HDR Secrets - My Notes On The Procedure

A friend turned me on to this episode of Pixel Perfect at Revision3.com.  Its a great informational piece about creating HDR, High Dynamic Range, images with Photoshop and Bridge.  I took some pretty good detailed notes on the video and would love to share them with you.

High Dynamic Range Processing (HDR)

Purpose: It is used to replicate what our eyes see. Normally a camera can’t capture detail in images that is both filled with highlights and shadows, especially in bright daylight.

About the process: normally you want to collect at least 3 images with a minimum of 1 exposure stop between them.

A tripod would be best for this process.

Procedure:

1. Open the images in Adobe Bridge and select them.
2. Export to Photoshop.
   1. Main Menu -> Tools -> Photoshop -> Merge To HDR…
3. Wait for the software to process a preview.
4. Ignore the preview if you are a photographer. Its built for 3-D and video production.
5. Make sure the preview is set to 32-bit and left click OK.
   1. Note: If things are a little askew, Photoshop should still be able to process the print.
   2. Movement in the scene will cause “Artifacting”.
6. Next we will do tone mapping. We will want to squeeze the massive amount of brightness range into what is considered normal. There are few choices in how to do this.
7. Built in method for tone mapping.
8. Go to Main Menu -> Mode -> Select 8 or 16 bit. Most people default to 8 bit.
9. Next select the Method on the pop-up window.
   1. Exposure & Gamma: Exposure lightens or darkens the image. Gamma lightens or darkens the shadows.
   2. Highlight compression. Does everything for you, but you may not like the results.
   3. Equalize Histogram.
   4. Local Adaptation. In here you can adjust the tone curve.
10. A plug-in is recommended. Photomatix at hdrsoft.com. Usually $69.00.
11. Note: before going into Photomatix, step backwards.
12. Go into Photomatix.
    1. Adjust your preview size to something large.
    2. Note: You don’t need to know all of the controls.
    3. Strength. Set it to max.
    4. Color Saturation. Normally push up here. Beware of taking it too high.
    5. White point & Black Point. These are equivalent to the end sliders of the histogram at the bottom. Adjust as needed. Note: You don’t want the black point at zero.
    6. Go back to Luminosity. Use this to adjust the dark areas.
    7. Next, the software must isolate the lights and darks so it can make transitions between the two. Big transitions look like photographs; small transitions look more like a drawing. Many people go to far on small. Go as small as tolerable. If the entire image is too dark, use gamma to brighten things if needed.
    8. If you click the color tab, you can make a few adjustments here that aren’t considered to be too vital.
    9. Next tab to select is Micro.
    10. Microcontrast adjusts fine details in the image. To make a drawing type look, push up the setting. To keep a photographic look, keep it in the middle or push it down a bit.
    11. Micro-smoothing. You normally want anything with the phrase “smoothing” to go up in Photographix so it looks more like a photograph. For an illustrative look, keep it low.
    12. The last tab is S/H, (Shadow & Highlight).
    13. Highlights smoothing is for bare daylight sun in the shot. You can get the software to darken the sun sometimes.
13. When done with Photomatix, left click OK.
14. The last step is to change the image to 8 or 16 bit. Main Menu -> Image -> Mode -> 8 or 16 bit. Note: this brings the file size into a normal range.
15. You now have your base image where you can make all your desired adjustments.