HDR Photography

[Guest]

Yesterday & today spent a lot time reading about HDR Photography & this certainly appeals to me but a little confused about the software one needs. Can you fuse the images together in Lightroom 5 or does one need to purchase HDR special software like Photomatix Pro?

Regards,

Rob

[bugmeister]

I use Photomatix Pro, but I believe there are some versions of Photoshop that have a built in HDR function (varying reports of quality and effectiveness) and I have no idea about othe software.

[ChrisLumix]

It depends what you mean by HDR. Many of the gaudy OTT pictures you see that call themselves HDR, are actually tone mapping, and are fine if you like that sort of thing. But if you mean High Dynamic Range, then the later Photoshop versions allow you to overlay different bracketed exposures of the same shot, and wiill merge the correctly exposed highlights, midtones, and shadow areas from the relevant shots to produce one with correct overall exposure. (Many cameras also have the facility to lift shadows and suppress highlights - on mine it's called Intelligent Exposure). 

[StanPhotography]

Hi All,

 

I'm looking for/in search of same best fit HDR software.

 

Since I'm using Canon now, DPP does allow you to select multiple photos taken at different exposures but I'm not quite satisfied with the end results when you took the shots handholding and the allighment option does Not do the job fine even if all photos are 99% same. I installed Luminance HDR, the best free HDR softwarey they say, but is too complex. Do not want so many options so that I won't spend that much time on doing that. All I need is - input selections photos - output file with few options - like strength of or percentage/proportion of which photo to be merged into the final photo - once confirmed click go and you have the final photo.

 

Don't have any adobe products yet since I cannot afford it - I'm getting prepared for highly proffesional wedding and portraits photography, but at this point there's no budget to finance the business, so is on hold indefinitely.

 

Looking forward to hear what you guys have used when you have the input file in RAW format.

Thank you.

 

Regards, Stan Photography.

[David]

I've never actually used HDR. I prefer to under expose bright highlights and bring the shadows up in Photoshop Elements. Although this does mean extra processing to reduce gained noise from the adjustments and increased chromatic aberration. I once tried to fuse under + over exposed images, it was a total failure as I couldn't get them lined up properly. Maybe I just didn't do it right.

[colinb]

I prefer as many options as I can get 

 

Hi All,

.... I installed Luminance HDR, the best free HDR softwarey they say, but is too complex. Do not want so many options so that I won't spend that much time on doing that. All I need is - input selections photos - output file with few options - like strength of or percentage/proportion of which photo to be merged into the final photo - once confirmed click go and you have the final photo.

 

Regards, Stan Photography.

 

I prefer as many bells and whistles as I can get and use Photomatix Pro - not really keen on to much automation as in a similar way to shooting raw as opposed to jpeg I like to think I have create the final images rather than the software programmer.

Looking forward to seeing some of your images.

[ChrisLumix]

I've never actually used HDR. I prefer to under expose bright highlights and bring the shadows up in Photoshop Elements. Although this does mean extra processing to reduce gained noise from the adjustments and increased chromatic aberration. I once tried to fuse under + over exposed images, it was a total failure as I couldn't get them lined up properly. Maybe I just didn't do it right.

 

Yes, I do similar. And since you're talking about proper HDR Stan (not the tone mapping abuse of the name ), you could also achieve it to some extent in-camera. Mine has a 3-level 'Intelligent Exposure' mode which actually suppresses highlights and brings out shadow details. It's not perfect but it can deliver a picture like this:

 

 

As you can see, the background is in bright sun, and the foreground in deep shadow, yet there is a measure of detail in both which you couldn't have got back in film days.

 

[StanPhotography]

Thank you ChrisLumix for the sample and the others for their responses.

I guess I need to upgrade my camera which does Not have this option. Will see what I can do between the already taken photos.

 

hopefully, should hear from me what/which model I have (which is on sale at the moment) and which one will upgrade to (when the right time comes).

[Black Pearl]

The only problem with the camera doing it is all that is happening is it underexposes and boost the shadow detail - exactly the same as if you exposed for the highlights and 'carefully' adjusted the shadow detail with software. 

Doing it the latter way gives far more control and with care far less noise.