Using Photoshop CS1 to achieve HDR?

[TobascoJackson]

I understand the exposure techniques required to get images for an HDR photo, but everything I've read says that you need a third-party program or Photoshop CS2 (or higher) to process these images and combine them into a single HDR photo.

I only have CS, and I was wondering if there was a "manual" way to do it?

 

[Big Mike]

It may not be (what has now become known as) HDR...but you can certainly combine multiple images to achieve a higher dynamic range for your image.

Simply layer your images into a single Photoshop canvas, then use layer masks to hide/show the areas that you want.
It will be quite helpful if the images are the same (besides exposure), so using a tripod will really help. You can manually align the images but that can be a PITA.

 

[Foques]

I had a decent luck using layers, and marking them to be an overlay.. try playing with that.

 

[TobascoJackson]

So did you take a regular exposure as the bottom layer at "normal" blending mode, then layer the high and low exposures on top of it in "overlay" mode?

 

[Foques]

pretty much.

 

[boogschd]

i can get you photomatix if you want

 

[TobascoJackson]

How much does it cost new? I'm on a Mac, btw.