High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography

 

Tools

• Photomatix - by HDRSoft; free trial, $100 full version
  

• HDRShop - HDR photo stitching and editing software.  v1: free, v2: $400
  

• FDRTools - HDR photo stitching.  Basic: Free, Advanced: $55
  

• Keith's Image Stacker - MacOSX only.  Stacks and merges images together.
  

• CinePaint - can combine images into single HDR.  Free.  Windows support (a.k.a. "Glasgow") in Alpha.
  

• PFStmo - command-line tool that implements many tone mapping operators
  

• Qtpfsgui - freeware Windows tool for making HDR photos and tonemapping (using pfstmo)
  

 

Information

• HDR: An Introduction to High Dynamic Range Photography - .pdf overview of HDR; $8.00
  

• Flickr HDR Group: Photos
  

• Flickr HDR Group: What is HDR?
  

• Difference between Exposure Blending and HDR/Tonemapping
  

• Photomatix FAQ has lots of good info:
  

• The Future of Digital Imaging - lots of good info on HDR!
  

• "Tips and Tricks of the Old Masters" - web exhibit on impressionism in painting
  

• Photoshop curves tutorials: tutorial 1, tutorial 2
  

• General Flickr HDR Tutorial
  

• Links page to a lot of HDR Info
  

• Stuck in Customs: Tutorial and Examples - absolutely stunning photographs
  
  

 

"Taking three photos separated by two EVs (i.e. two full-stops), or five photos separated by one EV, will be sufficient for most outdoor scenes."

 

"If you select Aperture Priority and then use Auto Exposure Bracketing, the camera will automatically take 3 or more shots at different exposure times when you press the shutter release button.

 

Make sure to vary exposure time only, not aperture, as varying aperture will effect depth-of-field and the images will not align correctly.

 

Basic technique:

 

1.  Turn on camera's exposure bracketing (with a tripod, more shots done manually are better)

2.  Turn on RAW mode

3.  Shoot subject.  Exposure bracketing will take 3 shots in quick succession at -1.5, 0, and +1.5 exposure.

4.  Load RAW files into HDR stitching software

5.  Set exposure curves for each shot

6.  Allow HDR program to stitch them together into a single 32-bit PBM (portable bitmap - very large!)

7.  Render PBM into an 8-bit JPG (several options are available for how to downsample the colors).