HDR Tutorial Part 2
(You are on page 2 of 3. You may go back to page 1 or jump to page 3)
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
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 a nice camera (Nikon D3X), 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.
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 in New York City in Times Square that is now represented by Getty. 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. You fill in the dark areas with light and there is nothing so bright that you can’t read it. But getting a good shot of Times Square without HDR is next to impossible. 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.
And here is another photographic-philosophical moment. Everyone shoots Times Square in New York. Everyone. Professionals, tourists, teenagers with grainy cell phone cameras, etc. Think about it and name your worldwide location: Paris, New York, Shanghai – these places are filled with thousands of photographers, many of them very very good, with incredible equipment and great training. YET, it is still quite difficult to get an “original” shot. You end up with just about the same shot that everyone or anyone else can get. So this New York picture is a good example. If you look at this one below, you will see it is a “decent” and “serviceable” shot. However, look at the final version right below that, and you can see how much more interesting and engaging it is.
The BEFORE shot, selected in Lightroom.
This is the “Before” shot of Times Square. This screenshot was taken in Adobe Lightroom.
This is the “After” shot, once we have run it through the process.
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.
Below, you can see that I have selected 5 pictures from Times Square. You can also easily see that they are all taken at different shutter speeds.
Here is a screenshot of Lightroom, showing the 5 exposures of multiple scenes.
Step 5 – Photomatix Pro
Now it is time to fire up Photomatix and get crunk in the HDR house. Okay that was stupid.
Photomatix will take your 3+ shots 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. I’ll mention the others later, but they are not too hard to figure out after you understand how the first one works.
When Photomatix is loaded up, you just see a menu. Note that I am using Photomatix 3.2 here and new versions come out all the time, but 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.
Photomatix – Selecting some photos for HDR Processing
Choose the images you like then click OK. You will then see a second dialog. I have selected the most common choices that I make. In this case, I feared there might have been a tiny amount of camera shake even on the tripod, so I asked Photomatix to try to align.
Normally, I use a tripod and a wired shutter release, so I have no camera shake. If you are doing hand-held, then, of course, always choose “Align source images”. I get mixed results with the other choices. I have a better program for reducing noise and a better method in Photoshop for fixing “ghosting artifacts”. You can play with those options, if you wish, however. There are not many wrong choices you can make on this dialog, so don’t panic
The first choice you make is not your last… but don’t worry…
Click OK again and now your computer will churn like a farm of computers generating a single frame from a Pixar movie.
You will soon see a strange looking image on the screen. You are not done yet – not even close. That is an HDR image and you can’t really do anything with it until it is tonemapped. So, now click on “Tone Mapping” (note this is also available via the menu system)/ Now you will get a nice little dialog with all these fun gizmos and Willy Wonka-like controls.
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.
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 that “Light Smoothing”. Don’t move it too far to the left. Please! For the sake of humanity.
Below, you can see better selections. Here are a few things I do… although none of these are cast in stone:
- Strength – Keep it at 100%. We can dial it back later when we re-mix it with one of the originals in Photoshop.
- 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. The other way to get rid of that problem is described later.
- Microcontrast – 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.
- Smoothing – This is an important slider that effects the “HDRness” of the shot. The more to the left, the more psychedelic.
- White Point & Black Point – Move these right and left until that bell curve in the histogram rests inside the area. If that histogram at the bottom bleeds off the left or right side, then you are losing light, and that is no good.
- All the other sliders? They are interesting, but I honestly don’t use them much. The Micro-smoothing can help with noise, although I use a special noise reduction program we will discuss soon.
Photomatix and some slightly more reasonable settings…
Once you have set everything up with the sliders, click Process and save the result. You’ll be bringing it into Photoshop next for final cleanup.
Step 6 – Photoshop fun
What? You are not good at Photoshop? First you tell me you don’t like carrying tripods, and then you tell me you don’t like using Photoshop. How about this… Let’s get you a little bit out of your comfort zone, eh? That’s what good friends do right… push you to make yourself better. If you keep doing things you are comfortable with, then you are never going to improve and experience new things, right? So comon… get with it.. Photoshop is great fun.
