High Dynamic Range | African Photography Blog - South Africa Photographic News, Articles, Tutorials

So you can HDR but can you do it in one shot and without filters?

Posted on 24th July 2010 by admin in HDR High Dynamic Range |Landscape

blending, challenge, exposure, filters, HDR, high dynamic range, highlights, image, Landscape, midtones, ND, neutral density, Photography, shadows, single

High Dynamic Range or HDR in it’s shortened form has opened up many new avenues for photography. HDR is a process of blending multiple exposures together to better reproduce the dynamic range of the scene and for the most part it’s a very useful tool indeed. I myself have done many experiments into HDR using bracketing of frames to produce multiple exposures which I can later blend BUT all that blending does take up a lot of time in post processing.

Just doing one image blend with 7 exposures with some fine tuning and manual blending included you can easily spend 1-2 hours to get the image perfect. In some cases it might be worth it to take a very special moment you captured on film and to spend that time working the image to perfection. While this can and does produce some very special effects within images I still find HDR, no matter how well executed, to lack something truly special, an ambience that only a single shot exposure carries.

One exposure requires finding the perfect moment to capture the image.

While some may argue that we’re now in the digital world and we must all move to new and wonderful ways of processing images I say yes and no to that argument. I will use HDR when I find it necessary and with many shoots I will bracket exposures regardless but my primary goal is always to get it right with one exposure. I find simply bracketing exposures on every shoot with the intention of later blending and “fixing” it in photoshop makes one a rather lazy photographer because you tend to find a recipe, set up, compose, bracket and go home to fix. Guilty as charged.

While this approach may be perfectly okay for some I enjoy photography because it challenges my mind. I myself got into a trap for a short while of merely relying on bracketed exposures for nearly all shoots. There were many days when I was too lazy to get out filters and do it properly so it was much easier to just bracket my exposures and do the hard work later in Photoshop.

In the end I was just finding HDR was totally lacking something very special, HDR just looked too perfect and NOT at all how the eye saw it. HDR fanatics (myself included) continually fool themselves into believing that the end product they produce through HDR and image blending is a faithful representation of what they saw, but of the many many photographers I know only a few ever take real notice of what the scene really looks like. The others have their eyes stuck permanently behind the viewfinder relying solely on the camera to capture all the necessary bits of information. I make a point of studying very carefully the scene’s I record and do my best to etch them in my mind, right down to the tiniest details and by doing so I manage to find some very special elements of an image that HDR tends to over-produce and in most cases actually ruin. Shadow areas of an image, for example, are crucial to the depth and feel of an image yet HDR fanatics tend to, what I call rape the shadow areas, lightening them up much more than they appeared to the human eye and it’s so easy to fall into this trap with HDR. Again .. guilty as charged

In the last year I have slowly forced myself back to basics, getting exposures perfect with a single exposure, without filters and without bracketing. It’s not always easy depending on light conditions but actually a lot of the time it is and it all comes down to timing, planning and using all available and natural elements to control the flow of light into the camera.

I’ve enjoyed my journey with HDR and I do know I will still use HDR methods for certain work but with landscape, nature and some other forms of photography I’m finding the step back to basics to be producing very special images like none other and it’s made my photography all that more interesting and challenging again. The mental challenge has always been my driving force and it’s good to have that old friend back at my side.

HDR: Faithful representation or gross over manipulation?

1 comment

Posted on 12th April 2010 by admin in HDR High Dynamic Range

faithful, HDR, high dynamic range, image blending, overmanipulation

With the advent of HDR (High dynamic range) in recent years, the world of photography has quite possibly changed forever.

For the most part it’s a good thing as HDR allows a photographer to faithfully represent a scene and allows the photographer to more than make up for where the camera lacks with exposing on highlights, shadows and midtones all at the same time. There is however the bad side to HDR, the side unfortunately that is quite possibly causing harm to the true art of photography.

Many an unskilled or intermediate photographer has come to rely on HDR as the saving grace for substandard photography and can take the worst shot imaginable and after several hours of manipulating it in Photoshop or their HDR software can knock out a moderately okay looking image.

