For those of you not in the loop, HDR is High Dynamic Range, a photographic technique that drastically increases the dynamic lighting range in an image. Most cameras (almost all, if not all) cameras have a significantly limited dynamic range compared to the human eye. This means that the brightest brights and the darkest darks are far inferior in an photograph than you actually perceive through your eyes. HDR tries to bring this to reality, by synthetically producing a higher-than-normal dynamic range by comparing sets of over and underexposed images and producing a composite image. This process almost overlaps sets of images on each other while attempting to broaden the dynamic range of the final photo.
So, I tried this with my lovely Nikon DSLR. My outdoor pictures were not that great because the wind made it hard to capture a consistent image, though my indoor delicious cookie photo did much better.
Check out the original “proper” exposure:
And the HDR:
Notice the dramatic increase in the level of detail in the HDR image compared to the original.
You may be seeing more of this.
Ok so how much should you over expose and under expose the first images to then make the composite images? I’ve tried HDR imaging before but I could never get it to work just right. please help! Also, how do you put the images together? I used CS3 because it had a feature boasting it could do this for me, but it was unsuccessful. Alas lastlee, I’m in need of your help. Please grace me with your wisdom and I will forever be in your debt.
Nicholas,
The amount of exposure really depends on the lighting situation and preference, but typically you should shoot either -2 -1 0 +1 +2 or from [-3, +3].
For this cookie, I just used three exposures… If I recall correctly, it was -2, 0 and 2.
Photoshop CS3 pretty much spoon feeds the compositing process to you. It really is simple. Just go file–>automate–>HDR or something like that. I have found that this photoshop process is not as good as using photomatix, but it is much simpler.
Photomatix is much faster at creating these images and they tend to have a better result, though more tweaking may be necessary.
Thank you David for the comprehensive reply. I will attempt HDR again with your advice. I hope it will work out better than last time ;)JA
Thanks again,
-Nicholas Lieber
http://lieberphotography.deviantart.com/