I love the tutorials and the newsletter as well as the tips on other software. I use Photomatix, onOne and Topaz but I’m still a beginner in using them as I don’t have sufficient time. With Photomatix, my whites usually turn to grey and I can’t remember where I saw a tip on dealing with this. Any help would be appreciated and thanks again for a great newletter and tutorials.

My question didn’t show up in the last post, so lets try this differently. I’ll post them here.

1) in step 6
“import all of the original images plus the .jpg we just made in Photomatix”

…are you talking about importing the three original Raw or the three processed that are now .jpgs?

2) from the “Raw Importer”
“Now, go ahead and open the original images plus the Photomatix result JPG in Photoshop”….This is the wonderful secret of the RAW photo! As opposed to the JPEG,….What I am going to do is select my favorite of the Original shots”

I’m confused as to which files you are talking about. Should I be opening the processed jpegs or the unprocessed Raw files in camera raw and “use the sliders to make it / them look as close as possible to the Photomatix result”

thanks in advance for the clarifications.
JeffN

thanks for a great read. that was VERY helpful =)

Hrmm.. do you do this for EVERY photo?? You must spend a lot of time editing pictures. I am an amatuer photographer.. a hobbyist.. However I am getting more and more into photography now that I have a semi-decent camera (Ricoh GX200). I notice that my camera does do auto-bracketing, which is a good start but I am a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of work and money involved in just getting started with HDR.

I have encountered many situations where I could have used these techniques but yer… that’s a lot of work (or so it seems) per photo.

How much is the initial software setup going to cost?

Thanks for the feedback. I will check out the Photomatix software and go from there Hrmm.. now I’ll have to go back to China again to take all my photos again with auto-bracketing

Awesome tutorial. Do you suggest Lucis Art ED or or Lucis Art SE???
You’re pretty awesome dude!

Thank You very Much Great Tutorial!! Helps me a lot.
One Question: You write

” I prefer to find my favorite of the original shots where the people are in the most interesting formation. I then use that photo to remix with the original.”

Mmmh. But what would you do if your favorite is in the brightest picture? When you remix it with the original this part of the picture will be also bright.

Thanks a lot for this great tutorial. It’s a great reference for someone new to HDR photography. Also glad to hear that it is possible to just use a a single raw file and play with the exposure settings to create three different pictures– it is after all, exactly what the camera does, but the camera will has a fraction of a second between each frame. I’m still going to go with the exposure bracketing method, but I’m glad to know that I had the theory correct in my head of how HDR works.

Have you tried creating HDRs by changing lens settings? Like one exposure at, say, 1/2000 of a sec, one at 1/200, and one at 1/8? Or would it just be easier and get the same effect from changing exposure values?

Anyway, great tutorial– I’m off to go take my first HDR shots!!

Hello,

I’ve been shooting HDR for a few years now, just thought its about time to say thanks for all the help your site has provided. Keep up the great work.

Trey,
Great stuff.
Are you doing a survey on who is reading your ‘e-book’ ad? “1st” is spelled first, yes?
Also, do you have your HDR Tutorial in a PDF or some other downloadable version as you did a while back?
Thx,
Val
PS – Love your HDR Book. Inspirational!

Trey,

Awesome tutorial. I have been very interested in HDR photography for a while, but have not had much success. Very recently on a trip to the rockies, I realized I was not even motivated to try out any HDR’s.
In the past I have used PS to do the tone mapping, but have been very disappointed with the results, particularly sharpness. I believe the layer mask steps make all the difference between a complete well processed HDR and a half a$$ job.

Do the noise reduction tools work with PC’s?

Reading your tutorial and viewing your pics have rekindled my interest in HDR. I am very close to buying the photomatix s/w, and if I decide to do so, will go through your website and coupon code.

Keep up the good work….
Abishek

Hi Trey,

I stumbled upon your website a few weeks back (I don’t remember how)and I got hooked ever since. Thanks for your tutorial, it’s awesome. All your pictures look stunning, I can’t get my eyes off them.
I’ve shown my recent photos to my friends and co-workers and they said “WOW” and they feel jealous.
The pictures look clear and stand out. HDR is the way to go for me from now on. Keep up all your great work. Thanks

Thanks for the tips. Will be useful in some projects.

Hi Trey,

I’ve been playing with HDR for a few weeks now having read your tutorial. I wanted to mention a neat feature I’ve just discovered on my first dSLR (Canon 500D).

