COMPOSITION
- 
Composition and The Expressive Nature Of LightRead more: Composition and The Expressive Nature Of Lighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-danskin/post_12457_b_10777222.html George Sand once said “ The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.” 
DESIGN
- 
Kristina Kashtanova – “This is how GPT-4 sees and hears itself”Read more: Kristina Kashtanova – “This is how GPT-4 sees and hears itself”“I used GPT-4 to describe itself. Then I used its description to generate an image, a video based on this image and a soundtrack. Tools I used: GPT-4, Midjourney, Kaiber AI, Mubert, RunwayML This is the description I used that GPT-4 had of itself as a prompt to text-to-image, image-to-video, and text-to-music. I put the video and sound together in RunwayML. GPT-4 described itself as: “Imagine a sleek, metallic sphere with a smooth surface, representing the vast knowledge contained within the model. The sphere emits a soft, pulsating glow that shifts between various colors, symbolizing the dynamic nature of the AI as it processes information and generates responses. The sphere appears to float in a digital environment, surrounded by streams of data and code, reflecting the complex algorithms and computing power behind the AI” 
- 
Arminas Valunas – “Coca-Cola: Wherever you are.”Read more: Arminas Valunas – “Coca-Cola: Wherever you are.”Arminas created this using Juggernaut Xl model and QR Code Monster SDXL ControlNet. 
 His pipeline:
 Static Images – Forge UI.
 Upscaled with Leonardo AI universal upscaler.
 Animated with Runway ML and Minimax.
 Video upscale – Topaz Video AI.
 Composited in Adobe Premiere.
 Juggernaut Xl download here:
 https://civitai.com/models/133005/juggernaut-xl
 QR Code Monster SDXL:
 https://civitai.com/models/197247?modelVersionId=221829
COLOR
- 
Willem Zwarthoed – Aces gamut in VFX production pdfRead more: Willem Zwarthoed – Aces gamut in VFX production pdfhttps://www.provideocoalition.com/color-management-part-12-introducing-aces/ Local copy: 
 https://www.slideshare.net/hpduiker/acescg-a-common-color-encoding-for-visual-effects-applications 
- 
Paul Debevec, Chloe LeGendre, Lukas Lepicovsky – Jointly Optimizing Color Rendition and In-Camera Backgrounds in an RGB Virtual Production StageRead more: Paul Debevec, Chloe LeGendre, Lukas Lepicovsky – Jointly Optimizing Color Rendition and In-Camera Backgrounds in an RGB Virtual Production Stagehttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2205.12403.pdf RGB LEDs vs RGBWP (RGB + lime + phospor converted amber) LEDs Local copy: 
 
- 
Gamma correctionRead more: Gamma correction http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html#Gammabox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_correction http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Gamma.htm https://www.w3.org/Graphics/Color/sRGB.html http://www.eizoglobal.com/library/basics/lcd_display_gamma/index.html https://forum.reallusion.com/PrintTopic308094.aspx Basically, gamma is the relationship between the brightness of a pixel as it appears on the screen, and the numerical value of that pixel. Generally Gamma is just about defining relationships. Three main types: 
 – Image Gamma encoded in images
 – Display Gammas encoded in hardware and/or viewing time
 – System or Viewing Gamma which is the net effect of all gammas when you look back at a final image. In theory this should flatten back to 1.0 gamma.
 (more…)
- 
Capturing textures albedoRead more: Capturing textures albedoBuilding a Portable PBR Texture Scanner by Stephane Lb 
 http://rtgfx.com/pbr-texture-scanner/How To Split Specular And Diffuse In Real Images, by John Hable 
 http://filmicworlds.com/blog/how-to-split-specular-and-diffuse-in-real-images/Capturing albedo using a Spectralon 
 https://www.activision.com/cdn/research/Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdfReal_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf Spectralon is a teflon-based pressed powderthat comes closest to being a pure Lambertian diffuse material that reflects 100% of all light. If we take an HDR photograph of the Spectralon alongside the material to be measured, we can derive thediffuse albedo of that material. The process to capture diffuse reflectance is very similar to the one outlined by Hable. 1. We put a linear polarizing filter in front of the camera lens and a second linear polarizing filterin front of a modeling light or a flash such that the two filters are oriented perpendicular to eachother, i.e. cross polarized. 2. We place Spectralon close to and parallel with the material we are capturing and take brack-eted shots of the setup7. Typically, we’ll take nine photographs, from -4EV to +4EV in 1EVincrements. 3. We convert the bracketed shots to a linear HDR image. We found that many HDR packagesdo not produce an HDR image in which the pixel values are linear. PTGui is an example of apackage which does generate a linear HDR image. At this point, because of the cross polarization,the image is one of surface diffuse response. 4. We open the file in Photoshop and normalize the image by color picking the Spectralon, filling anew layer with that color and setting that layer to “Divide”. This sets the Spectralon to 1 in theimage. All other color values are relative to this so we can consider them as diffuse albedo. 
- 
Akiyoshi Kitaoka – Surround biased illumination perceptionRead more: Akiyoshi Kitaoka – Surround biased illumination perceptionhttps://x.com/AkiyoshiKitaoka/status/1798705648001327209 The left face appears whitish and the right one blackish, but they are made up of the same luminance. https://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/3191015 Illusory staircase Gelb effect 
 https://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/akitaoka/illgelbe.html
- 
Christopher Butler – Understanding the Eye-Mind Connection – Vision is a mental processRead more: Christopher Butler – Understanding the Eye-Mind Connection – Vision is a mental processhttps://www.chrbutler.com/understanding-the-eye-mind-connection The intricate relationship between the eyes and the brain, often termed the eye-mind connection, reveals that vision is predominantly a cognitive process. This understanding has profound implications for fields such as design, where capturing and maintaining attention is paramount. This essay delves into the nuances of visual perception, the brain’s role in interpreting visual data, and how this knowledge can be applied to effective design strategies. This cognitive aspect of vision is evident in phenomena such as optical illusions, where the brain interprets visual information in a way that contradicts physical reality. These illusions underscore that what we “see” is not merely a direct recording of the external world but a constructed experience shaped by cognitive processes. Understanding the cognitive nature of vision is crucial for effective design. Designers must consider how the brain processes visual information to create compelling and engaging visuals. This involves several key principles: - Attention and Engagement
- Visual Hierarchy
- Cognitive Load Management
- Context and Meaning
  
