PPS

6 Tips for great HDR images.
HDR is just cool. Amazingly there seems to be a relatively small amount of information on HDR as it relates to the people pictures. By most HDR is treated as a fun toy to use with nature photo’s, and not much more. One of the reasons for this could be that HDR portraits are a bit challenging, and unknown territory. It’s not rocket science, but it does take some time to get the hang of.  Here’s a few tips that you can use for both landscapes and people shots.

1. Break out the tripod. Don’t think you’re going to take great HDR’s hand holding a camera. While some HDR rendering software will attempt to line them up, you really need clear, consistent images for great HDR’s. Stability is key!

2. Use a cable release. This is a good rule with portraits and stills alike. You want those images to be lined up as close as possible, so invest in the tools to keep your camera steady. Beside it looks cool to stand there majestically and press the button.

3. Auto Bracket. Most DSLR’s have an auto bracket function that allows you to have -2, 0 and +2 exposures in one quick burst. AB allows you to expose things fast without handling the gear as much, and I find that those 3 images are usually all you need.

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Last year I wrote an article about using true HDR techniques with people. Yep, portraits, fashion, and wedding images can be utterly amazing using High Dynamic Range photography. HDR is not just reserved for nature and still life shooting. We’ve been using it at Seim Photography for over a year now!

Here goes six nitty gritty tips and tricks to get you moving with HDR, and a few of my own HDR portraits to start things off.

1. What is HDR all about anyways?
First lets cover basics. If you’re already an HDR master you can skip this part. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It’s better seen that talked about, so other than the images I’ve included in this article, you can see some of my latest HDR portrait work on my HDR portraits set on Flickr. You can also check out my HDR nature work. Essentially however HDR is the combining of multiple images taken at varied exposure levels, and then blended using software like Photomatix, Photoshop, or another HDR program.

Basically this software blending allows the photographer to selectively choose how much lighting he wants in various parts of the image. You’ll have a light to dark range that’s much higher than that of a normal exposure, thus giving you a LOT more control over the finished image.

You can also check our two PPS episodes from last year, that talk all about HDR portraits in detail, and will also get you started on HDR in general… HDR Part1 & HDR Part2

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HDR Soft, the maker of the popular Photomatix Pro has just released version 3. For HDR junkies Photomatix is a great tool, giving much more function over Photoshops built in tools for merging images to HDR.

Version 3 is even a free update for version 2 owners, and from what we can tell so far, it’s a nice update. Improved interface and some cool new features shape up to be another solid offering from HDR Soft.

So you’ve probably heard about HDR photography, and you may be wondering what you can do with it and why it’s so cool!!

This is not a short article but it will explain a lot about HDR photography and why its so neat. Today we’re going to talk about the editing techniques I used to create “Look To The Wind” the bride on the beach image that you probably have heard mentioned on Pro Photo Show, and maybe seen on the net. Also here are useful links for things reliant to what we’re learning today.

More of My HDR portraits, and Some of my HDR still scenes. Photomatix (my favorite tool for converting HDR images) & Hollywood Effects. (my actions that will help give them that extra pizazz. Also check out the two feature audiocasts I recorded where we talk a lot more about creating HDR images. High Dynamic Range Part 1, and High Dynamic Range Part 2

HDR is a method of taking multiple images and combining them in a high dynamic range file. Lets say you take three images of the exact same scene, at various exposure levels. Standard images are only around 8 bits each, basically meaning that their ability to correctly expose dark scenes while keeping bright scenes from getting overexposed is limited (or visa versa)

So to make an HDR you might take one image that’s two stops underexposed, one image two stops over, and one with correct exposure. Then using software you can combine the shadow and highlight details from all the images into a single image is called an HDR. An HDR is the combined bits of these images, and is usually a 32 bit image when converted. What does 32bit mean to you? It means it can contain far more shadows and highlights. Even though the actual resolution of the image is not increased the details inside it are much higher. The HDR Photography technique is most often done with nature or still life images, but I have been doing extensive experimenting with this technique in portraits as well with good results, as we’ll see today.

So lets look at an example. In this image I took three shots of the bride on the beach using continuous shooting mode with auto exposure bracketing. This along with a model holding as still as possible, and a fairly wide angle scene made “Look To The Wind” Possible possible (click for a larger version) You can read more about HDR portrait techniques in my HDR portrait article.

There a a few ways to take the three images and make an HDR from them. First take your images in unedited raw form. You could do it with jpegs, but raw will give you the best results. Don’t correct the raw files before converting to HDR. There is a very basic tool in Photoshop for converting the images called Merge To HDR (File/Automate/Merge To HDR) This allows you to select you images, and it will combine them into and 32 bit image. You then can use tools to adjust the levels, and curves of the image mix to try and get a good result.

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Well the original Jpeg is getting a bit long in the tooth and by the looks of things an adoption of a new improved format may be taking it’s place over the next few years.

Among other things, the Microsoft HD Photo format is capable of higher dynamic ranges, & better compression, and has been opened up for royalty free use by Microsoft. The JPEG Committee has decided it’s a go, and to move ahead with HD Photo as a new standard under the name Jpeg XR.

Now you may be asking yourself why on earth didn’t this JPEG Committee give it a fresh name instead of taking jpeg and adding some letters. Well we’d guess it’s cuz their the “JPEG Committee” Ya a new fresh name for a new flashy format would have been better marketing, but thats what happens when you name your group after a file format before considering the ramifications of the fact that it will eventually go out of style. At this rate we figure 100 years from now we’ll (more…)

There’s a feature on Canon’s latest high end linup, even including the new 40D called highlight tome priority.

This is not yet the in camera HDR that we’ve supposed would come in the future, but it is a step in the right direction and shows that Canon is on top of up an coming technologies. It seems that Highlight Tone Priority uses 14bit technology to help preserve highlights from being blown out.

Here’s an article over at kenrockwell.com where he gives an example and talks about how useful it is, and another article over at digital pro talk gives us more samples of what it can do. We’ve also checked out various comments from camera owners, and it seems like this actually does a good job to help keep those highlights from blowing out of the scene. Looks like yet another Kudos fro Canon, and that maybe in camera HDR could be in the pipes sooner than we thought.

Gavin Seim