the HDR method?

[Thor the Mighty]

i think its called hdr, but its when you take a couple pictures of the same subject or landscape, all metered for different segments in the photograph, then going into photoshop and making all of the perfectly exposed portions of the picture into one crazy looking photograph....i was wondering if there was anything more to this technique or if its even CALLED hdr. thanks a lot.

 

[Arch]

your almost right..... it is an image created from a series of exposures of the same scene..... but its not made up from different segments in the photograph... its made from 'merging' the exposures...... there's been a few threads on HDR before.... here's a link.....

http://thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52699

 

[rmh159]

There's a program I downloaded called Photomatix (should be Google-able) that seems to work well. I use Photoshop CS and the HDR option is only in CS2 so this program seems to work well. To do an HDR scene though you really need to use a tripod or remote as it needs to be the EXACT same scene. Also if you're camera brackets shots... this should be relatively easy to do. Good luck!!

 

[Luke]

yes sir. the perfect HDR should look exactly like this:

hehe, what i meant to say is, learning the zone system (ansel adams) really helps for HDRs.

 

[electrickiisses]

i've done it a few times on a trial program but of course there was a watermark on the photo since i didn't yet buy the program.

but i think they look kinda of cartoony.

do you know how to use photoshop to combine the photos?!

 

[Arch]

do you know how to use photoshop to combine the photos?!

if you follow the link i posted above..... it will tell you.... theres supposedly a few ways to do it manually..... for that, scroll down to mohain's 'Luminosity masks' link..... but if you have ps cs2, its easy.... you just use the merge to HDR command.

 

[ksmattfish]

but i think they look kinda of cartoony.

That's the result of hardcore local contrast manipulation during tone mapping, which is a method of making the 32 bit HDR file viewable on our lousy 8 bit monitors. The local contrast ends up looking more reminiscent of paintings than photographs. There are other conversion methods, although tone mapping is popular with photographers, and it's completely possible to tone map in CS2 without going to the extremes the Photomatix tone mapping software does.