How to Produce High Quality High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photos

I recently had the opportunity to interview Jason Connolly, a wonderful HDR photographer in Northern England.  After our interview, I asked Jason if he would share with us his technique for processing HDR images.  He kindly agreed, and has allowed me to share this tutorial with anyone interested in creating some HDR images.  It’s a wonderful tutorial, so read and enjoy!

Defining HDR processing:
HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is a method of processing images via software that attempts to give great detail in the highlights and shadows in a combined range of images that is much improved over that from a single image in a digital camera.  This method can give you the control to create very atmospheric shots, or more natural looking shots too. I personally go somewhere in the middle.

The Software packages I use to create my HDR images with, are Adobe Photoshop CS2, and Photomatix Pro HDR software (Approx. £55 or $99 US).  You can download the trial version of Photomatix for free, but there will be watermarks all over your finished images, unfortunately.  Incidentally, in my experience I have had far superior results from this software than by using the Adobe Photoshop CS2 HDR software, but you can give that a try and see how yours come out.

HDR Tutorial:
Here is how I do HDR:  First, I always shoot RAW, but feel free to use JPEG. Use a tripod (definitely for multiple exposures).  My camera settings are in RAW, ISO 200 or lower, Aperture mode, with any aperture f number you desire, have your exposure set to 3D Matrix and Auto Exposure Bracketing with it set to 3 Frames, a normal shot, and -2 and +2 or -1 and +1.  Set shooting mode to Multi-Shot so you don’t have to keep pressing the shutter button, and use a remote shutter release if you have one.  Set up your camera on your tripod and compose your shot as you normally would and press the shutter button.  That’s more or less ‘it’ as far as what you do in camera.

Another way to create 3 shots with just one RAW file is to open up your single RAW file in your raw converter such ARC (Adobe Raw Converter) or other software, and then save 3 different exposed shots (either tiffs or jpegs) from that one shot.  I tend to go no further than -2 and +2, and a normal one, resulting in 3 different exposures.

The HDR image I am going to use in this tutorial is a shot of one of the ship wrecks I found off the Wyre Estuary at Fleetwood in Lancashire, England.  I shot this at sunset, in the beginning of September 2008.  Figures 1a, 1b, and 1c are the three original image files. 

Steps:

Open up your Photomatix HDR software, and click on Generate HDR image, then click on Browse, and open your 3 RAW, .tiff or .jpg files.

Press OK

A ‘Generate Options’ screen will be displayed; if you know nothing has moved in your shot, leave it as you see it, but if you have water ripples or things in the shot have been moving such as branches of trees (in my experience if the movement is too much then even this doesn't fix it, and I think it also affects the quality of the image), then select the check box that says ‘attempt to reduce ghosting artifacts,’ and select the relevant boxes.

At the bottom it indicates ‘Raw Conversion Settings,’ whatever your camera is set up as, mine is set as follows: Adobe RGB, and I leave the white balance as shot. I have my white balance set on auto in camera.  When you have finished, click the OK button.

This is where the software begins producing the HDR image.

This is the HDR image.  You will notice that it looks terrible so far, because the computer monitor will not show the full range of detail in the highlight and shadows.  So, the image now needs Tone Mapping to show the details, and you have now a new Tone Mapping box next to your shot which needs to be clicked with your cursor.

You will now notice that the image is starting to look pretty good, and the magic is starting to happen.  You'll now have your tone-mapped shot up on the screen, and it looks good, and next to your image you have a new big panel with an array of sliders and buttons to press as you wish in order to obtain either the ‘super pseudo’ look, or the more natural look with great details visible.  First, click on the default box at the bottom of the panel; this puts your settings back to the original default settings as shown, and also leaves it to the details enhancer tab at the top, not on the tone compressor tab; this gives you a more photographic look if you want to try that one out in the future.

You will see an array of buttons and sliders; by moving all of these to different positions you will achieve different effects, and the more you do this, the easier it will be to do.  Basically, what I am trying to accomplish in this image, is to stretch the histogram as much to the outer edges as possible without affecting the quality, If you look again at Figure 6, there is a gap at the left side of the histogram, and in Figure 7 the gap has gone; by adjusting the slider to the relevant positions you gain the effect you want.

You may or may not be wondering what all those sliders etc. do, so I have included a brief explanation:

Strength:  Controls the entire contrast enhancements; here I have set it to 100, which is the maximum.

Color Saturation:  I suggest you don't overdo this; I leave the main color adjustments until I get the finished Tone Mapped HDRI into Photoshop; I usually go no Higher than 65 on this.

Color: This depends upon how much you want to use this; I don't push these very far, as most times I prefer to do more of the color in Photoshop afterwards.

Light Smoothing: The lower you go on this, the more HDR-looking the image goes, and more likely to get halos around your subjects.  I personally don't like halos, so I tend to have it set to very high or one below, this makes the image appear more natural.

Micro Contrast:  This gives the image more contrast; I don't usually go above 2.

Luminosity:  This gives you more control over the brightness and shadows detail; the higher you go, the brighter it goes, and more detail is shown in the shadow area.

Micro Smoothing:  This is supposed to help clean up the image and smooth out any noise issues; I don't use it very much.

Highlight Smoothing and Shadows Clipping:  This is another tool for more subtle enhancements on your shadows and highlights. I like to use the highlights smoothing for bringing more white out of the clouds and any white areas that may look a bit grayish, and it also helps with eradicating halos.

All of the sliders can be moved around to your personal taste until you have found the look you desire.  With practice, it becomes much easier and quicker to do, and you get better result the more you experiment with it.

Well basically that's the Tone Mapped image finished here, so let us move on and get it processed.  Press the process button.

Not much change is noticeable here, just the program processing the image.

Your image is complete now, ready to be saved.  I saved this as a 16 bit .tiff file, and I have named this Fleetwood Wreck HDR.  All this image needs now is a bit of cleaning up in Photoshop or another program. You can leave it alone at this point, or you can continue on into Photoshop with me where I will finish the job.

Open your Tone Mapped HDR image in Photoshop.

I cropped this image slightly in order to get rid of that ‘untidy’ bit of wreck on the left side of the shot, and to help a little with the composition.

First, I have used the Highlights/Shadows tool in Photoshop to bring out detail the shadows/highlights; every image is different, but for this particular image I used these settings.

This is a slight adjustment with curves to enhance contrast; a slight S-curve here. I also have not added any extra color on this image as I don't feel it needs it.

Apart from a bit of selective sharpening and noise reduction in the sky, the image is finally complete; however, I still feel that the sky could be a bit darker, so here's what I do to achieve this: I duplicate the layer or press CTRL+J, then in the blending mode menu at the top of the Layers Palette, I click on multiply, and the image will go very dark indeed. In this image, I reduced the opacity at the top of the Layers Palette to 56 in order to really make that sky look moody, but I don't want the bottom half of the image looking dark as far as the wreck and the grassy mud banks, or the ground.  In order to accomplish this, I make sure the top layer is activated, and then using the eraser tool, I brush away the top layer of where I don't want it looking dark, so the bottom lighter layer will show through. You can see where I have done this in the top layer of the Layers Palette.  When that is done, I Flatten the image, and all that needs to be done now is a little selective sharpening and noise reduction.

Of course there is more than one way to accomplish a good HDR image, but this method works for me, and I am happy to share a little of my knowledge with you.