There seems to be quite a bit of confusion around the different types of High Dynamic Range (HDR) images out there, and the ways in which each are made.

HDR is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing, and a lot of photographers have very polarized views about it. Photographers like Trey Ratcliff and Elia Locardi have made a name for themselves creating absolutely stunning HDR images, but there are so many poorly done HDR images flooding the internet that a lot of people think that all HDR images look eye-wateringly garish.

This article is going to look at the differences between single-photo HDR, HDR effects and filters, and exposure blending using a camera and HDR software.

‘True’ HDR

HDR first became really popular back in the mid 2000’s, and the only way to create it is to shoot a series of images using exposure bracketing, then blending the images using a program like Photoshop, Photomatix or Aurora HDR (check them out for yourself both Photomatix and Aurora offer free trials). It’s time consuming, and takes a while to set up properly, but the final image quality is far superior to the other methods.

Purists would call this ‘true’ HDR, and it involves a few steps. Firstly, although it’s possible to create HDR with JPEG files, it’s always better to shoot RAW to capture as many details as you can in your images.

You go out and find your scene, set up your tripod, and set your camera to shoot different exposures of at least three identical images. You can have more than three, some serious practitioners create HDR images from seven or more bracketed shots.

You would have set your bracket to capture a one or two stop difference with each photo, so you end up with a range of exposures from dark to light.

As mentioned above the only way to merge these images is upload them to either Photoshop or other dedicated HDR software like Photomatix Pro or Aurora HDR, which align and blend all the exposures together to produce one final image. This final image is colorful and contrasty, and you should be able to see all of the details, from the darkest shadow areas to the lightest highlight.

Drawbacks

To successfully shoot a series of HDR images you need to use a tripod, as the camera must take exactly the same image each time to aid in aligning and merging later in the software. Modern HDR editors often allow a little leeway for hand-holding the camera, as they have features such as auto align.

Not all images are suitable for shooting in HDR. If anything is moving in your image, it can create something called ‘ghosting’, which means the moving object can leave fragmented outlines of itself in the final image, as it moved across the frame while you were taking the photos. Again, modern software can help with this, but the fixes can still leave some ghosting. Even clouds, trees, and grass moving on a windy day can cause this issue, so be aware.

Landscape and buildings are best suited to the HDR technique because they generally don’t move. I have seen some good wildlife HDR photos, but they were taken when the animal was totally still – something that doesn’t happen often.

You must also keep the same aperture and ISO when shooting HDR, and only use the shutter speed to adjust exposure.

Single Photo HDR

This is a technique that takes a single RAW photo, and turns it into a HDR image.

It isn’t as effective as multiple-exposure HDR, and it depends on your camera sensor’s ability to handle dynamic range, but you can still get some good results. You simply take a RAW file, load it into any image editor, and then create three differently exposed versions of the same image.

One should be a lower exposure than the original, one a well-balanced mid-range exposure, and one should have a higher exposure. Save these three files separately, and you are ready to create your HDR image.

Put the three (or more) files into any HDR photo editor, and blend them the same way you would with three separate bracketed images.

Drawbacks

The detail and picture quality of this type of HDR image will not be as good as a bracketed and blended ‘true’ HDR, but it is the closest you can get of all the methods.

You must shoot in RAW for this type of HDR to work, as JPEG’s simply don’t contain enough highlight and shadow detail.

HDR Filters and Effects

Often, a HDR image-editing program will have a range of filters or presets that you can use to change the look and style of your created HDR images. For instance, you may want a more soft and dreamy HDR effect, or wish to use a specific architectural HDR preset. These filters and presets are a good way to individualize your HDR images.

Some HDR filters and effects take a normal image, and add a preset to them that mimics HDR. A lot of mobile phone photography apps contain an HDR effect filter, and you can find plenty of presets on the internet to turn your camera images into faux HDR. These effects are generally very harsh and garish, and can look very overdone.

Final Thoughts

The only way to get the range and detail of HDR is to take exposure-bracketed images and blend them. Single image HDR is a good compromise, if you have a camera that is capable of taking RAW images. Last on the list is the filters applied to normal JPEG images.