First, if you are horrible at Photoshop, then I recommend you spend a little time watching Photoshop User TV. They have a free weekly podcast and a bunch of old episodes you can catch up on. They go through about three examples per week – mini-tutorials. Over time you will get to know all the tools and how to use them. 95% of the tutorials you see on Photoshop TV will have nothing to do with HDR, but they will get you familiar with the tools. I use many many many tools in Photoshop to clean up and perfect my final images… you will get there too… just be patient and try to learn a few new things per week in Photoshop. If you learn 3 things a week, that’s over 150 things a year.
As you might have seen, Photomatix is great, but it probably messed up parts of the image that you now need to repair.
This, briefly, is what we are gonna do:
- Import all of the original images plus the .JPG we just made in Photomatix
- Please note that this is kind of overkill to import all of them – over time, you will probably only import just the ones you need, as you will see. Also, most likely you will have 4 images — the 3 originals plus your Photomatix result.
- Repair the areas that are blown-out with the DARKEST of the original images by using “Masking”.
- Repair the ghosted pedestrian and cars by selecting the best RAW, which we will have adjusted to have nice coloring in the RAW importer
RAW Importer
First, did you know the RAW importer for Photoshop can also work with JPEGs? It’s true! Go set that up in your preferences under File Handling.
Now, go ahead and open the original images plus the Photomatix result JPG in Photoshop. The dialog you see below is the RAW importer for Photoshop. It is very nice because it has these wonderful sliders that you can use to pull out additional light information. This is the wonderful secret of the RAW photo! As opposed to the JPEG, the RAW contains extra light information you can access using the RAW importer.
What I am going to do is select my favorite of the Original shots, and adjust the sliders so that it looks as close as possible to the Photomatix result. You see, what we are going to do here is re-mix THIS photo with the Photomatix one to both a) make it look more realistic and b) repair the ghosting.
How many of the original images should you bring into Photoshop? It depends on which of them you want to remix. In this case, I will import three of them – the three I want to remix. There are elements from each of these three exposures that I will remix into the tonemapped version. Please note this is the “Master’s Touch”. You do not have to go through all of this careful remixing if you just want to use the result of the Photomatix tonemapping.
You can see my settings – how I increased the Fill Light, increased the Blacks, and adjusted the Vibrance, Saturation, and Clarity. You can adjust yours as need be.
Trey’s Undeniable Truth of HDR Photography #34: If you shoot during the daytime and there is a nice blue sky, your HDR processing will make your sky look gray, mottled, and possibly give it a halo that will make viewers curl in a ball and cry. If you do not fix this in Photoshop by masking in the original sky before you upload to show your friends, then they may no longer be your friends.
Opening up an original photo with the RAW Importer
Okay, moving on. Maybe you should go get another coffee or a glass of red… things are about to get juicy.
Continue to Page 3 of the Tutorial!
[...] 6 (Continued from page 2 – or go to page 1 of the HDR [...]
LOVING this. Bummed that my little nikon d50 wont do autobracketing, but about to spend some student loan funds to upgrade
@Jill, the D50 has auto-bracketing for 3 exposures – pages 93-94 of your manual.
LOL – Friends don’t let friends do HDR on Drugs. Classic. I love it. But that certainly limits my time to experiment with HDR:)~
Thanks for sharing. Your tutorial was brilliant and it made things so easy. My first attempts were really over saturated but after follwing your kind advice it looks like I’ve been doing this for years:)
Wicked sense of humour too and it helps that you’re a gamer!
Thanks again.
Cheers
nadinfinity
I have a Nikon D60…. great camera…. but no option for bracketing neither cable-shutter!!! So… probably the worst decision for HDR!
I cry that page 3 doesnt work!
Hello Trey
Needless to say how impressed I am with your pictures, HDRs and humorous approach as well as with the tutorials. Just discovered you and I am about to offer my priceless friendship to you on flickr
.
And if you ever wish to photograph the beauties of Israel – let me know. I am here to help!