The sad part is that these types of photographers never develop their skills as a photographer and instead will always be happy with poor exposures simply because they know they can “fix” it later. The even sadder part is that they then pose themselves to the world as professionals and cause a great amount of damage to the industry of photographers who are truly masters at their artform.

I’ve seen so many photographers, both good and bad ones, that have fallen into the HDR trap and I’ve seen the best of the best start relying entirely on the fix it later syndrome and overall this does not bode well for the growth of photography.

Many of these HDR or image blending techniques are motivated as “faithful” representations of the scene because the camera cannot properly capture the dynamic range. While the latter part may be true, the end result of many of these images is nothing near to a faithful representation and instead the photographers get carried away with producing what can only be termed as a piece of graphic art and not really a photograph. Saturation is often pushed to the extreme of extremes, colours are manipulated and often added and the end result is not even a shadow of a “faithful” representation of the scene.

The problem is that not many photographers these days seem to actually LOOK at the scene and pay attention to all the finer details before actually taking one shot. If they did they would quickly be able to look at their finished product and realise it’s nothing like what their eye (with all the dynamic range in the world) actually saw.

Look Before you Click

Love it or hate it, HDR is here to stay but I do hope to see lazy photographers start using it more responsibly in the future and not relying on the “fix it later” syndrome. I also hope to see them stop preaching these bad practices to other beginners because it’s really a case of the blind leading the blind.

Digital Photography Guide

Finally, you can quickly and easily learn digital photography and start taking amazing photos! Buy now !

“Blending Landscape HDR Images” by Hougaard Malan (Guest Post)

1 comment

Posted on 21st January 2010 by admin in Tutorials

AEB, blending, exposure, filters, GND, graduated neutral density, HDR, high dynamic range, hougaard malan, image blending, landscape photography, ND, photography filters, South Africa, tutorial

First and foremost, I want to clear a certain disillusion that has entered people’s minds about HDR. It is in no way some miraculous technique to make a mediocre photo an amazing one ,neither is it the gateway to becoming a great digital landscape photographer. Post processing will always play a minor role in creating great photographs and the effort will always be in the planning and shooting.

Why do we use HDR? Because a camera can’t always capture the dynamic range of light in most natural scenes in one exposure , which results in areas of the image that have no detail due to shadows or highlights. Traditionally we would use graduated neutral density filters to balance the exposure, but they are rather expensive and limited by many situations found in landscapes everywhere, like uneven horizons, tall objects like trees, mountains etc. When digitally blending 2 or more images we are basically simulating an ND filter, but we have full control over how the graduation of the filter would have been. HDR opens new doors in landscape photography, but I still prefer to use graduated filters and do where ever I can. Moving objects within an image creates a lot of problems for HDR blending, because your images have to be identical ( apart from the exposure ). You can get away with it to a certain extent, but cameras are still very primitive compared to the human eye and sometimes we simply can’t capture what we saw. The basic concept of HDR is to capture the total dynamic range of the scene ( when it is greater than the camera can capture in one exposure ) in multiple exposures and combine select parts of the various exposures using Photoshop. The first thing we need is the multiple exposures of a scene. In most natural scenes, the sky is brighter than the land/foreground and if you expose for the sky, the foreground is too dark and if you expose for the foreground then the sky is too bright. So we take a separate exposure for each. The easiest way is to use your camera’s AEB (auto exposure bracketing – see camera manual ) function. It allows you to capture a sequence of 3 exposures, each a certain f-value apart. In most situations, you simply need one exposure for the sky and one for the foreground as shown below.

HDR image blending tutorial by Hougaard Malan

If this is the case, meter the sky and foreground separately, check the difference and set the bracketing so that the exposures are that f-value apart so that you get an ideal exposure for each. The 3rd doesn’t matter and can be deleted. So if the sky is 2 stops brighter than the foreground, set the bracketing for 0; -2; +2 and expose it for either sky or FG and you will have the 2 necessary exposures in your sequence. Sometimes however, a nasty highlight or shadow requires a 3rd exposure as shown below.

