Members Photographic Articles

Understanding HDR Photography

Ok, so just what is HDR photography? Firstly, its stands for High Dynamic Range, which, with three seperate exposures are then combined within an HDR program, and are blended accordingly to bring out better detail than one original shot would have. It is actually a lot easier than it sounds!

When I first started with HDR a few months ago, I read and re-read my camera manual to see how to set the camera to take three shots. One at normal exposure: second at -2ev and the third at +2ev.

Ok, I got that figured so eagerly hurried home to import the images into Lightroom. Once I had tweaked the values within Lightroom, I imported the three images into Photomatix. Got some great final results too!


Next somebody suggestested the Dynamic Photo software. Blam! I was hooked. However, after scouring the web, I found that you didn't actually need to take 'Three Images', using valuable space on the memory card. No, indeedy! Take a look at the two images below:

Although I only took one capture of the old ruined church, I did still need the three images to make the HDR file. Daft as it sounds, I used Lightroom to create them. I imported the first original image, and then exported it to a folder. Next I adjusted the exposure to -2 and again exported it.

Note: This bit is important; you must hit the RESET button to take the settings back to the original state.

For the final of the trio exposure, I set the exposure to +2 and exported it, remembering to hit the RESET button again.

Once I had my three seperate images, I opened Dynamic Photo and clicked through the various default settings and finally settled on the Ultra Contrast Setting to get my final image.

The beauty of both Photomatix and Dynamic Photo is that you can adjust the settings yourself by way of moving the sliders of the different options until you are happy with the final outcome.

Two of the benifits with Dynamic Photo is that you can create Ultra Contrast images, and also manually align your three exposures if they are off key. The two draw backs, unfortunately, it exports the images at 72dpi, and if you use the Ultra Contrast option, you will need to run the final image through a Noise Reduction filter (I use Neat Image).

I haven't worked out how to get the 'contrasty' images with Photomatix yet (there's probably a way rather than just clicking a button), but both programs offer great images. At the end of the day it is personal preference.

Going back a little: If you don't have Lightroom, CS2/2 will allow you to export your images at different exposures,

Ok, I babbled enough! Here are a couple more images. Hope the article is plain enough to get to grips with, and I hope you get to create some great images.
[Final Note] If you do want to take the three exposures in-camera, I highly recommend a tripod. Things move in this photographic world!

Happy HDR'ing!

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Telephone Box

The exposure for the three photos for the final HDR were created entirely within Photoshop. Final setting was 'Eye Catching' in Dynamic Photo. You can see more detail in the roof tiles and brick work. Also the colours are more vibrant. You would need to select different areas in Photoshop with the Lasso Tool (or similar) and adjust Levels and Saturation.

Field

This image was converted into three exposures and HDR'd within PhotoMatix. Once again you can really see the detail in the foreground and sky.