Nathan
Thank you so much for sharing. I don’t have any of the software needed for the HDR editing but that does not mean I don’t know a good photogrpah when I see one. Your work is amazing. David Hill must be worried.;-)
Omg “ninja nunchaku”!!! I could just read your articles to find such pearls!
Brilliant tutorial! Your humorous approach to it made it a fantastic read.
I have a quick question though. Can the auto-bracketing feature not be simulated by taking a single RAW shot then adjusting the EV with an application before bringing it into Photomatix? This should also negate the need for a tripod. Are there any down sides to this method?
Thanks again for a great read.
Hehe thanks… I always wonder why ppl leave comments on page 2 of 3 of the tutorial! No problem… to answer your question, Brandon – no that does not really work. That is the same thing as opening the RAW file itself in Photomatix — it just takes a lot more time!
I love this tutorial! Learned extra steps from it. Thanks so much for making it.
i cant open JPEG image (the HDR from photomatix) i cant open it in the RAW window in photoshop, can anyone help me?¿
well, maybe you can’t open jpeg’s in the raw window. maybe the raw window is just for raw…
did anyone think of that?
d50 will do it Jil
http://www.nikonians.org/forums/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=152&topic_id=37924&mesg_id=37924&page=
Real cool tutorial!
Have a question:
My Sony DSC-H50, which isn’t DSLR but has autobracketing anyway, only takes shots within -1 to +1 EV range. It has, though, a remote control which I (guess I) can use to adjust the EV to -2 , then 0 and +2 manually, without touching the camera. Do you think that this would work, even if only in very stable scenes since it would take some time between each shot?
Does a Nikon D90 has auto bracketing?
Marcos – I think that would work
Carmel – I believe so… just check the features to double-check
I just stumbled onto this site while looking for HDR info, and wow: AWESOME! This place is literally a gold mine for aspiring photographers like myself. While I’m here, I’m too curious not asking: Do you (the blog writer, or anybody) prefer the D40 over the Canon 450D Xsi? And why? I have an underlying feeling in the pit of my stomach that I made the wrong choice by going with the XSi, but I haven’t found any good reason.
Answer to Jake L -
It’s really not the camera… it’s the processing that matters. Any cam you have will do.. later you can find your taste in cameras as you work with them. A flickr friend has both the D40x and the XTi and he said the XTi is way more camera than his D40x… and he does great HDR with both but I think there is much more detail from his XTi.
Great tutorial. Really interesting stuff to get into.
Does the Nikon D60 have autobracketing? How do you HDR objects that are moving when your suppose to take more than one of the same picture at least 3 times?
Nice prose Trey; funny and informative. Ive always felt like the presence of a camera ruins a good photo, but Im inspired to try HDR again now.
Thanks!
David
[...] of this means, and, more important, you want to know, you might want to do some additional reading: stuck in customs HDR tutorial, Naturescapes.net HDR Landscapes Tutorial, Wikipedia HDR page, and Photomatix (the software I use [...]
Hi! I Love your work! I’m wondering if you can help me though. I seem to be doing everything right – except getting great focus for all 5 shots! What do you do prior to shutter release to get such stunning photos?
Thanks everyone.
Well… I would set it in ap pri mode and be sure you leave it in autofocus …. keep your F stop at a high number if you want to keep everything in focus.
Brilliant tutorial, added a new dimension to my Canon 400D. I’ve tinkered with HDR for some time but this has helped me better understand what I was actually doing…AND there is the added bonus that I have learned to stride blatantly into the seedy part of town confident with my trusty Manfrotto slung over my shoulder..!!
Very cool shots! So how do you give the HDR treatment to a single exposure when multiples are not possible??
Thanks all…
Dave – that is on page 3 of the tutorial – you are almost there!
Just stumbled upon this website and technique and am absolutely enthralled! I am a fairly new to the realms of DSLRs and am finding my experience with them to be absolutely incredible, however, looking at the results you have achieved (of course with a very good eye for composition and all the rest) it has opened up a wealth of ideas for me.
I currently own the Nikon D60. I am told that this does not feature an auto-bracketing function/mode. Is there any other way to automate or manually (easily) capture photographs at different levels of exposure?
