High dynamic range (HDR) Photography

If you visit flickr regularly, you've probably noticed that a lot of High Dynamic Range, or HDR, stuff posted these days. Even if you don't, you've likely seen HDR photos all around the net as photographers both pro and amateur experiment with this emerging artistic format.


In Wikipedia definition - High dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allow a far greater dynamic range of exposures (i.e. a large difference between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to the deepest shadows.

Personally HDR gives a new perspective in my shots. Most of my HDR photo set produced by Photomatix, a standalone HDR image processor. But you can also use the Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Bridge to get the HDR photo. I can't wait to try the HDR feature in CS but with the price tag USD649 I think I'm going to buy it from Low Yatt.

There are a lot of tutorial on the net regarding hoe to create HDR image but I think these 2 had fairly enough information to start the ball rolling.

How to Create High Dynamic Range Images by Jack Howard (showing both Photomatix and Photoshop CS2 method) and How to Create Professional HDR Images by Ryan McGinnis (uses Photoshop CS method).

To get some good sample of HDR images, checkout this HDR group.