Whichever style of HDR you choose, try not to overdo it – subtle changes are often better than huge ones. One last thing – have fun!

The post HDR Effect vs. HDR Technique: The Difference appeared first on Best HDR Photography.

HDR from a Single Image

I am often asked if a HDR image can be created from a single image. The reason people ask is because they have an image, with good composition, they took before they started using HDR techniques. The good news is if your photo was taken as a RAW file, you can do a decent job to create an HDR-like image in Photoshop. There are several ways to do this and I will outline one of the more popular ways below.

RAW File

First, find your RAW file; ideally, it should be well exposed with no clipping of the white or black values. Check the histogram to make sure it is within the exposure limits. We are going to make use of more of the information contained within a RAW file to simulate 3 different exposures.

Open your image in Photoshop Camera RAW, the right hand dialog box should be set to basic so that you can see the exposure slider. This slider increases or decreases the exposure, to the left, decreases the exposure and sliding it to the right increases the exposure.

For the first exposure move the slider to the right to +2. This will over expose your image. If your original is properly exposed +2 should work fine but keep an eye on your highlights if +2 blows them out and a lot of clipping occurs move the slider back slowly until the clipping is minimized and the shadows have been lifted.

On the bottom left-hand corner of the Camera RAW window click on “save image…”to open the “save as” dialog. Give the new image a unique name and save as a TIFF.

As I said above when shooting HDR, photographers usually, use 3 to 7 separate exposures. For me, when creating a HDR from a single image I have found that three exposures works the best.

We need to create the other 2 exposures. I like to save a separate “0” exposure so I don’t accidentally save over the original RAW file.
The next step is to save the original exposure, move the slider back to zero, save this image, again use a unique name, and save as a TIFF.

Lastly we need to create the underexposed image. Move the slider to the left to -2, save this image, again use a unique name, and save as a TIFF.

Merge to HDR Pro

Click Done on the Camera RAW dialog to close the window you are now ready to create the HDR Image. On the main Photoshop menu, select File – Automate – Merge to HDR Pro. Click browse to add your saved TIFF files. If you are using the most recent version of Photoshop, the program will do its thing and a Merge to HDR Pro window will pop up with your 3 images already merged.

If you are using an older version of Photoshop, you might get a warning advising you to use original RAW files. You can go ahead and close this window. You might also get a second window asking you to set the exposures you can go ahead and adjust the shutter speed by +/- 2 or increase or decrease it by the same amount that you adjusted in Camera Raw.

When you get to the Merge to HDR Pro window you can start use the adjustment sliders to archive the look you want. There are 16 pre-sets in the top drop down menu that you can select to get various different looks such as photorealistic, saturated, and Scott5. (Scott Kelby of KelbyOne developed this one) Below the drop down menu are sliders for Edge Glow, Tone and Detail, Curves and an Advanced tab that includes sliders for shadows, highlights, vibrance and saturation.

A single exposure HDR will not be as effective as a multi exposure HDR image however as you can use this technique to improve the look of some images.

The post Using Photoshop to Create a HDR from a Single Image appeared first on Best HDR Photography.

I first discovered high dynamic range photography several years ago when I found Trey Ratcliff at Stuck in Customs.  He is a master at HDR photography and I loved the way many of his photographs looked.

When I started messing around with high dynamic range photography I only used Photoshop and just could not get the look I was after.  With HDR photography you combine and tone map multiple exposures into a single high dynamic rage image. Many times my photos looked like the awful images that many people think of when they think of HDR photography, over saturated messes.

Photomatix Pro 5 (version 5.0.5)

I started looking at the software that the pros used in processing their HDR images.  What I found was Photomatix.  It was and is highly recommended and seemed to be the most popular, widely used software for HDR photography.  Photomatix Pro 5 is a standalone program.  You do not need Photoshop or any other program for it to work. Although the newest version does have, a plug-in included for Abobe Lightroom.  I prefer to finish my photos in Photoshop but you certainly don’t need it to use Photomatix Pro 5 effectively.

