I’ve been working on some HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging after noting that the winners of various photo contests that I was tracking had entered some obvious HDR photos. Photoshop CS3 and CS4 have built in HDR functions and there are also several 3rd party software and plug-in packages that give you more control over the final HDR image.
The most common approaches to HDR involve taking three or more bracketed digital photographs and then merging them into a single HDR image. In simple terms, you pack the final image full of pixel data to extend the range of color, light, detail, brightness, contrast and other elements from the original image. Images often look surreal or like a detailed painting. One piece of software, Photomatix, is very popular. More on this in my next post.
Another approach is to take a single image in .RAW and process it into three images as if it were bracketed, i.e. setting each image’s exposure settings at -1, 0, +1. Here’s a comparison of photos after using this approach.
We see a slight improvement in the brightness of the image and in its overall vibrance. However, the same result can be achieved using basic Photoshop techniques. For this image, it’s not worth the extra work to make it HDR. There might be situations where this technique works but this isn’t one. So, we’re off to capture three bracketed .RAW images to merge using Photomatix and CS3. Catch up with us in a few days (it’s pretty dreary on the mountain) and we’ll see what we can come up with.
As always, thanks for stopping by and please visit my online gallery at heritageresourcephoto.com