Thanks in advance
I know this was a few months ago now but in response to your response to Brandon i would say that you’re wrong. Adjusting the image exposure in RAW from a single shot and saving as a set of jpegs has completely different results to just opening a single RAW in Photomatix and gives excellent results. You have a lot more control for starters over the contrast and saturation and i’ve found that the more jpegs you create and the wider the range of exposures the better.
Another great thing about it is that you can easily convert your photo into B+W and stick those into photomatix. And the results are great! It just adds a whole new layer of creativity that putting it straight into photomatix cuts out. Sure it’s easier to just drag and drop the RAW into ‘matix but the results are a little flat in comparison.
Hope youre not offended by this!
Tim
ninja nunchaku… nice. very nice.
Trey, thanks very much for sharing your technique. I have been trying to learn HDR but no other sites have successfully outlined the technique as simple as you have.
Just one quick question for you or for anyone reading this. What is your technique for setting up auto-bracketing for low light conditions? For example your Times Square picture were all taken at different shutter speeds and it contains some moving objects as well. Given that the picture were taken at night time, I would think that people in the picture would have moved slightly from the moment you took the 1st picture and the 5th picture, resulting in a blurry/ghosting effect. If the pictures are combined/aligned together, the moving object would be out of alignment, wouldn’t it?
Once again, thanks very much for helping.
Thanks all
Jordan – that camera still shoots RAW – that’s your best bet.
Rey – yes some of the objects did get out of alignment – but that is why I went to remix with the original raw to clean it up. That make sense?
Hi Trey,
your tutorial on HDR is nothing short of a revelation!!! Ken Rockwell refers to your site as yhe first HDR site he actually likes.
So I purchased photomatix last night, went shooting before dinner (I live in the center of paris) and got amazing results!!!
For those of you who have photoshop elements, I discovered there is a way to simulate a layer mask, it is widely documented on the internet.
Many thanks and keep up the good work!
Carlo
Many thanks and keep up the great work
Thanks Carlo – that is good to know about Elements – I get that a lot.
And btw yall – I always wonder why people leave comments on Page 2 instead of Page 3 of the tutorial ? Maybe it is not obvious there is another page?
Great tips here ho I use a Canon 50d but some guy above has a D60 I had some good HDR images you can use in HDR work results from this camera you take the shot and immediately copy low normaal and high in the camera then you have more than one image to use in your HDR programme
Hi i’m using a imac can i up load from iphoto?
Are you using the Nikon Capture NX software? I find that it does a better job of converting nef files into jpg than Adobe software does. Not to mention it is much easier to make minor image adjustments in it.
I hope to upgrade my camera eventually but right now I have a camera that will do auto bracketing OR RAW photos but won’t do them together. It is quite annoying. I’m brand new at HDR. Which would you suggest I do: auto bracketing with JPG files or one RAW file?
I notice you don’t speak about distortion, which might be a pain for people (like me) who like to use general purpose zoom lenses.
Right after exporting to jpeg you will surely enjoy some aoutomated tools like ptlens ( http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/ ) to do the work for you. It’s very cheap and I really like it
As far as the public option versus a price ceiling goes, the public option is probably more politically feasible. ,
It was certainly my lucky day when I discovered this site. I had been playing around with HDR using Photomatix and was never really pleased with the final results. Then Trey introduced me to Lucisart….it really blew my mind. That is definitely a secret weapon that I don’t reveal to anyone. I have all the programs that Trey uses..Lightroom..PS CS4 extended..Imagenomic (great great program) and about three or four others. I use an Olympus E-3 that has 5 shot bracketing with +2 -2 exposure.
Question. At what stage do you do your noise removal? Will it affect the color shift if it’s done in the mid stages?
BTW..you live in Austin and I’m just down the road in San Antonio. Thanks for a great tutorial.
Thanks for the note
Perry – I usually do noise reduction just about right away – especially before sharpening – the sharpening can do crazy things to the noise!