Update and Improvements

In the newest version, there have been some substantial updates and improvements. Some of the best new features include:

• Contrast Optimizer, a new tone mapping method used for a more realistic look.
• Exposure Fusion, can now be used for creating a image from a single RAW file.
• Automatic Deghosting is greatly improved.
• The Refreshing Preview slider is awesome, make sure you change this in the preference dialog under the General tab. You will love the way this works!

There are more new features and if you are a using an older version of Photomatix I would highly recommend you upgrade.

Using Photomatix

Photomatix Pro 5 is simple to use.  As you can see, you have 4 options when you open the interface.

• Load Bracketed Photos
• Load a Single Photo
• Batch Bracketed Photos
• Batch Single Photos

After you load in your photo or photos a new window, opens with more options as to what you want the software to do.

• Align source images – options include hand held or tripod mounted
• Remove ghosts – if you have movement in between the frames of your photos then deghosting tries to eliminate the ghosting.
• Reduce noise
• Reduce chromatic aberrations
• Options for a RAW conversion – you can change the white balance and the color profile.

Merge to HDR

Once you have made your choices click on Merge to HDR and away you go.   What happen’s next depends on the options that you chose.  If you chose Deghosting, a window will open that gives you more control over the deghosting process.  You can deghost the entire image or you can choose to selective deghost. I would recommend trying to use the ‘selective deghosting’ as deghosting generally will soften your image.

When deghosting is finished, Photomatix starts the merging process. A new merged image, with the default setting applied, will open with an interface filled with options.

34 preloaded pre-sets are listed down the right hand side and the sliders that adjust various levels are down the left hand side.  At the top of the sliders are the 2 ways you can process your image.

Tone mapping

Tone Mapping is the process of converting the tonal values of an image from a high range to a lower one. This process compresses the tonal range of an HDR image of the scene in order to reveal its details in highlights and shadows. Photomatix offers 3 different methods of tone mapping, detail enhancer, contrast optimizer and tone compressor.  Each of these once selected will give you more enhancements such as brightness, white clip, black clip, color saturation, tone compression, lighting effect and more.

Exposure Fusion

Exposure Fusion is the automatic blending of the photos, essentially taking the best parts of each image and blending them together. Exposure Fusion also has a number of different methods of processing your image, Fusion/Natural, Real Estate, Intensive, Auto, and Average.  As well, each of these options has more enhancements such as, strength, shadow contrast, local contrast, highlight depth and so on.

At this point, you can let your inner artist take over, play with the pre-sets and move sliders until you achieve the desired look.

If you are unsure of what a slider will do hover your cursor over the name of the slider and an explanation of what it controls will appear in the lower box.

Once you have your desired effect click ‘Apply’ and Photomatix completes the fusing/tone mapping process.

Finishing Touches

A Finishing Touches window pops up with the completed photo, allowing you to make a few more adjustments to the contrast, color and sharpening so you can achieve a perfect replication of your vision.

Below are the 3 exposures that I used to create the photo at the bottom, in this example I used RAW files.

I used Exposure Fusion to complete the image, there was a little bit of noise in the sky so I did run it through Topaz DeNoise after Photomatix did it’s thing.

If you want a little more in depth tutorial, I would suggest RC Conception’s book The HDR Book: Unlocking the Pros’ Hottest Post-Processing Techniques or if you prefer video, Trey Ratcliff has an excellent tutorial called The Complete HDR Tutorial. Both of these resources cover the use of Photomatix in detail.

RAW or JPEG

It is important to note Photomatix does not require images in RAW format. Photomatix is designed to work with multiple photos taken under different exposure settings, and it works great when those images are JPEGs.  Sometimes I think it works better with JPEGs.  JPEGs are already processed in camera and are ready for print so I think that your results from Photomatix require less adjustments to get a pleasing final image. If you are having a tough time getting the results you want with the RAW file give the JPEGs a try it might surprise you.

This shot of the Red Deer River is an example of a tone mapped HDR using JPEG’s. I took this the same day as the above photo while visiting Dinosaur Provincial Park.

