Crack in the Rock

“ The results range from realistic to surrealistic with the ability to exaggerate the details and colors.”

Maximizing dynamic range may well be the holy grail of photography. Dynamic range refers to the range of dark to light details that can be seen in the image. Cameras typically cannot capture as wide of dynamic range as the eye can see. An image with insufficient range will either crash the blacks (have no detail in the darks) or blow the highlights (have no detail in the light areas).

 

HDR processing has been around for several years. The process takes multiple density exposures of a scene and combines them together into one image with a greater range of light to dark than any single image by itself could. The results range from realistic to surrealistic with the ability to exaggerate the details and colors. Most of the HDR images on the web are color with many with the details and color pushed beyond normal levels. Many refer to this style as the HDR look, although it is but one possibility of the HDR process. HDR can also produce realistic results as well as stunning black & white images.

 

 

 

Original Image

After combining images

Black and white optimized for outhouse

 

Our basic workflow is as follows. In the field shooting we bracket our exposures using aperture priority so that our focus and depth of field do not change. We shoot at 1 stop intervals using the +/- auto bracketing feature of our cameras. Using the camera histogram as reference we bracket as many shots as it takes such that our darkest and lightest images do not climb the walls of our histogram. We always shoot raw to maintain the greatest flexibility in post processing. The series of bracketed images are opened in Adobe Lightroom. In the Develop module the images are tweaked paying special attention to white balance and noise reduction. By the way if you are using Lightroom check out the Xrite Passport, it works from within Lightroom to provide a white balance reference as well as making custom color profiles for your camera.

When we are satisfied with the bracketed set of images, the bracketed series is exported to Photomatix, an HDR software program from HDRsoft. There are several other HDR software programs available, I mention Photomatix because of its tight integration with Lightroom. We adjust the HDR image in Photomatix, when we are done we click on “save” and the image is saved back into the Lightroom catalogue.

The new image is an HDR color image. At this point I will further tweek the image in Lightroom, then export to Photoshop where local adjustments can be made. When finished in Photoshop we save and the image is saved back into the Lightroom Library.

By the way we use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop because they are part of our post processing workflow, they are not required to use HDR software. We have tried several different types of HDR software and all of them can be used as a free-standing application.

This introduction is the first in a four part series on HDR, Photorealism, Surrealism, and Black & White will follow.

 

 

Enjoy,

Mike and Tammy Rice