Trey,
I first learned of HDR abot two years ago in the German magazine der Spiegel, of which I am a contributing editor, and had no idea how it worked. My German born wife of 50 years discovered your website and turned me on to it. She’s into to PPS and shares PPS’ from around the world with me. I’m amazed at how frequently your photos turn up in those presentations…especially the shaggy pony,
I’m a little confused about one step in your tutorial..
“What I am going to do is select my favorite of the Original shots, and adjust the sliders so that it looks as close as possible to the Photomatix result.”
Can you elaborate a bit on that step please.
I recently picked up a tip for shooting panoramas. I had always shot in the horizontal and or course a lot of the picture was lost when it was cropped. Now I shoot in the vertical and with my f-2.8 12-60 lens I get very nice dimensions top and bottom.
My next project it to shoot HDR panoramas in the vertical. Can you envision any problems using this technique?
Thanks
Perry
Thanks – btw – why are people leaving comments on page 2 rather than the last page? I don’t know.
By that step, I am talking about the RAW IMporter. That is, you should see that Raw importer when bringing in your photos – adjust the sliders in there to make it as HDR-like as possible (fill light and contrast help)
[...] the required and optional software established, we can move on to the next part of the tutorial. Continue to Page 2 of the [...]
Hey I was wondering something while I was reading this. Why are we playing around with lossy jpegs? Is it possible to keep it lossless by using a tiff, targa, or png? Wouldn’t that be for the best as we would not loose any information? Please let me know your thoughts on this…
[...] through the tutorial and making your own HDR images, to create your own Times Square version. On page 2 of the tutorial, Trey even says: Everyone shoots Times Square in New York. Everyone. Professionals, tourists, [...]
[...] http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial-part-2/ [...]
Re. “autobracketing” You don’t need it. Use a tripod and use the exposure compensating function. If you don’t have that, take if out of automatic exposure and change your aperture or shutter speed. Don’t have a remote release, use the self timer. Don’t let your equipment stop you from trying something. People… remember film and hand exposure meters? How about sunny 16?
Trey, they leave comments because they can….
Nice tutorial BTW…now on to page three….
The PhotoShop cleanup is great. These are exactly the problems I have with my HDR images after Photomatix: weird ghost artifacts and sick-looking sky. Thank you so much!
Trey,
Great article, and thank you for sharing with us! I have a few questions regarding raw file conversion:
1. My D80 can save both jpeg and NEF files. I noticed you convert raw to jpeg in LR first, and then open them in photomatix. Is there an advantage using LR or other raw converter than using the jpeg files directly from the camera?
2. When you convert raw in LR, do you apply the same setting to all 5 bracketed photos? or do you optimize them individually?
Thank you!
[...] http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial-part-2/ [...]
When exporting to photomatix do you use sRGB or aRGB? Also why don’t you use 16-bit TIFF instead of 8-bit JPEG?
Thanks!
When you shoot people do they have to be still in an hdr shot? How do you not get any blur on your subject?
Wow this is amazing tutorial, your skills are incredible thank you for sharing,
Jen
Re: why are people leaving comments on page 2 rather than the last page?
I’m having problems getting to the 3rd page of the tutorial. I get a blank page. I hope this helps. Also I didn’t get my feeds yesterday and the day before yesterday!
First time that happens.
Thanks a lot for everything!
Thanks!
Well – we are moving servers – you just caught us in a bad hour – working on it !
Hello! Page 3 is still not working…still waiting for the juicy part…
The link to the last page is not working…..that’s why people are podting on this page.
Hey there!
It’s 11th May 2010 and i can’t seem to access your 3rd page! You can’t leave me hnaging! LOL
Same as above. Unable to open the last and most promising page of the tutorial.
Part 3 is fixed now!
When are you going to introduce Photomatix for Nikon Capture NX?
Regards, peter
Trey, do you apply individual develop settings to the bracketed set of shots before your export them as JPEG’s in Lightroom, or do you simply export ‘as taken’? i.e. you’ve simply chosen one of the camera profiles in Lightroom?
Thanks for all your very interesting opinions and thoughts on the world of light and the way we see it, it has certainly made me look at things from a different perspective.
Nathan.
