

Depending on how you set your exposure (manual or auto), you can find that:

Most often than not, your golden hour photo looks nothing like what you can see in real life. Sunrise and sunset make for perfect HDR images. Some of these include interior photography, nightscapes and dramatic skies. There are a number of situations where HDR photography can come in handy when used well. You can opt for realistic editing, or you can go wild. The way you manipulate the picture has little to do with HDR. Furthermore, you don’t need to remove contrast because it’s what keeps things natural. Good HDR photos are subtle and keep the natural look of your images. The goal of HDR mode is to expand the dynamic range of your pictures. In time, those images became synonymous with HDR mode.
#HDR PROJECTS PHOTO SOFTWARE#
There are many presets available in automated HDR software and nowadays there are also HDR filters. The problem is that it is easy to over-process HDR photos. They show surreal, fake and oversaturated HDR pictures. Unfortunately, with automated tools, the internet became flooded with bad pictures. HDR was particularly popular among photographers some years ago. Especially when compared to an image obtained by combining multiple exposures. Lifting the shadows more in the single exposure degrades the image further.Įven with the modest 5 EV dynamic range, a single exposure will have terrible image quality. What if you reduce the contrast and increase saturation? Will you get the same results as the edited shot? Let’s see a 100% crop of the two images:Īs you can see, the HDR shot (bottom) is cleaner and more detailed. You could say you need to brighten up the shadows in the single exposure. Not to mention the colors are more vibrant and saturated. But the HDR image presents a little less contrast. Next, let’s create an HDR version by combining three exposures taken at -2 EV, 0 EV, and +2 EV.Īfter editing them with the same settings in Lightroom, let’s compare them in the image below.

Let’s consider a single exposure and say this exposure has value 0 EV. At least if you want some good image quality. You should be able to capture the whole 5 EV dynamic range, right? Modern sensors can cope with 12-stops dynamic ranges or more. Other cameras even have a dedicated HDR feature that let you freely adjust settings. Your camera allows you to capture three images in this manner. +3 and -3 is a regular choice.įor three images, the values should be 0, +3, and -3.
#HDR PROJECTS PHOTO PLUS#
These images show as a plus or minus on the Exposure Value Meter. You can take many images, as long as the number is divisible by 3 (excluding your mid-range exposure). Meanwhile, the second meters for the highlights, and third for the shadows. The first one is to capture a mid-range exposure shot. In most cases, this process needs at least three images. When merged, the picture provides an overall correct exposure. The method involves taking many pictures and then stitch them together.Įach image captures the scene at different exposures. High Dynamic Range photography is the method of merging images to create a final photo.