Auto-bracketing on my camera limits you to -2, 0 and +2 EV, which is fine normally. But I’ve discovered that if I turn on auto-bracketing and then adjust the EV to -2, it will auto-bracket -4, -2 and 0. Moving the EV the other way allows me to take 0, +2 and +4. Doing this gives me 6 shots with two at 0EV (but you can just delete one of course) ranging from -4 to +4 at 2EV stops for those few occasions when -2 and +2 aren’t quite enough.

Obviously only really useful in a fairly static scene and on a tripod. But I thought it was neat and wanted to share. I imagine other brands of cameras do the same.

Really inspired by your work Trey. Thank you so much for making this tutorial and the eBooks.

the images look pretty nice.
but im not getting the point, why do you make them look like cgi, they look totally unreal.
your art lies not in photography but in postproduction and handling software.

Thanks so very much. I new nothing about hdr before reading your tutorial. I’ve been practicing while reading and it has helped a lot.
You explain everything in a very simple and fun way.
Thank you again.

Outstanding work Trey, glad I was watching Leo Laporte and the TWiT Netowrk to find your site and work as soon as I did….it really is fun to take HDR images.

BTW if anyone is interested, I’ve just finished a tutorial on the HDR process and even explain masking in Photoshop so it’s worth it for those who didn’t fully understand it in text format here at the site. You can find my channel under “SonicOrbStudios” or google me for my website which will link you there. The video is called “HDR Photos Tutorial”.

This is undeniably the best tutorial, thanks! Just a question please as I’m totally an amateur still groping my way through… I have a Nikon D60, does it have auto bracketing? Thanks!

Trey, Fantastic photography and very readable blog. I was well into photography a few years back and then got distracted (in a good way) by graphic and web design. Just got my first DSLR and along with my descovery of HDR, cant wait to get stuck in!! Cheers

thanks Trey for free tutorial…several people asked you to explain why you use jpgs not raw into and tiff out of Photomatix…are you not just throwing away an awful lot of data…hope i don’t have to pay $379 to get the answer!!!

Will you be updating a tut… or doing a review on the Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro? I have CS5 and am not really looking into dropping more money into software right now, and from what I understand Adobe really stepped up their game to make HDR Pro comparable. Wondering what you think of it and how can I cross correlate the slider settings from photomatix to the HDR Pro sliders. Thanks

Thank you for introducing me to HDR. I assume that I can fix the thousands of old slides and negatives that I have by making five scans at different settings and treating them the same as you describe; this is going to improve many old photos. I will also start to take practice photos in bracketed RAW and learn these new techniques.
I have been taking photos for 45 years and seen a lot of other peoples work and you are one of the best. Sincerely, G. David Marshall (gdmlegacy.com)

Click on this link rather than the one I did wrong! oops.

Hello and thank you for you tutorials. You probably mentioned but I found out that high ISO is lethal for HDR. I had some shots in 800 ASA and they looked horrible, my best HDR are with 100 ASA and a tripod.

hi trey, have you come across this … http://people.csail.mit.edu/kapu/papers/GalloICCP09.pdf ?

Hey Trey!
This tutorial has definitely helped my photos out a LOT. I’m planning on buying the HDR video tutorial as soon as possible. One question though. Do you save your photos from Photomatix as JPGs, 8-bit TIFFs, or 16-bit TIFFs? I’m trying to figure out what the best format would be for me that saves enough image data to be able to manipulate it around a bit in Photoshop and at the smallest file size possible. I know that this is the eternal struggle for image formats but I’m just trying to find a good balance. Thanks in advance!

Hi Trey,
Great tutorial, clear and well laid out, thanks.
Have you tried NIK’s HDR Efex Pro? How does it compare with Photomatix Pro?
Thanks

Hi,

Great tutorial!!!

I’m getting more into photography. I have a Nikon D50 and I was wondering if I should use raw instead of the autobracketing. My camera does the 3images (-2,0,2) but I did some testing and found out the raw was better with moving stuff.

I don’t mind generating the tiffs from photoshop since I’m fairly good with it.

So my question is… Is it ok if I only use RAW?

Just went through your tutorial last night, and then came up with this today.

http://www.estigoy.net/hdr/petaluma_train_station.jpg

I think I think in a similar frequency of light, I think.

This is literally my first HDR pic after going through your tutorial.

I’m happy.

thanks.

- Michael

great tutorial.
main criticism is how you are opening and saving these files multiple times as jpegs across multiple programs. surely you are loosing data.

also, that shot of the donkey(?) has a white halo around it, which is something you want to avoid with HDR

Trey, sorry if this has been mentioned before. Do you make any adjustments to your bracketed images in Lightroom before you export them as jpgs for processing in Photomatix?
Thanks!

