Photography 101: HDR 101
HDR stands for “high dynamic range”
you might think of it as creating a image that is more than what you can see (or more than your camera can see)
Most displays can’t show true HDR images; so when you picture HDR in your head you are really picturing tone mapped HDR images - tone mapping is picking what details you want from each portion of the image.
I usually explain it like this: take your camera to somewhere near a window on a sunny day, you can shoot so that you’ll be able to see what is outside but the inside will be really dark OR you can shoot so that the inside looks great but the outside will be solid white... you can’t do both in 1 shot. What you are doing with HDR is shooting both then merging them together so that you get 1 shot that you couldn’t normally get.
Alot of cameras will have a mode called “exposure bracketing” where it will automatically shoot in this way for you, usually 3-5 “stops” ((a stop is a measure of how bright or dark a picture is))
in order words shot 1 = really dark, shot 2 = normal looking, shot 3 = super bright)
Once you’ve got your super dark, proper, and super light photos you toss them into a program that merges them together and helps you tone map them (I use Nik Softwards HDR Efex pro, photomatix is also very popular, and newer versions of photoshop can also do it); basically you get a bunch of sliders that do various things; bring out detail, enhance blacks, ect.
Here is an example of a 0 Exposure, a +1 and a -1 Exposure
If you look at the dark image you'll notice you can see out the window but inside looks far to dark, in the bright image inside looks great but outside it solid white.
By merging them you get 1 image that has good detail everywhere.
This image was shot with my Canon S96 with bracket mode, then I used Nik Software's HDR Efex pro to map out the combined image.
If you want to go the extra mile you can toss the 3 bracketed images into photoshop as layers and also toss the HDR image on top, then mask out areas that you want lighter or darker (or to remove the ghost looking images you’ll get of things that are moving)
You can end up with some really cool looking images.
My favorite HDR artist is Trey Ratcliff of www.stuckincustoms.com/
He offers lots of free tutorials, advice, and inspiration in the world of HDR.
HDR stands for “high dynamic range”
you might think of it as creating a image that is more than what you can see (or more than your camera can see)
Most displays can’t show true HDR images; so when you picture HDR in your head you are really picturing tone mapped HDR images - tone mapping is picking what details you want from each portion of the image.
I usually explain it like this: take your camera to somewhere near a window on a sunny day, you can shoot so that you’ll be able to see what is outside but the inside will be really dark OR you can shoot so that the inside looks great but the outside will be solid white... you can’t do both in 1 shot. What you are doing with HDR is shooting both then merging them together so that you get 1 shot that you couldn’t normally get.
Alot of cameras will have a mode called “exposure bracketing” where it will automatically shoot in this way for you, usually 3-5 “stops” ((a stop is a measure of how bright or dark a picture is))
in order words shot 1 = really dark, shot 2 = normal looking, shot 3 = super bright)
Once you’ve got your super dark, proper, and super light photos you toss them into a program that merges them together and helps you tone map them (I use Nik Softwards HDR Efex pro, photomatix is also very popular, and newer versions of photoshop can also do it); basically you get a bunch of sliders that do various things; bring out detail, enhance blacks, ect.
Here is an example of a 0 Exposure, a +1 and a -1 Exposure
HDR (tone mapped)
If you look at the dark image you'll notice you can see out the window but inside looks far to dark, in the bright image inside looks great but outside it solid white.
By merging them you get 1 image that has good detail everywhere.
This image was shot with my Canon S96 with bracket mode, then I used Nik Software's HDR Efex pro to map out the combined image.
If you want to go the extra mile you can toss the 3 bracketed images into photoshop as layers and also toss the HDR image on top, then mask out areas that you want lighter or darker (or to remove the ghost looking images you’ll get of things that are moving)
You can end up with some really cool looking images.
My favorite HDR artist is Trey Ratcliff of www.stuckincustoms.com/
He offers lots of free tutorials, advice, and inspiration in the world of HDR.
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