Ok, so I got myself the trial copy of Photomatix Pro and went photo-snapping to grab some RAW format photos to try it out with. I am using a Rixoh GX200 which does have auto-bracketing but unfortunately (and even more unfortunately because I didn’t realise till I got home after a whole day of shooting) it only autobrackets in 0.5 increments. I realised later, after re-reading the basic tutorial in Photomatix that I need to have at least +/- 2.0. So my photos don’t really change much at all from the original. I get a little bit of a change but not the noticeable and impressive results you have in your examples.
However, this has given me a lesson in HDR by making mistakes. I need to know more about how to take the original images. How to choose which exposure setting for each of the 3 to 5 photos, at what time of day is it best to take the scenes (harsh light, soft light etc).. that kind of thing.
I’m also a little unsure which exposure point of reference I should be using.. I mean should I be taking the light reading from the brightest part of the photo? (ie. if there are two sides to a building and there is a light side and dark shadowed side, which side should I be aiming to have as the main/middle exposure side)..
I am thinking strongly of buying your book but if I can get just one picture to work once, I am willing to fork out the cash for the book, the full version of the software etc.. I’m just not sure if my camera is capable, within reason, to do this kind of thing. I mean.. every camera with the ability to lock apeture and manually change the exposure can do it.. but I’m sure that some are better suited to it. For example, the Ricoh GX200 is prone to noise at higher ISO’s..
I’m new to the technical world of photography and could benefit from a bit of a helping hand. Thanks for the tutorial but I need a little more info..
“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.”
This strikes me as a bit odd. Since a RAW file contains enough data to make pretty good HDR pictures from a single shot, I’d have thought using 3+ RAW files would give far superior results to using 3+ JPEGS. Does anyone know why this isn’t the case?
I just bought my first camera d70s used. I have spent the better part of last week running around with it. Today I found your site and have just spent 6 hours creating some of my first HDR images.
Also ya a tripod would be good, I made the moon look like some deformed bubble.
Its real smoothie to HDR . Thanks!!
So I’m confused do I need to take five Pics at -2 -1 0 1 2 or do I need just three at -2 0 2? Or is it up to me?
Thanks all — three shots is just fine btw
Outstanding! Would you consider doing your tutorial as a video / youtube format?
Thank you
i was looking for something on photography on youtube and clicked on a video where you talked about HRD photography and as you said in the beginning of the video you will end up liking this and you man i really like it now
i bought photomatix pro3 and i already have photoshop CS4 so i am really excited to get started !
the tutorials are outstanding! plus helpful and are very enjoyable!! =]
i plan on buying your book soon _ thanks_
its people like you, who help the world be a better place by contributing you knowledge to others !
I have heard that the new PS CS5 has HDR processing features. Have you tried it? I will be getting CS5 Master Suite in a couple of weeks and was wondering if with this new PS feature I would still need Photomatix Pro. Any thoughts?
@ George E- Just to clear it up. Nikon bracketing feature doesn’t allow stop increments of 2, 1 is the largest you can get. In order to get the +2 and -2 exposures you have to take five total pics, discarding the +1 and -1. They were just stepping stones to get where you wanted to go. Hope that helps.
Thanks for the tutorial! I just came back to this tutorial to review some of your explanations on what the various PhotoMatix settings are supposed to do, and my HDR photos are better (and less tacky-looking) for it. =]
Another thing I wanted to note for people trying out HDR in extreme lighting environments — be sure you’re really getting a full range of exposures. One set of HDR photos I recently shot featured a giant window smack in the middle of the frame. Due to my metering mode, the camera suggested a shutter speed that was “correct” for properly exposing the bright light streaming in through the window, but would cause everything else in the frame to be very dark. As a result, even when I took 7 bracketed exposures, 6 of them ended up being extremely dark, and only the longest exposure had any degree of usable detail for the shadow areas of the image. Main lesson learned — check your shots to make sure you have a bracketed set that’s usable! If not, meter your exposure based on something more neutrally lit in your image first and use that shutter speed for the “middle” exposure of the bracketed set.
[...] http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial-part-2/ over and over until I get it [...]