How do you save and organize your HDR photos?

[marktobin]

Hello there,

I am new to the HDR world. I started taking HDR photos (3 exposures) on my D5100 recently. The problem I'm having is in saving and organizing these photos. For example, I was in Vegas recently and took about a dozen HDR-styled photos (about 36 shots at different exposures). Then I took many non-HDR style photos with a single exposure. Of course, all of them are saved on the same memory card sequentially. Now, when it came time to import the HDR-styled photos into PhotoMatrix, I was having trouble figuring out which sets of 3 shots were HDR and which were the non-HDR style photos. How do you handle this? Do you switch the folder in which you save your HDR-styled photos everytime you shoot HDR photos, and then switch the folder back again on the memory card when you're taking non-HDR photos? or do you actually switch out the memory cards themselves for the HDR and non-HDR shots? Please help the newbie out !

 

[Rick50]

I keep mine in the same folder as the rest of that days pics. I also use Lightroom and photomatix pro. It is real easy to group the HDR photo's into a stack inside Lightroom to keep them together. I also use an add-on for Lightroom that allows me to export the HDR photo's to Photomatix and get them back in one click.
You can easily tell which photo's are part of the HDR group by looking at the EXIF data for the photos which gives all the exposure info like aperture used, exposure time, etc. Hopefully for HDR you use Manual mode and vary Shutter speed rather than Aperture to get the different HDR exposures.

So, the easy way to start is to use some sort of photo editing software so you can get the EXIF data. I highly recommend Lightroom for this. However, you can import into Photomatix once you know which ones are in the group without Lightroom.

I also shoot in RAW which allows me to adjust all the HDR photo's to the same color temperature before exporting to Photomatix. Then Lightroom exports TIF files and Photomatix returns it as a TIF rather than a JPEG. This givers me better editing capabilities once the combined HDR image is back in Lightroom.

Hope this helps and isn't too confusing.

 

[marktobin]

I keep mine in the same folder as the rest of that days pics. I also use Lightroom and photomatix pro. It is real easy to group the HDR photo's into a stack inside Lightroom to keep them together. I also use an add-on for Lightroom that allows me to export the HDR photo's to Photomatix and get them back in one click.
You can easily tell which photo's are part of the HDR group by looking at the EXIF data for the photos which gives all the exposure info like aperture used, exposure time, etc. Hopefully for HDR you use Manual mode and vary Shutter speed rather than Aperture to get the different HDR exposures.

So, the easy way to start is to use some sort of photo editing software so you can get the EXIF data. I highly recommend Lightroom for this. However, you can import into Photomatix once you know which ones are in the group without Lightroom.

I also shoot in RAW which allows me to adjust all the HDR photo's to the same color temperature before exporting to Photomatix. Then Lightroom exports TIF files and Photomatix returns it as a TIF rather than a JPEG. This givers me better editing capabilities once the combined HDR image is back in Lightroom.

Hope this helps and isn't too confusing.

Awesome! Thank you, Rick50! This is very helpful... I already purchased Photomatix, so I should invest in Lightroom to make this all work. Thanks again!

 

[Trblmkr]

Rick makes some good points, but really what you need to look at for HDR vs normal is the EV exposure. The 5100 does 3 picture bracket, and you can dictate the degree of change (all of mine are -2,0,+2). That's how you tell what's HDR and what's normal. You're Normal shots shouldn't have any EV to them, at least not that wide of 2 stops.

 

[KmH]

Read The DAM Book!









The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers

 

[weepete]

I take a shot with my finger in it or the ground just before I start and one at the end, that way I can see instantly what's between these is an hdr or part of a panorama