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HDR Photography: Friends Don’t Let Friends Make Boring Pictures

Date: 2007-10-29 | Author: Rob Zanin
Company: Adobe

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Food for Thoughtful Photos

 
The few remaining film purists of the world like to tell budding photographers “all you need is some Velvia, a pinhole, and a vision, maaaaan,” but they’re just being stubborn. Manual processing is quickly becoming an obscure hobby and Nikon has discontinued its pre-digital flagship SLR, the F100, along with almost all of its other film cameras. If you haven’t already heard, let me help the cause: we live in a digital age.
 
And it’s never been easier to crank out terrible images by the truckload. One look at any friendship/networking website will show how far “vision” is from the minds of the kids shooting poorly-lit self-portraits in bathroom mirrors. Perhaps the film purists were on to something after all.
 
Modern photography is an evolving, exciting, and intimidating hobby that is largely treated as a convenience. It’s much easier to fire off some flash shots than it is to manipulate a scene in a truly pleasing way. To make things more difficult, in addition to a great eye for situation and concept, photographers also need powerful computers, imaging software, and some degree of technological expertise – all in addition to the gear inside their camera bags.
 
If you’re a hobbyist trying to produce clean, professional looking pictures – or someone who’s simply curious and just pressing buttons – it can be very difficult to nail down satisfying results.
 
This Photoshop tutorial is a primer to get you cranking out stunning images right now. What it won’t do is cover the basic functions of your camera – there are sites all over the web providing proper introductions to gear. This is a very specific software solution that some photographers have used to harness a difficult variable: uncontrollable light.
 
Welcome to the fascinating world of HDR and DRI photography.

[50mm f/4.5 ISO 100. Six image DRI composite. I don't carry a flash kit and the available light here was terrible. I asked my model to pose as still as possible for 60 seconds while I shot a wide dynamic range of JPEGs. Later, I combined the necessary details from each image with a DRI technique in CS2, and saved what would have been a wasted night out.]

[12mm f/8 ISO 250. Six shot composite. Without creating an HDR image, the "COFFEE" text would have disintegrated into the white sign from the long exposure. Increasing the dynamic range also helped to dull the lens flares and naturalize other lighting flaws.]


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