Hi Trey

I was going through youR HRD Tutorial and there is one error ( I think ) in page 3 of your Tutorial.

Now that you created the mask, you will see a little white box on that layer down in the lower right. See it? Click on that little white box it (MAY NOT NEED THIS WORD) because THAT represents the mask.
Make sure your chosen color over on the right (SHOULD THIS BE LEFT) is BLACK.

TERRY

Have no idea where I went wrong.. I used the step by step process and didn’t get close to a half way decent photo image with the photomatix.
Awesome photos you have to share.

Thank you very much for this tutorial! I bought Photomatix over a year ago, but gave up using it because I found the results unpredictable and often not complimentary. I came across this page last week, dusted off my tripod, and tried your technique with a sunset photo. Now I’ve edited 4-5 photos following your tutorial, with better results than I’ve ever had! My fave pic so far is from a single RAW. Dismal grey skies used to be a photo killer for me, but in this picture the sky is dramatic, not dingy. Thank you for making bad weather fun again!

http://elementyl.zenfolio.com/p1029160173#h3b88e192

Thanks very much Trey. This is an exciting adventure and you are an excellent mentor.
I just read your tutorial and received answers to some of the questions I posted on a differnet page on the site.

For clarification:

1)Is the shot of the farmboy in your portfolio a single raw image? Was it divided into 3 layers, as someone mentioned here, or was it processed as a single raw in Photomatix?

2)Same questions for the shot of “The Gentle Path”.

3)You are fine with JPEG’s for final output. Is this for internet or is this also for large prints, say 20×30 inches or larger. I am now going to start with RAW. My 5-6mb JPEGs after processing are leaving me with 2mb finished products which is not much when printing.

I looked at Michael E.’s Petaluma Train Station (above in this blog)and assume that your students successes bring you great pleasure. May you have much.

Thanks again,
Moshe

Hi Kat,
Why don’t you use a tripod and manually adjust for three or five different exposures? It takes a few seconds longer, but you should get the same results if you take care not to shake the camera, ie: solid tripod, mirror lock-up, timed release or remote release.
Best,
Moshe

Hey Moshe,

That’s good advice and I’ve been doing that. Only problem is that I can’t take any HDR photographs of anything that is moving too quickly (e.g. clouds on a windy day). So, I’m reliant on my RAW image turning out for good depth when creating a pseudo-HDR for many situations. I’m just wondering how to best expose the one shot to get better results in the processing stage.

Thank you,

Kat

A masking question – do you use a tablet rather than a mouse? I reckon al of this “painting” (masking back and forth) would be heaps easier with a tablet. I’m thinking of getting one just for this purpose.

Interesting comment about 80% of people liking HDR! While I totally agree with you about how it should be used to recreate how we actually see the world (so many potentially great photos ruined by burnt-out sky or underexposed subjects!!) I think that there needs to be some kind of new nomenclature for HDR styles. If you google search “HRD” in images, most of the pictures that come up look nothing like how we would see the world. To say that by (in the broad sense that you mention) making an HDR image recreates how we see it is too general for the masses of snapshot shooters who like HRD. For many people the “extreme HDR” (again, google image search this) looks ‘cool’ because of the intense contrast and dodge ring around closer objects. This is, undoubtedly, not how we see the world, yet it is still HDR. I have no problem with people liking this—free will, and everything, I choose not to practice this—and I appreciate a lot of your photography (here, I will thank you for the great tutorial!) but I think the opportunity of using HDR steers people to over-do it and go from what could have been 3-5+ OK photos, to a great photo, then to a single over-developed blown-out HDR photo that looks like fantasy and loses all subjective credibility.

So as you mentioned from the start, HDR is new and exciting, and I am so glad you recognize it as something that is still very much being figured out. But this is all the more reason for someone/some people to form a set of terms to describe what they are talking about. No one process works for all styles!