 New Age of HDR Photography

With ever improving software, we are in a new age of HDR photography.  There are many photos out there that you would not be able to say definitively that they were HDR or not.  Unfortunately, HDR photography may be forever associated with the haloed, over saturated, over processed, dirty cloud images that were common place in the early days of the style.

With Photomatix a photographer can take a much more refined and realistic approach and produce awesome images with no resemblance to the old style HDR photos.  You can still have the freedom to produce hyper-realistic photos that are tastefully processed.

I highly recommend Photomatix Pro 5.  Whether you are using one image or a series of bracketed images Photomatix will produce superb HDR photos.

It is easy to use with a simple slider based interface. There are plenty of options available within Photomatix to enhance your HDR photos. It has many pre-sets installed and if you are looking for more, Trey Ratcliff has a package of pre-sets for Photomatix on his website.

I use it and happily recommend that you should use it too.

Discount

If you decide to give Photomatix a shot please use discount code bestphotohdr for a 15% discount.

The post Photomatix Pro 5 Review appeared first on Best HDR Photography.

First let me explain, what is noise?  Noise in digital photographs is a term used to describe a visual distortion similar to “grain” found in film photographs. Although grain is sometimes a desired effect, noise looks like pixelated discoloration and is definitely not wanted in photographs. As sensor technology has gotten better and the in camera processing has become more capable, noise  has become less of an issue for today’s digital cameras and the average photographer.

However, no matter how good digital cameras get there will always be noise. Noise is still very much a problem when shooting at low light, or at a high ISO and when processing HDR (high dynamic range) photos. When creating HDR images you often create some, or a lot, of noise in your photos, especially the sky or at night.

Getting rid of noise is easy, you can blur your image and the noise will disappear.  Before the development of decent noise reduction software we did just that, if a blue sky had a lot of noise you could use the smudge tool and painstaking blur the offending skyline.  However a blurry image generally isn’t the goal. The goal is a noise free, clear, crisp image.

Enter Topaz DeNoise – Noise Reduction Software

Topaz created a powerful noise reducing tool called DeNoise.  It is easy to use but needs to be used with a compatible host program such as Photoshop, Lightroom, or iPhoto.

How does it work?  I’m not sure, but according to Topaz’s website:

“DeNoise generates a custom full-resolution noise profile for each image it processes. This makes it surprisingly accurate at finding the difference between noise and detail – often even more accurate than humans!

Other software either use pre-built noise profiles or only look at a very small section of the image. Although the DeNoise technology is much slower, you’ll forget all about speed when you see the image quality of the final results.”

Adding noise reduction software is a huge time saver and using Topaz DeNoise gives you less noise, more detail and really gives your photos a professional finishing touch.

Easy to Use

The control panel is extremely easy to use.  You can start with the presets that run down the left hand side of the panel.  DeNoise can be used with any type of image file from JPEG to RAW/PSD/TIFF.  There are 12 presets starting with JPEG – light going all the way to RAW – strongest with debanding.

On the right hand panel is where you find specific adjustments. You can get the exact look that you want by using the sliders under Noise Reduction, Detail Recovery, and the Debanding drop down menus.

That is it, no harder than that.  In most cases I have found that the presets have done a great job of analyzing the image and getting the adjustment just right.

DeNoise in Action

Lets take a look at how good DeNoise is at reducing noise.

This is a photo I took at night in South Beach, Miami.  Unfortunately it was an extremely busy street with no chance to use a tripod.  So I had to up the ISO and hand hold my camera, when you click on the image, you can see there is far too much noise and it is distracting.

So I ran this image through DeNoise and used the Raw – stronger preset.

You can see that DeNoise eliminated most of the noise.

Here is a before and after view.

Topaz DeNoise gives you the peace of mind to raise your ISO without fear of ruining your photos.

I have used other noise reduction software in the past but since I picked up Topaz DeNoise I can honestly say it is the only one I use. I highly recommend downloading a copy and giving it a try.  It will improve your images.

The post Topaz DeNoise – Noise Reduction Software appeared first on Best HDR Photography.

