HDR Revolution

I have been doing some searching concerning HDR (high dynamic range) photography and the "Merge to HDR" function in Photoshop CS2+. I have pretty much fallen in love with the whole technique, although I have yet to master the CS2 method, I have found that Photomatix Pro offers a great engine that will do the trick.

I am no expert, this is all very new to me, but I thought I'd give you a bit of explanation of what HDR is. Basically, your camera can't record the full range of your photo. So with an HDR image you can take photos taken at varying exposures and combine them to create an image with the "perfect" exposure.

Here is an excerpt about HDR from Cambridge in Colour:

As digital sensors attain progressively higher resolutions, and thereby successively smaller pixel sizes, the one quality of an image which does not benefit is its dynamic range. This is particularly apparent in compact cameras with resolutions near 8 megapixels, as these are more susceptible than ever to blown highlights or noisy shadow detail. Further, some scenes simply contain a greater brightness range than can be captured by current digital cameras-- of any type.
The "bright side" is that nearly any camera can actually capture a vast dynamic range-- just not in a single photo. By varying the shutter speed alone, most digital cameras can change how much light they let in by a factor of 50,000 or more. High dynamic range imaging attempts to utilize this characteristic by creating images composed of multiple exposures, which can far surpass the dynamic range of a single exposure.

Here is my first sucessful (I think) HDR merge using Photomatix Pro (I used the trial version, which is available here)

This photo was taken at the golf course in town and was done by combining the exposures of 8 photographs. This also has some post-work done in Photoshop. I made the sky bluer (because it appeared grayish in the merge) and I increased the overall contrast and saturation to make the greens "pop" even more.

Because I am still learning the technique and I don't want to mis-tutorialize, I am providing some links to useful resources that you can use to find out more about HDR merging.

Vanilla Days - Many, many resources on HDR, including tutorials, articles and more.

Cambridge in Color: HDR - Some great information and tutorial

The Luminous Landscape - Great detailed information on how HDR works. (also a tutorial)

NatureScape - Detailed information on HDR

Backing Winds - Very good tutorial and a wonderful blog. Great photographer.

Some examples of HDR:

Thanks to everyone who checked this out. I urge you to look around for any other resources you can find on HDR. If anyone find a great example of the use of HDR, then feel free to leave a link, etc... I would love to check it out!!

God Bless,
Brittany