Blending HDR Images

In this photography class, Karl demonstrates the step-by-step process of blending your HRD images in Photoshop to get the very best, natural-looking results.

HRD imagery allows us to combine elements of different exposure shots to get a contrast range that we otherwise would have been unable to capture in one image. But HDR images can often look over processed and unnatural. Karl explains how, using Photoshop’s Merge to HDR feature, you can make effective adjustments to get the most out of the extensive contrast range captured in the photographic process.

In this class:

  • HDR Photography
  • Blending and editing HDR images
  • Using Photoshop to create HDR images
  • How to save HDR presets in Photoshop

Questions? Please post them in the comments section below.

Comments

    1. Hi Ned, yes in terms of re-mapping the highlights and shadows to be visible with the midtones but I feel it has to be done carefully otherwise many HDR images look unnatural and less like human vision. The human eye however has a greater range because it works on saccadic movements and very rapidly builds up an image in our mind from each movement and with each movement the eye is adjusting exposure so we appear to have a picture with even greater dynamic range than would be possible with no eye movement.

  1. I remember trying Merge to HDR in Photoshop years ago when I was learning the software and the local adaptation tweaks intimidated me because I couldn’t get the images quite right. I was either getting something too “HDR” (gritty images with glowing edges) or something low in contrast and color. I’ve since moved on to doing HDRs in Lithroom and processing there for convenience, but I found that the result can become quite unnatural-looking…somehow.
    This video makes me want to try doing it the old-fashioned way again 🙂

  2. Thanks a lot for this, it just opened my eyes to a whole new world of posibilities!

    I was thinking on watching what called me the most first but my wife recommended to follow and god, it has been amazing learning every single bit of this.

    Thanks a lot Karl!

  3. About removing ghosts:
    You say here that you can actually choose the base image that you’d like to be the base image for the lockdown on those moving items. I don’t understand what that means. Where do you have the option in that dialog box to choose the image you want to use?
    Thank you.

    1. Hi Ellen, there is a check box to tick to tell it this if I remember correctly, It’s been a while since I’ve done a HDR so I’ll check in the latest version of the software and comeback to you.

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