Welcome to my HDR tutorial. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. With HDR finding its way into commercial photography, movie posters and even consumer devices like Apple's iPhone, interest in HDR photography has never been higher.
By combining the best of a dark, medium and light exposure, you can create a photo with well-exposed highlights, mid tones and shadows (a high dynamic range). That is, the range of light, from the brightest highlights to the darkest shadows look a little more like the human perceived them when the shot was taken. The human eye, with a little help from the brain, which stitches together fast-changing exposures from our eyes, is capable of seeing a much larger dynamic range than a camera. On a sunny day you are able to see into shadowy areas that most cameras wouldn't have a hope of resolving. That's why HDR allows us to capture images that are truer to our real experiences of the world.
HDR is the process of taking a series of images, usually 3 or 5, and combining them using (usually dedicated) HDR software. In this tutorial, the software I am using is called HDR Efex Pro.
All digital images are processed data. Some RAW files are processed by your camera, some by an application like Apple's Aperture or Adobe's Lightroom. Whatever you do with your photos, data is being interpreted into an image at some stage of the process. You can entrust that process to the person or persons who wrote the algorithm in your favourite camera/application, or you can take control of the creative process.
You can relinquish control of your art to that engineer who was absent when the photograph was taken, someone who has no idea what you are trying to evoke with your image, someone who never smelled the fragrances, felt the hot sun, sensed the sadness or heard the ocean at the moment you are capturing. You can allow the perfect stranger who wrote that algorithm, a person who may well be long dead, to process your image for you, or you could make the decisions and take control of your art.
More than that though, HDR photography, when done right, is a way to add a little unreality, hyper-reality, or even impressionism to a shot. With that technique, we are able to create photography that evokes to emotions, smells, mood and atmosphere or a moment or location far more effectively than traditional photography ever could. With the right skills you can create images that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed.
When overdone, HDR can make images look a little nauseating. Sometimes colors are desaturated and textures increased to create a movie-style look, but all too often heavy HDR processing is applied globally, creating some pretty ugly results. HDR should rarely be applied at the same strength across an entire shot. The same goes for almost all post-processing techniques. As with all creative processes, less is more. Refinement and self-control will always stand you in better stead than expensive technology.
There is some disagreement over the strict meaning of the term HDR, but that need only bother the pedants. What should concern the creators is the final image. When a non-photographer sees your images, they do not worry about the tools you use to create your image. They concern themselves with its beauty.
If you make conscious decisions throughout post-processing and attempt to evoke the feeling and atmosphere of the time and place in which you started to make your image, you need never say "You had to be there" again. Cameras, by their basic-machine-nature, are very good at capturing part of the likeness of a scene, but that is nothing like how humans capture and process memories. Human memory is based on emotion. Cameras faithfully capture lines and shapes. Not emotions.
As you explore the HDR process you find that photos can start to evoke those deep memories and emotions in a way that more closely resembles the reality of the moment. Art is the lie that enables us to see the truth.
If you're interested in Kyoto or Japan photography, check out my blog at http://www.ofriceandzen.org.
If you'd like to see more video tutorials like this one, take a look at my YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ofriceand...
If you have any questions or requests, you can find me at @andyheather
As always, there are several ways to do each of the things that I do in this tutorial, so I'm not claiming this is the "right" or "best" way. I am simply showing you how I achieve my photographic style while keeping my histogram looking well-shaped for commercial purposes.
I hope that you'll get in touch in tell me if you have any alternative methods for improving a photo's lighting. It's always interesting to see how other people achieve the effects they're looking for.
If you have any comments, questions or requests for future tutorials, please get in touch with me via @andyheather
By combining the best of a dark, medium and light exposure, you can create a photo with well-exposed highlights, mid tones and shadows (a high dynamic range). That is, the range of light, from the brightest highlights to the darkest shadows look a little more like the human perceived them when the shot was taken. The human eye, with a little help from the brain, which stitches together fast-changing exposures from our eyes, is capable of seeing a much larger dynamic range than a camera. On a sunny day you are able to see into shadowy areas that most cameras wouldn't have a hope of resolving. That's why HDR allows us to capture images that are truer to our real experiences of the world.
HDR is the process of taking a series of images, usually 3 or 5, and combining them using (usually dedicated) HDR software. In this tutorial, the software I am using is called HDR Efex Pro.
All digital images are processed data. Some RAW files are processed by your camera, some by an application like Apple's Aperture or Adobe's Lightroom. Whatever you do with your photos, data is being interpreted into an image at some stage of the process. You can entrust that process to the person or persons who wrote the algorithm in your favourite camera/application, or you can take control of the creative process.
You can relinquish control of your art to that engineer who was absent when the photograph was taken, someone who has no idea what you are trying to evoke with your image, someone who never smelled the fragrances, felt the hot sun, sensed the sadness or heard the ocean at the moment you are capturing. You can allow the perfect stranger who wrote that algorithm, a person who may well be long dead, to process your image for you, or you could make the decisions and take control of your art.
More than that though, HDR photography, when done right, is a way to add a little unreality, hyper-reality, or even impressionism to a shot. With that technique, we are able to create photography that evokes to emotions, smells, mood and atmosphere or a moment or location far more effectively than traditional photography ever could. With the right skills you can create images that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed.
When overdone, HDR can make images look a little nauseating. Sometimes colors are desaturated and textures increased to create a movie-style look, but all too often heavy HDR processing is applied globally, creating some pretty ugly results. HDR should rarely be applied at the same strength across an entire shot. The same goes for almost all post-processing techniques. As with all creative processes, less is more. Refinement and self-control will always stand you in better stead than expensive technology.
There is some disagreement over the strict meaning of the term HDR, but that need only bother the pedants. What should concern the creators is the final image. When a non-photographer sees your images, they do not worry about the tools you use to create your image. They concern themselves with its beauty.
If you make conscious decisions throughout post-processing and attempt to evoke the feeling and atmosphere of the time and place in which you started to make your image, you need never say "You had to be there" again. Cameras, by their basic-machine-nature, are very good at capturing part of the likeness of a scene, but that is nothing like how humans capture and process memories. Human memory is based on emotion. Cameras faithfully capture lines and shapes. Not emotions.
As you explore the HDR process you find that photos can start to evoke those deep memories and emotions in a way that more closely resembles the reality of the moment. Art is the lie that enables us to see the truth.
If you're interested in Kyoto or Japan photography, check out my blog at http://www.ofriceandzen.org.
If you'd like to see more video tutorials like this one, take a look at my YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ofriceand...
If you have any questions or requests, you can find me at @andyheather
As always, there are several ways to do each of the things that I do in this tutorial, so I'm not claiming this is the "right" or "best" way. I am simply showing you how I achieve my photographic style while keeping my histogram looking well-shaped for commercial purposes.
I hope that you'll get in touch in tell me if you have any alternative methods for improving a photo's lighting. It's always interesting to see how other people achieve the effects they're looking for.
If you have any comments, questions or requests for future tutorials, please get in touch with me via @andyheather
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