December 13th - Photomatix and the Wonderful World of HDR

Have you ever taken a photograph and part of the image looks too dark and the other part looks too bright?  There are several ways around this such as ND Grad Filters, Flash or continuous lighting; you can use exposure compensation but that effects the whole image and we are just wanting that balance between the highlights and shadows and get an even exposure. But what if we maybe took 3 images at different exposures or even 5 of the same subject and blend them together? This is called High Dynamic Range processing (HDR). In my opinion the best tool on the market to help you with this is Photomatix; Photomatix is a program which can run on your PC or Mac as a standalone tool but you can also have plugins to Lightroom and Photoshop CS2 and higher should you wish.

The process is simple, you can take several photographs of the same subject at different exposures or you can take one photograph in RAW and then process several images at different exposures. The beauty of doing the latter is that this can be done with a moving subject as you are only taking one shot, if you take the shots within the camera then the subject must be still. The reason being is that you will be blending these images together, if you take say 3 shots within your camera of the moving subject when blending them together you will get a ghost effect as the subject won't be in the same place.

So once you have your TIFFS of JPEGS then you put them into Photomatix and blend the images, adjust the settings to get the look you want: from natural-looking with Exposure Fusion to painterly or surreal with Tone Mapping. I must stress this doesn't work for every image as some will look a little false but when you get it right it can look pretty amazing.

This technique can work really well on landscapes; shadowless hazy sunlight or an overcast sky usually results in dull-looking photographs. The tone mapping tool of Photomatix can turn them into great-looking images. Another great use is for interior shots where you want a perfectly exposed inside but be able to see the view outside. This is a common problem for Estate Agents as they don't have and probably don't want expensive lighting equipment to carry around; this is a great technique to getting stunning interior shots. Take a look at the two images below as an example, one is an image with the exposure set to 0 the other is 5 images blended together which have exposures of -2,-1,0,+1,+2. Notice the guy with the red bag, if those exposures where taken within the camera this HDR image wouldn't have been possible because he is moving; but because it’s one image changed and then blended together it becomes possible.


Look at the differences between the two pictures the first very dull, you have some detail in the sky but very little in the foreground to the point it's difficult to make out the guy with the red bag. Then take a look at the HDR image it's as if someone has used a huge flash for the foreground and we have much more detail and vibrancy in the sky. One image shot, 3 minutes changing and exporting on Lightroom 3, 30 seconds in Photomatix and you have a vibrant, perfectly exposed, detailed image!


Should you require and advice regarding HDR then drop me a message!

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