subject: Realistic HDR photography [print this page] High Dynamic Range imaging (known as HDR) is highlywell likedon the internet at the moment. Various photographer are trying it to hugeeffect, but just as various are abusing it to produce perfectly good photographs look fake. Images like the one below were over-processed and look surrealistic because of it. If that is the effect you are going for, that is great, but majorityphotographer just want to get a improved, more realistic looking image. HDR can do that if executed well. The photograph should not stand out and is supposed to look like a single disclosure image executed highly, very well.
The difficulty is that HDR works by increasing the local contrast of pixels rather than the global disparity. This means that the disparity change from pixel to pixel is worked with rather than the disparity of the entire image. The overall disparity may not be worried about, as long as 1 pixel to the other has a relative change in brightness. Because of that, the photograph appearances like it has less contrast than the original photograph. In fact , it has the same dynamic level as the original image (if you choose for it to), but values that would usually have have been clipped to white or black are at the moment used as the upper and lower range of the image. Despite some clever working that tries to minimize how this effect appearances, the rest of the photograph has to have its dynamic level compressed to produce room.
The trick is, when taking multiple shots for HDR, not to cover too various f-stops. F-stops govern the capacity to capture light, with an increase by 1 equating to half the light gathered of the earlier figure. A good, genuine HDR photographneeds an disclosure covering around 5 to 10 stops of data. If it covers too much, you may get an image that appears dull due to a lack of disparity after working because you are attempting to put too muchinformation into too small a dynamic level . A single disclosure with a good, high quality DSLR will cover about 6, which usually gives you a good level of brightness. Mostcameras present the ability to take bracketed shots, which lets you choose the level of disclosure that you are after and how a lotbrightness to include in your photograph once worked.
application like HDR Darkroom is capable to take many exposures and transform them into 1 one tone mapped photograph. Tone mapping is the processing technique that enables for a bigger dynamic level to be shown on a monitor than normally would be probable. If you have no next choice and you have the RAW footage, then it is worth a try working that in software, too. The effects will not be as good as with the many exposures, but RAW footage stores brightness values extra precisely than a JPEG does. This gives extra data for tone mapping than just a one snapshot would. If the effect is still not quite what you are looking for, HDR Darkroom lets you tweak the photograph to improved fit what you are after. It is not idea, but it does work.
It is importantl to realize that HDR is merely a tool utilized to obtain improved pictures and that it is not for every situation. Lower disparity prospects often do not require it and utilize of HDR could only produce the image look more surreal . Prospects with high disparity, however, are ideal of HDR. Ruins are a good case. On a bright and shining day, the ruins and shadows are still very dark. In order to capture specification in both the sky and the ruins, you will requirethe larger dynamic range showing that HDR gives. Just do not over-process it with too many stops covered, or when the image is compressed into the lively level of a computer monitor parts will appearance dull.
The key to HDR is to understand that monitors and print have small dynamic ranges, and the extra data you place in their narrow band, the minimal natural it will look. If you take merely a few disclosures for the HDR and trynot to crowd the image with too muchinformation, you can avoid making your photo look like the work of a surrealist computer generated mess.
