Is it bad if I turn the highlights burn in the VFB window all the way down?

V-Ray V-Ray for 3ds Max General
1

Internal arc viz renders:

I feel like I’m cheating a little bit, but I get a more smooth image.

2

I don’t think there’s any issue with that. Do what feels natural. Most of the time I turn it down too. It’s same with photography. Cameras apply response curves in order to produce a nicely exposed image, otherwise you’d be getting an image similar to a non gamma and color corrected rendering.

3

I do this sometimes but I think it is actually better to not do this in the VFB but to do it in post instead. That way you have more control over the final look.

4

No.
Weird question. Cheating what?
Kind of reminds me 15 years ago when photographers were proudly exclaiming, “no photoshop!” as if the imaginary ‘purity’ of the images made them better.

There are no rules, no one gives a damn how you get the results, as long as the images look good. Of course reducing burn makes them look better, and if you do not do any hdr->ldr tonemapping in post then obviously you should do it in VFB
I haven’t met anyone who looks at high contrast, burnt out highlights, linear output image on ldr monitor and exclaims, wow, looks so real!

5

which tool do you suggest as a post alternative to have an highlight compression equivalent to the burn slider in vrfb?

6

These are not quite equivalent, but they do provide utilities for tone-mapping HDR images - HDR Expose (http://pinnacleimagingsystems.com/products/hdr-expose-3) and Picturenaut (http://www.hdrlabs.com/picturenaut/), but I’m sure there are others.

Best regards,
Vlado

7

PS Camera raw and picturenaut will do the trick for u.

8

Hi All,

When I load an unclamped EXR from Vray to Camera Raw in Photoshop the image goes crazy. Generally brighter and more contrasty with default camera raw settings.
Is there any fix for that?

9

Are you using the latest version of Photoshop CC ? Because in the new version I noticed that ACR tonemapping have been updated. Now then default settings do not alter the image at all.

10

I like the “Shadows/Highlights” adjustment layer in Affinity Photo much better than the Highlight burn slider in the VFB. Affinity’s tone mapping is also pretty sweet

11

You lose HDR information if you do that. I like to leave everything unclamped and the image slightly underexposed and do everything in ArionFX. It has a highlight burn slider that works really well.