Bracketing exposures

Once again, meter the sky and FG separately, set the AEB so that you get an adequate exposure for both and check if the 3rd exposure has the detail in the shadow/highlight area you require. If not, simply capture a darker/brighter exposure by setting a single exposure manually or do a whole sequence manually. Shooting for it comes naturally and you quickly learn with experience, so don’t worry too much about it.   In a short sentence : You need multiple exposures of which the darkest image may have no highlights and the brightest image may have no shadows.  Usually 2 exposures are enough for most scenes as I will show in the first example.   Blending a 2 exposure image  1. We start by just opening our 2 images that we are going to blend. RAW adjustments should already have been applied and make sure your layers window is open (F7).

Foreground and Sky Exposures To be Blended

Now, simply for practicality reasons, stack the exposures ( in this case 2 ) from darkest to brightest by using the move tool (v) and simply dragging the one image onto the other one. Hold shift in as you drop the image and it will align itself within the frame. You have now stacked the 2 layers and you will see the 2 thumbs in your layers window. Clicking on the eye to the left of the top thumb will hide the top layer and reveal the layer below.

HDR4

You can now close the bright exposure as you have it in a layer on the darker one. Maximize the window simply for better viewing. You will be working on a layer mask so that any mistakes can be easily corrected. At the bottom of the layers window there’s a rectangle with a circle in, click on it to add a layer mask (make sure your top layer is selected ) to the top layer.

HDR5

To simulate the graduated filter, we use a gradient on the layer mask. Press G to select your gradient tool. Check at the top of the window for the following (if everything is on default, it will be right )

The gradient type must be foreground to background ( top left )
Orientation of the gradient must linear ( left ) c. Mode – normal d. Opacity – 100%

Gradient Settings in Photoshop For Image Blending

Press D to make sure your FG/BG color is on default.  You will now blend the two exposures. Where you click the gradient tool, the gradient will start, you then drag it to where you want the gradient to end. You can drag the line at any angle and the gradient will be in that direction. Below I have simply dragged a gradient onto a white mask to show you. You can see how the gradient starts where I clicked, transitions over the path I dragged and ends where I released the mouse. The black pixels will reveal what’s on the layer below them. The pure black will reveal everything with the gray pixels resulting in a smooth transition that fades the 2 exposures into each other.

Applying a Gradient

For this specific image, the gradient will transition over about 40% of the image at a slight angle (90 degrees to the horizon ). The line I dragged to create the gradient looks like this.

HDR8

The gradient will look like this:

HDR9

You can now touch up the gradient by painting on the mask with a brush. Once you are happy with the blend, you should flatten the image and treat it as one exposure. Doing separate adjustments to the blended layers can sometimes make a nasty unwanted transition between the layers visible.

You can now do your usual processing steps to get to the final result.

HDR10

Blending a 3 Exposure Image

Stack the 3 exposures from dark to bright as explained above and give the 2 top layers each a layer mask. To give separate layers a mask, simply click on the layer thumb in the layers window and then click on the add layer mask button. Once you’ve added the layer masks, you can click on the eye of the top layer to hide it as we will work on the sky first. Your layers window should now look as shown below.

HDR11

90% of the time the 3rd exposure is to deal with a highlight around the sun and it is always a big circular blob so to blend it we will use the radial gradient. Choose the gradient tool ( g ) and now select the radial gradient in the top tab (refer to point 4 above – tab b – 2nd icon) and set it to a 50% opacity (tab d) to begin with. The necessary opacity depends on the image.

HDR13

Now drag the gradient from the centre of the highlight outwards. Usually the transition has to be quite big so you can drag it as far as you can. It’s a trial and error process and practice makes perfect. Below you can see the gradient I settled for and how it revealed the detail in the highlight area from the darker exposure below.

HDR14

You can now simply blend in the foreground of the image as explained in the previous example. Remember to select the correct gradient again as shown in point 4 above. When starting out with this stuff, the most common errors people usually make is simply not having the correct layer or gradient tool or palette colors selected so always double check your tools when something isn’t working as it should!

HDR15