LIGHTING
- 
ICLight – Krea and ComfyUI light editingRead more: ICLight – Krea and ComfyUI light editinghttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16Aq1mqZKP-h8vApaN4FX5at3acidqPUv https://github.com/lllyasviel/IC-Light https://generativematte.blogspot.com/2025/03/comfyui-ic-light-relighting-exploration.html  Workflow Local copy  
- 
Rec-2020 – TVs new color gamut standard used by Dolby Vision?Read more: Rec-2020 – TVs new color gamut standard used by Dolby Vision?https://www.hdrsoft.com/resources/dri.html#bit-depth  The dynamic range is a ratio between the maximum and minimum values of a physical measurement. Its definition depends on what the dynamic range refers to. For a scene: Dynamic range is the ratio between the brightest and darkest parts of the scene. For a camera: Dynamic range is the ratio of saturation to noise. More specifically, the ratio of the intensity that just saturates the camera to the intensity that just lifts the camera response one standard deviation above camera noise. For a display: Dynamic range is the ratio between the maximum and minimum intensities emitted from the screen. The Dynamic Range of real-world scenes can be quite high — ratios of 100,000:1 are common in the natural world. An HDR (High Dynamic Range) image stores pixel values that span the whole tonal range of real-world scenes. Therefore, an HDR image is encoded in a format that allows the largest range of values, e.g. floating-point values stored with 32 bits per color channel. Another characteristics of an HDR image is that it stores linear values. This means that the value of a pixel from an HDR image is proportional to the amount of light measured by the camera. For TVs HDR is great, but it’s not the only new TV feature worth discussing. (more…)
- 
HDRI shooting and editing by Xuan Prada and Greg ZaalRead more: HDRI shooting and editing by Xuan Prada and Greg Zaalwww.xuanprada.com/blog/2014/11/3/hdri-shooting http://blog.gregzaal.com/2016/03/16/make-your-own-hdri/ http://blog.hdrihaven.com/how-to-create-high-quality-hdri/  Shooting checklist - Full coverage of the scene (fish-eye shots)
- Backplates for look-development (including ground or floor)
- Macbeth chart for white balance
- Grey ball for lighting calibration
- Chrome ball for lighting orientation
- Basic scene measurements
- Material samples
- Individual HDR artificial lighting sources if required
 Methodology (more…)
- 
Debayer – A free command line tool to convert camera raw images into scene-linear exrRead more: Debayer – A free command line tool to convert camera raw images into scene-linear exr https://github.com/jedypod/debayer The only required dependency is oiiotool. However other “debayer engines” are also supported. - OpenImageIO – oiiotool is used for converting debayered tif images to exr.
- Debayer Engines
- RawTherapee – Powerful raw development software used to decode raw images. High quality, good selection of debayer algorithms, and more advanced raw processing like chromatic aberration removal.
- LibRaw – dcraw_emu commandline utility included with LibRaw. Optional alternative for debayer. Simple, fast and effective.
- Darktable – Uses darktable-cli plus an xmp config to process.
- vkdt – uses vkdt-cli to debayer. Pretty experimental still. Uses Vulkan for image processing. Stupidly fast. Pretty limited.
 
 
- 
NVidia DiffusionRenderer – Neural Inverse and Forward Rendering with Video Diffusion Models. How NVIDIA reimagined relightingRead more: NVidia DiffusionRenderer – Neural Inverse and Forward Rendering with Video Diffusion Models. How NVIDIA reimagined relightinghttps://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/diffusing-reality-how-nvidia-reimagined-relighting/ https://research.nvidia.com/labs/toronto-ai/DiffusionRenderer/ 
COLLECTIONS
| Featured AI
| Design And Composition 
| Explore posts  
POPULAR SEARCHES
unreal | pipeline | virtual production | free | learn | photoshop | 360 | macro | google | nvidia | resolution | open source | hdri | real-time | photography basics | nuke
FEATURED POSTS
- 
Steven Stahlberg – Perception and Composition
- 
Kling 1.6 and competitors – advanced tests and comparisons
- 
Black Forest Labs released FLUX.1 Kontext
- 
How to paint a boardgame miniatures
- 
Photography basics: Exposure Value vs Photographic Exposure vs Il/Luminance vs Pixel luminance measurements
- 
3D Gaussian Splatting step by step beginner course
- 
Scene Referred vs Display Referred color workflows
- 
Want to build a start up company that lasts? Think three-layer cake
Social Links
DISCLAIMER – Links and images on this website may be protected by the respective owners’ copyright. All data submitted by users through this site shall be treated as freely available to share.


































