When taking photos to create an HDR, you can take as many as you want. But if we can take the shadow details from one, the midtone detail from another, and the highlight detail from the last, we can get a final image that has all the detail we need! A common 3-photo HDR might contain an exposure that captures all of the shadow detail (but the highlights are blown out), an exposure that captures the midtones (but might be a little too dark or too bright overall to stand on its own), and an exposure that captures the highlight detail (where the shadows will be almost pure black). When we capture multiple exposures with our camera, each exposure should contain some detail that the other exposures do not. What do we mean by blending or combining exposures? Well, remember that our goal is to capture detail throughout the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights.
If you can setup your camera on a tripod, making sure it doesn’t move, and then capture multiple images of a scene at different exposures, you can take these images and combine them later in a program like Lightroom or Photoshop.
HDR MERGE LIGHTROOM 5.3 MANUAL
However, as a photographic technique, it’s a much more manual process.
As an automated technology, it allows us to simply snap a photo and then have our camera or phone do all the work of capturing multiple exposures and combining them into one. HDR has become a popular photographic technique as well as a popular automated technology built into our cameras and smartphones. HDR stands for high-dynamic range, and is a process of taking multiple exposures of a scene, some capturing highlight detail and some capturing shadow detail, and blending them together to create an image that’s much closer to what our eyes might see. That means when we try to take a photo of this sunny landscape, we’re probably only going to get the details in the bright sky or the details in the dark ground, but not both. This image is exposed for the highlights, meaning we can see detail and colors clearly in the bright areas, but the shadows are dark and hard to make out.Ĭompared to our eyes, cameras do not have a very reliable dynamic range. But what happens when you pull out your camera and try to capture the same scene? Well, something like this: Our eyes have a great dynamic range, meaning we can usually look out over a landscape on a sunny day and see all the details in the sky and clouds, and all the details in the shadowy trees below. This example of the difference from the bright light in the sky, to the dark shadows along the ground is called dynamic range. Our eyes also have to process all the information in those darker areas as well. But when the sun is high in the sky, it also has a tendency to cast deep, dark shadows along the ground. When we’re looking over a landscape (assuming the sun is still out), our eyes need to be able to process all the information from that giant, bright light source. The sun is just about the biggest light source we have. What do we mean by light information? Think back to that beautiful landscape.
Scenes that contain a lot of color and detail, and scenes that contain a wide range of light information. Our eyes are very good at absorbing scenes like that. You might remember seeing vivid colors, a bright sky, rocky cliffs, trees, and maybe some water. Think back to a moment where you looked out over a beautiful landscape. When learning about HDR, it’s helpful to think about how your eyes see the world versus how your camera sees the world.