HDR - try it out!

[Elkman]

In Photomatric open the 3 pictures by going HDR, Generate, choose the pics, and by the way, some times I do 9 exposures, but 3 work great.
Then when it's done with that process it will look dark and nasty. then go HDR tone mapping and a set of controls will open on the left side.
There is NO rule for those adjustments, as they will be different for each image.
I usually start with the Light smoothing positions, click on the extreme left then right to see the range, try starting in the middle then adjust the ones above it like strength first then saturation. Like I said there is no set rule, just run them all thru there extreme positions to see the changes that they do to the image and you'll get the hang of it like i did. GAmma is a good control slider also, and I usually end up around 1.00-1.20
Some times I spend and hr on 1 picture even before the final tweak in PS.

Oh and here are those links to much better tutorials then the one i just tried to write


Here how its done.
http://flyingpanther.wordpress.com/hdr-tutorial/

http://www.free-css-templates.com/photoshop-webdesign-tutorials/the-best-hdr-tutorials/


Here's what I use.
http://www.hdrsoft.com/

Here is another example of one I did in Tacoma Last week, the original image is on the Left with the blown out sky, and it gone thru HDR process on the right.

Have fun!


 

[Elkman]

Oh, and by the way, this is what I look like for those of you that want to know who your talking to. 

Self Portrait.

[robodad]

I don't see you just a pair of eyeballs and a bow !!

Thanks again for the information, I will give it another shot, maybe I need to start out with a better picture, not sure what settings I started with but I'll play with it.

Allen...

[Elkman]

Ya know, If you go to the flying panther site, you can left click on the 3 different pics of the rocks at Joshua tree and when they come up full size you can right click and save them separately to your desktop and use them to play with to get the hang of the program.

[MuleySniper]

So if you are using three separate pics, are you just layering them and then flattening the image? Paul said he just uses PS to tweak the levels to get the look he wants. Is there any other software for combining the three pics? Im familiar with the full versions of PS, but the hard drive on my other Mac went out about 2 months ago and unfortunately it had my hacked version of PS I need to find that disk! I really like the effect that produces. Thanks for the tips.
MS

[MuleySniper]

Sorry, I didnt see the links posted like 5 posts up!! I'll check em out.
MS

[quacker whacker]

this sounds pretty interesting, i dont have the software yet but i would like to start taking pictures and saving them and maybe doing them later. i dont know a lot about taking under/over exsposed pictures. could some one walk me through that process and settings, thanks.

[popeshawnpaul]

You need to first look and see if your camera has a feature called auto bracketing or exposure bracketing.  If it does, I simply shoot three images with that feature.  One with exposure right on, One at -2, and one at +2 (my camera only brackets up to +/-2).  While some suggest to take as many as 5 different exposures, I find that three in the +/-2 range works fine for most subjects.  If you have a point and shoot or your camera does not have an exposure bracket feature, you can manually adjust your exposure after taking your first photo to over and under-expose your next two shots.  Here is an example from my Seattle shooting:

I take the first one correct exposure according to my in camera exposure meter.  While an ok picture, I wanted to see in the shadows a bit more and try and capture the light of the sky I was seeing a bit better.


So I took two more shots using my auto exposure bracketing.  See how the sky is blown out but the details of the sity buildings are shown better.  This is the overexposed +2 picture:


Here is the -2 underexposed shot.  This shot is mainly for just the sky.  Now the sky shows all the detail I saw when I took the picture but the city has become a silouette. 


And finally, here is the merged HDR photo.  I could have made the city shadows a bit more visible but my goal with this photo was to focus on the rays of light coming down to the water.  That was very visible in person and striking, but just did not show up on my single photos I was taking of the scene.  The other thing that my single pictures were failing to bring out was the orange glow behind the city as the sky down by Mt. Rainier was sunny and orange colored that day.  The light that day tended to wash out the colors on the single photos I was taking.  With HDR and a bump up in the saturation, I was able to bring the colors back to what I remember them being that day.  A quick sharpen in unsharp mask and a crop and I was done.  Took about 5 minutes to do it.  Additionally, the ferry provided a challenge.  Because it was moving, the ferry ended up being slightly blurry in the final HDR image.  I did need to go in and individually sharpen it.  I would like to see what Elkman could do with his dedicated HDR software and one of these image sequences.  Maybe I'll buy the software some day, who knows.

[MuleySniper]

I looked at my camera and I can change the exposure settings to both -2 and +2, but I dont think I can take them in succession. Is it possible to set up a tripod and take three pictures separately, changing the settings between each shot?
Thanks.
MS

[Antlershed]

How do I go about messing with the exposure in Photoshop? I would like to try this with one of my pics, but I only have one version. I also downloaded the free version of photomatrix pro.

[Elkman]

This is what I came up with.
Now in Photomatrix you have a lot of latitude in color and brightness and shadows and so forth.
this is just the way I like it and my interpretation as I did not see the live look of the shot.

[Elkman]

I looked at my camera and I can change the exposure settings to both -2 and +2, but I dont think I can take them in succession. Is it possible to set up a tripod and take three pictures separately, changing the settings between each shot?
Thanks.
MS

Yes, just set it in manual, set the aperture to like around 5.6 then set the shutter to what ever would make the correct exposure, shoot it, then adjust -2 down and shoot then +2 and shoot it. make the exposure change with the shutter not the aperture.
TA DA.

[Elkman]

How do I go about messing with the exposure in Photoshop? I would like to try this with one of my pics, but I only have one version. I also downloaded the free version of photomatrix pro.

Try Image, adjustment, levels. you'll see the 3 little triangle sliders under the histagram bar graph, slide them to see the changes.

right side is brights, left side is the blacks and center is the middle range.

[Antlershed]

Thanks. Here's one I did real quick. I guess the free version lays their name across the photo...

[popeshawnpaul]

Wow, I'm  going to have to get Photomatrix.  PS will do it but I can see I have nowhere the control you do with that Elkman.  Looks great.