HDR Tutorial Part 2
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Step 2: Get some equipment on the sly so your spouse does not ask too many questions
To create an HDR image, you need is a camera that can either:
- Shoot in “Auto-bracketing mode” or “Auto-exposure mode”
- or, shoot in RAW (You can also create an HDR image out of a single RAW photo)
I talk about my HDR Camera equipment stuff here on the site, which is much more organized than the following Hawthornesque ramble. That equipment page lists out all kinds of nice recommendations if you are just getting started, or even looking for a little upgrade action.
Although you can make a decent HDR from a single RAW file, I recommend using a camera that has autobracketing. Autobracketing is the ability for your camera to take at least 3 pictures right after one another, each at different exposures. Sometimes it’s called “Exposure Bracketing”. If you are hunting around the menus on your camera now, just look for the words Autobracketing and perhaps some numbers like -2, 0, +2. If you have a DSLR camera, then you probably already have this ability.
What equipment do I have? People always ask me this, assuming, “Wow you must have a nice camera!” Well, I do have nice cameras (Nikon D3X and D3S as backup), but many of my best pictures were taken earlier with a lesser Nikons. I’m also not what I would consider a hardcore hardware guy – I use equipment to bend nature to my will, and I can do the same sort of work with just about any equipment. I’ve now got much higher-end equipment because I can now see the subtleties… somehow I can justify spending a lot of money for minor improvements in the shots. I justify many sketchy things in my life, but so do you, so why not add camera equipment to the heap of latent guilt?
I started with a Nikon D70. I then went on to the D2X before getting the D3X that now fills my life like a sweet song. In addition, I use four lenses. Again for details on the lenses, visit the HDR Camera section.
As for tripods, I have a giant one with a silky smooth rotating fat head. I used to have a tiny tripod, but it was too shaky. You gotta have a solid tripod. What? You don’t want to carry around a tripod? Comon… if you are going out to shoot beautiful pictures, you better get serious. Also, if you have it over your shoulder or carry it in an aggressive way, it makes an effective weapon. As you can see, I go all over the world, often into sketchy areas, and a big tripod is often an effective deterrent. I carry it so much, I am very good at flipping it around and whipping it around my body like ninja nunchaku.
| The Before Shot | The After Shot |
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The Details at 100%. One surprising thing about HDR is its consistent ability to provide nice details at the pixel-by-pixel scale.
Step 3 – Look at the world in HDR
It is key to choose good HDR candidates. What I look for are extreme levels in light in a given scene.
Seeing the World Afresh
Consider those situations where there is extreme light and extreme dark, and how you are able to see it when you are there in real life, but you just know if you take a photo of it that it won’t come out right. Also, you normally would not dare to take a photo looking directly into the sun, right? Well with HDR you can… It will open up a new world to you… and the more HDR photography you shoot and process, the more you will learn to appreciate light and the world we live in.
In the last several years, I have taken note of how I see the world versus the way others see the world. It’s one of those age-old questions: “Is green to me the same as green to you? Maybe you just use the word green, but you actually see what I call yellow!” Well, this question also applies to HDR. Personally, I see the world in HDR, and that is how I record my memories. I find these photos entirely pleasing to admire. Now, I notice that about 80% of other people also feel the same way. This seems very consistent across audiences when I speak at universities, photo clubs, seminars, and the like. And, if you have read this far, then surely you see the world like me, and you are excited that you have finally found a window into the truth and future of recording imagery for the rest of your life.
Of course, this means 20% of people do not see the world like us. In fact, they absolutely despise HDR photography. Occasionally, you will get some old-school people that think post-processing is the work of the devil. But, most often, I am convinced they simply don’t see the world like this. They see the world exactly how the camera spits out normal images. That’s okay… there is no convincing them… Hey, we can’t make everyone happy, can we?
A Good Example of Extreme Light Levels
Let’s work on a photo I did of the Space Shuttle during its final night on the launch pad. We’ll go through this guy step by step.
Now, this is a pretty good example of having to re-train your brain about light levels. Remember, when you are there, on the scene, your brain can handle it as your eye darts around the scene. Keep this in mind as you are around your house, in your neighborhood, driving around your city — you really are taking for granted how your brain is able to filter the light levels that your camera cannot.
Step 4 – Take your autobracketed pictures and prepare for the HDR
Set up your camera in Aperture Priority mode. This is important because you don’t want the multiple photos to have different areas of blur.
Turn on Autobracketing. If you have 3 pics in the autobracket, set it up at -2, 0, +2. On my Nikon D3x, I usually take 5 pics at -2, -1, 0, 1, +2. I’d prefer just to take 3 pics at -2, 0, and +2, but this camera only steps by 1. I think you will find this +2 to -2 range satisfactory for 95% of situations. An exception, for example, would be shooting the interior of a house that is extremely dark and there are windows where the outside is extremely bright.
Other best practices:
- For 95% of situations, going from +2 to -2 is enough light range.
- Shoot in RAW, if you can. JPG is okay, but RAW gives your more flexibility later in the processing. RAW photos contain a lot more light information than a JPEG. Please note that when processing in Photomatix later, the RAWs are no better than JPEGs.
- Use a tripod, unless you have the steady arms of a late-model Terminator robot.
- If you don’t use a tripod, it’s not a big problem, because Photomatix can align the images for you.
Below, you can see the five images from the Space Shuttle.
The five images. These were shot with 5 different exposures from -2 to +2.