Trey’s website was the starting point for my interest in HDR as I didn’t know about it before that.
I was never actually able to fully follow the tutorial originally because I couldn’t do masking with Elements 6. That changed with Elements 9.
Just a few things for beginners from what I’ve learned:
I’d recommend taking the photos with a tripod and fixing the ISO at 100 to control noise. HDR adds alot of noise.
+2 to -2 is generally good enough for exposure range.
Photomatix is well worth the investment. Its a great starting point for an image.
Search the Web for Presets – you can save them as your own and then you can do less messing with the sliders.
The sliders are not that straightforward
Being able to combine the original picture and the HDR picture is really valuable.
This is done by masking. Photoshop Elements 9 does this quite well.
Even combining some of the original photo back into the original (by using say a 30% mask) really improves the look of the picture.
Masking I think is the key to going from good to great this is the bit you need to master.
After this it gets expensive.
It can remove the halos and the odd bits from a Photomatix picture but you can still keep the good bits.
Adobe CS5 is great but very expensive. It can do what Photomatix does but Photomatix is easier and quicker to use.
Adobe Lightroom is brilliant for Organising but expensive
Topaz Adjust is expensive but very good (puts a very good HDR effect even on a single picture)
Noiseware professional is excellent at reducing noise but is expensive (and very fast to use). Noise is big problem in HDR. Using something like Noiseware professional really smoothes out skys and makes the HDR less harsh. I like Topaz adjust myself.
HDR Efex Pro is good but very expensive, the same for the other pieces of Nik software. Viveza 2 is very good for putting structure into things like clouds. Its uses control points to do local adjustment without layers and its quite effective. Silver Efex Pro is great for black and white conversion. Color Efex Pro I’m not gone on but alot of people like to use it for change the look of a photo.
Once you get past Elements and Photomatix the bill starts to get really expensive.
From time to time I still tinker away with HDR. Feel free to look at my Flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/fergalocallaghan/
Comments are always welcome.
I see it even in Treys work, you get more and more subtle about HDR as time goes by. Less is more really when it comes to HDR. I still like the bold colours, sometimes it reflects better what I saw rather than a normal photo. Maybe my eyes have a higher than average dynamic range.
The one great advantage Trey has over all of us is location. I think I could do a good job on the Taj Mahal if I could afford to go there and get in before the general public. Trey kicked off the bandwagon so he deserves all the plaudits and the opportunities he has to go to these great places. His passion shines through in his work. I can only envy and admire. He is still top of his game because even with the load of people now doing HDR his work is still the benchmark to reach.

I understand what your your problem is. I’ve had that problem in the past.
Firstly I make sure that I am using a tripod so all the pictures are exactly the same. I use a cheap remote control or the camera timer to take the pictures so that pushing down on the camera shutter button isn’t putting the three pictures slightly out of line.
Then when Photomatix does the HDR picture it is all perfectly aligned.
In Photoshop I used something I think its under Scripts which is loading the pictures into a stack.
They are then perfectly aligned. I also use Lightroom and you can load a number of pictures there into Photoshop as layers.
Since I have been doing this I have had no issues about alignment only ghosting issues when something moves within the picture.
When I had your problem I did mess about a bit to fix it. I think what I used to do was create a mask 50% with the HDR and Original (best shot), zoom in to a big size and then move the top picture to get something in particular in the picture to line up. At least I think that is what I was doing. I was doing it in photoshop elements 9 and I seemed to be able to move the picture a bit.

You are on the right track though. The key to getting good HDR pictures is the mix the Photomatix picture back with the best parts of the original. It reduces noise and brings it back to being more realistic. I think the tutorial glazes over this a bit. I usually noise reduce the HDR before blending back in the original. Noise reduction takes out some detail but masking with the original and bringing some of the original back in improves the detail.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fergalocallaghan/
Kind Regards
Fergal

ı am learn and usefull photoshop like, cs3 really beatiful your sites good site thankss

Thank you so much for this tutorial! I just finished my first HDR shot with your help and it looks FANTASTIC. Thank you, thank you, thank you for making this so accessible and straightforward while allowing the reader plenty of room to explore and grow on his/her own.

Fantastic tutorial! I am just delving into HDR for the first time. This was a huge help! Thank you very much!

Thanks for sharing Trey, this tutorial is very helpful !

Great tutorial Trey! Just wondering if I really need the Photomatix software now that CS5 has Merge to HDR Pro. I’m new to HDR and haven’t used this. I’m considering purchasing the Topaz Photoshop Bundle, so just trying to keep my costs down.

you must read online for more

Heh. You could shoot the same image with the same gear – heck, you could be handed the same raw file as a dozen other professional photographers, given the same tools to process it with, and the same knowledge to use those tools, and hand me thirteen different images when it was all over and done with. And none of them would be “wrong”. A couple of them would be amazing and popular, and some of them not so much. Just like a great sculptor, it isn’t the tools or how you use them. It’s the image you alone can see, and choose to reveal that makes a great photographer.

I just have done a pretty good picture thanks to you!