High Dynamic Range (HDR)
I recently received an email from one of our members asking about HDR software. While HDR software has come up in the Photo Enhancement SIG meetings and I did a demonstration of HDR 4 Projects Professional a few months ago, it has been a long time since I devoted a Photo Enhancement SIG meeting to the topic of HDR. With many new members having joined the club in the last year perhaps it is time to revisit the topic.
While modern cameras are capable of taking really good photos one area where they fall short is dynamic range. The human eye can detect a much greater dynamic range than can be imaged by digital cameras. Basically the human eye can look at a scene and see the details in the shadows as well as in the bright areas. A digital camera cannot render such an image. Depending on the cameras settings it will either show detail in the shadows with the bright areas overexposed or properly exposed bright areas and underexposed shadow areas which show little or no detail.
Rather than me trying to provide a detailed explanation of dynamic range HERE is a link to an article that does a much better job of explaining it than I could.
The above article does a good job of explaining dynamic range but it did not get into the topic of how to create HDR photos which usually involves taking three or more exposure bracketed images and merging them using HDR software. It is possible to create a HDR photo with HDR software using only a single image and I occasionally do that to get a particular style of photo I like or to simply make the photo better.
Many DSLR cameras and even some higher end point and shoot cameras have the ability to take exposure bracketed images. Some will even merge them in the camera and produce a HDR photo; however, I do not recommend using that feature because I’m unaware of any camera that can produce a HDR photo as good as can be created using specialized HDR software.
Some might ask why you would want to even bother taking bracketed photos and merging them into a HDR photo. Well below are some examples. You can click on any of the photos below to enlarge them.
The photo below was taken on the way home from the photo club’s recent trip to Death Valley. I took five exposure bracketed images and merged them using Photomatix Pro. The first photo is the normally exposed photo right out of the camera. The second photo is the photo that Photomatix Pro created. I think the second photo is better. It should be noted that I would remove the annoying barbed wire.
You don’t always need exposure bracketed images to get an improved photo. Below is a photo taken at Disneyland in late November in the late afternoon. The sky and the top of the castle are properly exposed but the detail at the bottom of the castle and in the trees is dark and not easy to see. In my mind it was not a keeper. I processed the single photo using Photomatix Pro resulting in the second photo which is one I would keep.
Below are some photos I processed as single images using Photomatix Pro. They reflect some of the many styles of photos most HDR software can produce. The first three represents one of my favorite styles. The remainder are the same photo in a few of the many other preset styles available.
In the next blog post I will discuss how to take HDR photos that you can then process with HDR software to get the results like the examples shown above.
If you are interested in HDR photography and would like to learn more then watch your email as I plan to discuss it at a future Photo Enhancement SIG meeting.
