HDR Photography - HOW?!

SeRpEnT

SeRpEnT

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I have seen some stunning HDR photos all over the net and was wondering how on earth do they do that? :confused:
Do you need a special function that your camera need to support? Or is this done in software? If so, what software?
 
There is software that you need, Photoshop CS5 comes with it, but apparently there are far better programs to use.
 
HDR is basically done by taking a series of photos of the same thing using different settings.
The different photographs capture different colours, highlights, tones etc.

You then use Software to combine all the images together to create an HDR image.

There are plenty of step-by-step tutorials available online that will tell you exactly how to go about doing it, and what your options are regarding software.
In the meantime, a good place to start is good old Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging
 
You do also get some newer models of cameras that have an HDR function. It will take the multiple shots for you with the various settings, combine them and output them as a tone-mapped JPG. When you do HDR yourself, though, any camera that has manual over and under-exposure functionality will work.
 
Search for Stuck in customs. Fantastic resource for anyone interested in HDR.
 
The basic idea of HDR is to have an image that is correctly exposed in all areas, so that things in shadow are visible, etc.
It's done by taking a series of pictures with exposure bracketing - at a minimum of 3 usually, but more can give you better results. You'll need a tripod to do this successfully.
So 1 pic is under exposed, 1 pic is normal, and 1 pic is over exposed. Then using software the images are combined and then tone mapped.
It's the tone mapping that can give you those surreal looking images - which a lot of HDR purists appear to be against, however personally I love the effect.

There's more to it than my basic description though.
 
Are there free software than can do this, or am I asking for too much? :)
And would any of the software be able to work with JPG files or do the input files need to be RAW?
Which scenes would benefit most of the HDR technique? High contrast scenes where a lot of dark and bright light is involved?
Bwana: Search where? On this forum or the net?

Thx for all the help so far.
 
SeRpEnT said:
Are there free software than can do this, or am I asking for too much? :)
And would any of the software be able to work with JPG files or do the input files need to be RAW?
Which scenes would benefit most of the HDR technique? High contrast scenes where a lot of dark and bright light is involved?
Bwana: Search where? On this forum or the net?

Thx for all the help so far.
Click to expand...
RAW is better because you have that much more data to work with. If you think about it you can generally recover ±1 stop from a single raw file even without bracketing exposures. :)

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/
 
i have a simple question about hdr though.if you say take 3 seperate shots with different of say a sunset or sunrise,surely the time gap (even though its a few seconds) between the shots will make the hdr image comeout abit blurry? I mean some hdr sample shots i look at have people in them?!!! How does that work.i mean they obviously arent standing still in each of the different shots
 
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Usually in that case the best shot of the people are used in the composite. Same thing if a sky is used with heavy clouds.. often the clouds are moving between the shots, so they select the best shot of the sky and use only that portion - or use a completely different sky. It's creative editing.

Kind of like that software that you can use to give you a clear shot of a popular tourist spot, for example. You take a lot of photos over a period, and then the software spoeg en plaks together a composite of the area without any people in it. Similar concept.
 
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I was wondering the same thing.
Made me realize how much post processesing goes into many of the stunning HDR pics one sees online.

Played with my camera over the weekend and played with the exposure bracketing where it takes three pics of different exposures. Then loaded them into Photomatix to compose an HDR photo. I wasnt really impressed though. I think my originals was too overexposed in the first place (all three of the exposure shots).

These are the best of the lot: http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php/photo/21115/title/img-0448-7a-tonemapped/cat/1061
Note the ghost people on the beach... due to them moving while the three pics was taken.
The duck one was an old pic that I adjusted the brightness levels and created three pics and then loaded them into photomatix. LOL. Result was actually better than I expected.
 
I like the one of the cranes.

If you have Photoshop CS5, there's a function which removes ghosting. Quite impressive.
 
I quite like the HDR effect - even over the top.

I'm starting to be more subtle though and did a black and white HDR the other day - which few people can actually tell :

http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php/photo/20739/title/porsche-996/cat/all

I can't wait to get an SLR and thether it in order get more than 3 shots to combine as well as less delay between the shots - but as I bought a house last week, that'll never really happen ;)
 
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