HDR (High Dynamic Range)Photography How-To: By Tommyguns
Tommyguns | 03/26/2008 @917 | edit post

Good day folks! I've been asked by a select few members to provide some insight to the HDR technique and have lagged in writing a "How-to!" At last, here it is! As you know, HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and a rather interesting technique acheived using new digital cameras and different exposures. I won't get all scientific on you, but here's a link if you want to read more about how HDR works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging The reason for shooting HDR is to combine all exposures in a high contrast scene without any blown highlights or pure black shadows. Here are a few of my samples from my gallery: What You'll Need: Camera capable of shooting RAW files A Tripod (NECESSARY) Polarizing Filter (MUCH more dramatic results) Adobe Photoshop (for post processing) Photomatix (Photoshop has a built-in HDR tool, but I prefer Photomatix. It has many more controls!) Some good music to help pass the time... Now to the nitty gritty. First off, I shoot with a Nikon D200 and whenever I want to shoot an HDR, I ALWAYS use RAW as my file format. A tripod is necessary for the sharpest possible image. I bracket my exposures in 3 shots, meaning I shoot the first photo as the camera meters it. Then I shoot the SAME shot at 1 f/stop under-exposed, and 1 more shot at 1 f/stop over-exposed. The reason for this is the under-exposed shots bring out the highlight details, while the over-exposed shots bring out the shadow detail. If it's a daytime shot as well, I ALWAYS use a polarizing filter. During my shooting, I almost exclusively shoot at f/16 or higher for best DOF and in focus detail. Keep in mind, the higher the F/stop, the less sharp your photo will be due to fringing. Between F/11 and F/16 will provide you with an overall sharper photo, but your foreground may suffer. It's really up to you to judge the scene. Once I've shot my images and am ready to work on them, I make a folder exclusively for HDR. I open Photoshop and then I open my files. Here's the trick, Photoshop wants to adjust your photo according to it's own algorithms to make it look better. Disable this. To do so, you set the default tab, or uncheck the box that allows the software to make adjustments. You want the photo exactly as you shot it with no mods. When this is done, simply save it as a .tif file. You can use the higher bit depth if you want, however I find the results are typically the same if I use the smaller bit depth. This makes your workflow faster. After I've done this with my set of HDR images, I open Photomatix. In Photomatix, you click on HDR>Generate and follow the steps. Load all the images, and leave the default settings. Once your image has been processed, it will load on the screen and look rather disgusting! This is a result of the photo's bit depth being too much for the monitor to display. No worries, you can see the viewer display which shows a portion of the image how it should look. Now's the fun part, you apply tone mapping to your image and make your adjustments there. Save your image as a .tif again and bring it back into Photoshop for your final adjustments. Usually you'll need to make contrast adjustments. I often use the hue/saturation and I almost always use Unsharp Mask to finish my image then add a black border and text. See the screenshots below for illustrated version of this text. The settings here will vary from photo to photo, so you'll need to experiment for best results. I also recommend previewing the photo at 1024 vs the default 512 so you can see much greater details and make more precise corrections/adjustments. When you're done with these steps, open Photoshop and apply the contrast, hue/saturation and unsharp mask tools accordingly and to your judgement. Remember that your settings may be different than the one's I have in these screenshots. I generally use these settings as a base though, so feel free to experiment using this as a model. I may detail this up a bit later as I'm a little strapped for time, but that's the jist of my process. Everyone has a different style, and it should start with a good composition. If your original image isn't good, HDR isn't going to help. Take your own approach, fiddle around with your own adjustments and just experiment. That's how I've gone about my works and I take your own critiques into consideration with each new piece I work on. I look forward to seeing more HDR works from you members, as this is my niche in photography! If you have any questions, comments or post a piece and want some advice, please feel free to send me a PM and let me know! I hope this article has been of some help to you folks. Let me know if you need more clarity anywhere else, and I'll do what I can to amend this language. Enjoy artists! I'd also like to give credit to one of my favorite artists on this site who also has a gallery with many great HDR shots. See http://byonder.gfxartist.com/ for more great works. Regards, Tommyguns

Re: HDR (High Dynamic Range)Photography How-To: By
Almost-Human | 03/26/2008 @922 | edit post

AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh You are a good man Tommy !!! Big thanks for posting this !!

Re: HDR (High Dynamic Range)Photography How-To: By
Wysiwyg | 03/26/2008 @931 | edit post

Thanks for posting... *makes it a sticky thread (no jokes Brian )

Re: HDR (High Dynamic Range)Photography How-To: By
Byonder | 03/27/2008 @194 | edit post

I'd add to this if I could, but honestly Tom, you seem to have covered it all really well. Nice work

Re: HDR (High Dynamic Range)Photography How-To: By
Tommyguns | 03/27/2008 @853 | edit post

Thanks for making this a sticky. Also, just added some screenshots to help you guys out better. Look forward to seeing some HDRs! Byonder, where'd most of your shots go? Tommyguns

Re: HDR (High Dynamic Range)Photography How-To: By
Almost-Human | 05/26/2008 @854 | edit post

Bumped after seeing reading this in saywhat ! @698 Sublime69 does anyone know of any good HDR tutorials ?

Re: HDR (High Dynamic Range)Photography How-To: By
Madanapale | 05/27/2008 @065 | edit post

Thanks Tommy....A very helpful thread!! Carlos

Re: HDR (High Dynamic Range)Photography How-To: By
Vasco | 06/14/2008 @856 | edit post

Fantastic Tommy! Thanks a lot!!!!