Step 5 – Using Photomatix Pro
Now it is time to fire up Photomatix and get crunk in the HDR house. Okay that was stupid. I never would say crunk in real life… so don’t think I am that sort of person.
Photomatix will take your photos and convert them into an HDR image. You can then tonemap the image and save it as a JPEG. I’ll take you through this process.
You can run Photomatix in a few ways:
- To generate an single HDR from some autobraketed shots (most common for beginners and the bulk of this tutorial)
- To do a huge batch of HDRs after you come back from a shoot
- To convert a single RAW photo into an HDR
Let’s go over the first one in detail. When Photomatix is loaded up, you just see a menu. Note that I am using Photomatix 4.1 Beta, and new versions come out all the time. However, later iterations should still work within the margin of error of the following screenshots.
Note: You will see that I have 5 JPGs here. I used Lightroom to convert the 5 RAWS to 5 JPG. You can use Photomatix to open up the RAW photos as well, but Photomatix itself will do the conversion on its own. After speaking with the engineers at Photomatix, they tell me it is a little better to do the conversion on your own.
After clicking "Load Bracket Photos", choose "Browse" to go find your photos.
Choose the photos and then click "Load".
Choose the images you like then click OK. You will then see a second dialog that is below. Here is an explanation of what is going on:
Notes:
- If you feel like you had some camera shake, choose “Align Source Images”
- If there was movement or “ghosting”, chose “Reduce ghosting artifacts”
- This will take you to another screen where you can then select the area of the photo that has the ghosting. After that, you can select which component photo to use instead of the ghost.
- If you shot at a high ISO or anticipate a lot of noise, chose “Reduce noise”
- If you have the sort of lens or situation that gives you annoying chromatic aberrations (those nasty purple and green outlines you see at 100% sometimes), then choose this option to help minimize those.
There are not many wrong choices you can make on this dialog, so don’t panic.
Preprocessing options allow you to make a few choices that affect the overall processing of the images. No worries, there are no bad choices to make here!
Click Preprocess and now your computer will churn like a farm of computers generating a single frame from a Pixar movie. Note that if you checked any of the boxes above, this processing steps even longer.
Every picture is different. There is no “right way” to set these sliders. There is certainly a “wrong” way to do it, though. I am sure you have seen lots of crappy HDR images. Below, I paste an example of how you can really make your image look too funkadelic. Funkadelic is cool if that is what you want or you have a lot of druggie friends that like laser light shows and your mind-bending HDRs, but most people don’t like them. Actually, please don’t look at my old work. It’s a little over-the-top too… I cringe when I think about it. Just look at the newer stuff. Thank you kindly.
Actually, I keep my older stuff up there to illustrate how much progress you can make in such a short time. I hope this is as inspirational for you as it is embarrassing to me.
Friends don't let friends do HDR on drugs.
Above, you can see the options I selected. It’s way overdone. The key setting is in that “Lighting Adjustments” section. Just be careful. Please! For the sake of humanity.
Below, you can see the default settings. Note that if you are afraid of all the sliders, you can just pick the pre-made thumbnails on the right, and you’ll be in business. The rest of the tutorial describes how I use the controls.
These are the default settings that appear in Photomatix. Since every photo is different, I advise getting to know and "playing" with the sliders.
Now, it’s time to start making the adjustments that are good for this image in particular. Remember, none of these settings are cast in stone:
- Strength – Keep it at 100%. If it comes out too strong, you can always dial it back later in Photoshop, should you want to go into the Advanced steps.
- Color Saturation – Keep it reasonable. Don’t over-saturate your photo. Again, each photo is different. There is a difference between color that pops and color that bleeds too electric. Remember, HDR is about light, not about over-saturation!
- Luminosity – This is used for the “painterly effect”, let us say. The further to the right, the less contrast will be in the photo. If you find yourself with “Halo” problems in daylight shots, moving this to the far right will help.
- Detail Contrast – A mysterious slider that helps the details and fluctuations in colors on the very small scale. Like the others, play with this until it looks and feels right. Generally, the more to the right, the more grungy and black-contrasty it becomes.
- Lighting Adjustments – This is an important slider that effects the “HDRness” of the shot. The more to the left, the more psychedelic.
- White Point & Black Point – Be sure to pop the Black Point off the left side, where it rests by default. Bringing a bit of black into the image will help the other colors resonate. Adjust the White Point so that the bright parts of the image are not blown out.
- All the other sliders? They are interesting, but I honestly don’t use them much. I won’t waste your valuable time by going into extreme descriptions of oft-ignored controls.
I have used arrows here to point to the sliders I use the most often.
Once you have set everything up with the sliders, click Process and save the result.
You are Done!
You can make a case that you are all finished now! 
Just getting to this point can make a tremendous difference in your photos.
Now, personally, there are more steps that I go through. These are a series of advanced steps… sort of a master’s touch that borders on the obsessive. I will also describe these on Page 3 – Advanced Steps, but know they are not necessary.
The next steps describe how to clean up more of the photo, reduce noise, and sharpen details.
Continue to Page 3 – Advanced Steps
Want to see all the steps I go through? Keep on movin’ along for Page 3.
A little Ad
Do you mind if I tell you about the 11+ hour video tutorial? If you want to watch me do this stuff, time and time again, this may be a great option for you… below is a little preview option. See more on the HDR Video Tutorial page!
Next Steps
Click here to Continue to Page 3.
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