HDR Tutorial

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H DR Tutorialfor Beg inne rs B y:Josh ua Northrup

Transcript of HDR Tutorial

HDR Tutorial for Beg innersBy: J osh ua Nor thrup

Part 1: What is H DR?

HDR is short for High Dynamic Ra nge. In sho rt, it is t he ab il ity to bring lightand co lor to dark or under expos ed areas o f a picture (its more c omplicatedthan th at, but a lso mo re bor ing). The cam era is not c apable of taking thewhole dynamic ra nge. It leaves pa rts of t he picture u nder exposed or overexpos ed w hile the res t of the picture i s correct ly ex pose d. A true H DR sho t istaken wi th a number o f shots at d ifferent expos ures . I usually us e three, but i tis up the photographer. There has b een much debate over th e use o f threeindividual files as opposed to changing the ex posure on a s ingle image. Theyboth have their posi tives and negatives. F or this less on I wi ll be us ing onesingle image for two reas ons. Firs t, if an object is mov ing in your pictu re,taking th ree d ifferent sh ots w il l leave you with a blur w here the object ismoving. Second, you c an mak e HDR shots out o f pictures that yo u previouslyshot.

Step One: Pr eparing the image

I use Adobe L ightroom to ad just the exposures o f my images . Yo u ca n useany program yo u like th at has t his funct ion.

Above is the layout in Lightroom. Use the section towards theright to adjust the exposure.

At this po int I w ill save my first picture using the exposure it w as shot (0.00)and save as a .j peg church g lass 1 in a folder of your ch oice (note: since thereare go ing to be numero us shots I would cr eate a spec ifi c folder for your HDRstuff).

Next, you want to adjust th e exposure of the image.

I usually w il l under expose my image around –1.5 and –2.0 Again, this step is up to the photographer. You will get the feel of the HDR exposures asyou get more practice. Next, save the file as church glass 2.jpeg in your specified folder.

Now we want to ov er ex pose t he image. The same go es for ove r exposures asunder exposures, it is up to you. I used +1.87.

Save the files as church glass 3.jpeg in your folder.

Step Three: Turning your image s i nto an HDR Image

Now c omes th e fun part. We w il l be merging the three sh ots i nto on e HDRimage. The beautiful and exc iting thing about H DR is that you n ever k nowhow it’s going to t urn ou t. I use P hotom atix P ro to pr oduce my HDR images.Adobe Photoshop has a p lug in, but I don’t find it to be as dynamic asPhotomat ix. If you have t he newest version o f P hotoshop I do encourage youto try it, you may like it better.

I recommend downloading the free trial vers ion of Photomatix athttp://www .hdrsoft.com/ to se e if its s ometh ing you like. P lease n ote, it w illhave an a nnoying watermark o n the pict ure until you dec ide if you a re go ing tobuy the program.

Next, open up your Photomatix program a nd se lec t Generate HDR I mage fromthe w orkflow bar.

Now, se lect y our 3 im ages by searching in the Brows e… sect ion.

Once yo u have a ll your images selected, hit OK . Y ou w il l get the followi ngsc reens:

Cl ick Ok an d then Generate HDR.

DON’T F REA K OUT YE T! This is j ust th e raw unprocessed image. Click theTone Mapping button to pr ocess yo ur image.

Step Fou r: Pr oce ssi ng your Image .

TA DAAAA! ! Now you can se e what the image w il l look like as a n HDR.

In the pro cess ing phas e I don’t try to ex plain how the image should lookbecause I want you t o play wi th all the diff erent set tings. Have fun w ith it andproc ess it the way you want it. I wi ll give a few tips:

1. Adjust t he str engt h t o mak e i t mor e o r l ess “ c a rto oney ”.

2. T ry a l l f ive l igh t sm oot h ing bu t ton s . Y ou w il l n o t ice d ramat ic

diff er enc es i n a l l f iv e .

3. Wh i t e point an d Bl ac k po int adjustm ents w i ll m ake th e p ic tu re dar k er o r

br ighte r… i t ’s a l l up t o y ou!

Once yo u feel satisfied with it, c lick the P roc ess button.

If you would like you c an run it th rough a d ifferent po st-process ing program tosharpen, adjust c ontrast , etc . This step is completely optional.

The Difference !

Congratulations!!! Y ou have just c reated an HDR I mage! Look a t thedifference.

Before Af ter

Lets give your self a round of applause YOU DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

If at any time yo u get st uck o r have a q uest ion… please d on’t hes itate tocontact me th rough RedGage.com and I would be more th an happy to h elp inany way I can… now, open up some o ld pictures and have some fun!