can be sure I will be doing more. Maybe some small 8×10’s of my flower macros. I could even add a water-color treatment in Photoshop first before I send the file in. I’ll bet those would look really sharp. I am glad I bit the bullet and did this. You should try it too!

Practical HDRI: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers by Jack Howard is the latest book I have read on the subject. I haven’t touched my Photomatix software (indeed, even my camera) for some time. Reading through this book helped inspire me to get back out shooting photos, and also to see if Olympus was doing anything to help with the capture of HDR images. As it turns out, the recently released Olympus E-620 has far better support for proper image bracketing to get the exposures you need.

The book itself is fairly short - just 168 pages. But these pages are full of good information and practical examples using more than just one software package. What I like most about it is the frankness of the author when it comes to producing realistic HDR images, as opposed to some of the cartoonish extremes that have come to symbolize the genre. I much prefer a realistic image that has great depth in all ranges between the darkest and lightest sections of the image. In addition to the software examples (Photoshop CS3, Photomatix and FDRTools), the author tells you what to watch for when capturing the images, well before they see the computer.

All in all this was a very worthwhile book, with more than enough interesting bits for the novice and experienced alike. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking for more information on HDRI.