First, let’s talk about what HDR photography is; It’s a post process method that increases dynamic range by merging multiple exposures of the same scene.

To create a HDR image a person needs a set of bracketed images (same scene but different exposures) and HDR software.  The software will bring the bracketed images into alignment and merge them together then contrasts are reduced with tone mapping and then tweaked or adjusted normally using Photoshop or another method.

Now let’s check out six HDR misconceptions and why they’re untrue:

1. HDR is a Fix for Bad Exposure

When creating HDR images you usually work with 3-7 exposures of an identical scene. A common belief is you don’t need to get the correct exposure because you are bracketing (aligning) multiple exposures so there is no need to worry about capturing the best one.

It is true; bracketing can help reduce the possibility of missing the appropriate exposure but you actually do need one shot properly exposed or very close to proper and other bracketed exposures branching out from that to create a good HDR photo.

2. HDR Photos Don’t Look Real

HDR doesn’t have to look fake! Some photographers like to make their images surrealistic by pumping up the saturation levels but this is not necessary to create a beautiful HDR image. Directly after alignment HDR looks harsh and thereby unrealistic. Don’t try to achieve the final look of the photo through the tone mapping stage, only work on bringing back details in the highlights and shadows. Tone mapping is only part of creating the final product.

Look to accomplish low contrast and low saturation in you photo with tone mapping.  You bring back the full beauty of the scene with Photoshop at the end to create realistic HDR photos.

The above photos are both HDR and still look real to me.

3. In Camera HDR Replaces HDR Processing

Some cameras offer an HDR setting that will create an”HDR” image right in the camera. The HDR function can work differently depending on the brand of camera but usually this setting will bracket multiple images, align them together and save the result as a separate photo all inside the camera.

Some cameras are less flexible and only save the merged photo and discards the remaining bracketed exposures. This function does not replace dedicated software.

A good HDR image is created not automatically produced. An HDR function in camera does not have a feel for the scene and can make decisions that produce poor quality both creatively and technically. To be clear; HDR in camera can never substitute for your perspective on the scene or your personal creative ability.

4. Good HDR is Impossible if there are moving parts in a Scene

A lot of movement, especially high contrast moving parts in a scene can make it a bad choice for HDR. An effect called ghosting becomes an issue. There are techniques and software that can deal with ghosting but the effect will cause more work in the post processing stage. Ghosting can be masked with an appropriate application for the most part.

Certain things like water or car taillights in night shots can still look good, most times not realistic but still pleasing to the eye.

The HDR photo below illustrates a few possible outcomes with moving objects: Ghosting- The little boy to the right of the photo and the tree in the top left are glaring examples. The water in the fountain is softer looking and ghosting is less noticeable.

5. You Need a Special Camera for HDR

An expensive fancy camera is not needed to shoot HDR images. If you are looking to buy a new camera and want to create HDR photos an entry-level camera with a few basic features is all you really need. This type of camera can set you back a few hundred dollars and will be straight forward to learn to use than an expensive, tricked out camera.

Your camera should have an auto bracketing setting (ABE). This setting enables the camera to take three or more shots at varying exposures for each frame. If you own a camera without an ABE setting, you would adjust each photo for different exposures manually. This is definitely more time consuming but still can work.

 6. You Either Love HDR or Hate it

Saying you love or hate art is a ridiculous statement. There are different forms that are art all with different style or medium.  I believe HDR like art has something for every taste. With such a wide variety of scenes and style with HDR it is impossible to love or hate all of it.

Myths or misconceptions are born of from a lack of knowledge or experience. Approaching HDR photography with an open mind is the best way to discover techniques that work best for you to create images you like.

Trey Ratcliff is a well known HDR photographer, he has an excellent HDR course available and it includes over 10 hours of video instruction. To get a taste of what he offers here is an excerpt from the full course.

There are free tutorials and loads of information on all aspects of HDR available today.  Reading others opinions is part of gaining knowledge about HDR Photography but the real learning is in the trying and experimenting with HDR yourself.

The post 6 HDR Misconceptions That Still Exist appeared first on Best HDR Photography.