Some quasi-HDR Fun

In photography, the term HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and is, in laymans terms, a fancypants methods of taking the highest of the highs in a slightly over exposed image, the lowest of the lows in a slightly under exposed image, combining them, and making them better than the sum of their parts.

Yeah. It's more complex than that.

Essentially, an HDR image takes several exposures of the same images and finds ways to really bring out sharp shadows and lights. An HDR image used to be a very complex photo to create. It's easier now, but still requires multiple exposures of the same photo to create.

To create an HDR photo, the photographer will, ideally, use a tripod and manually adjust the settings on the camera multiple times to take multiple photos. In RAW format, of course. And then combine them in a post processing experiment using HDR software.

So what does this look like in practice? Well, I happen to be a quasi-photographer, so I can provide a quasi-example that masquerades as a proper one.

Let's start with the final result, because it looks good. This is an "HDR" photo. Why? Well, let me explain.

picture final.jpeg

As stated, ideally, I would have been able to take this original photo multiple times with a tripod with multiple exposures. I'm not an ideal person, but I do pretend. What I did instead was to take my original RAW photo and post process it multiple times to over expose it thrice, under expose it thrice, and keep my original image.

Original image. Note the blandness. It's... boring. Seriously. It's quite boring. I can see the story forming in the picture, but the wording is all unimaginative and simple, so to speak. There's no kick to the sky and the water tower simply exists in the background like a cow grazing in an apocalyptic field.

picture 0.jpeg

I took that photo and over exposed it three times: 0.3, 0.7, and 1 stop over exposed. You will see, with each successive picture, the more the image is over exposed, the more washed out it is. Normally this is bad. But for my experience, this is exactly what I want. I want the whites to shine.

0.3:

picture1.jpeg

0.7:

picture 2.jpeg

1.0:

picture 3.jpeg

Now I need to balance out those over exposures so, again in post processing, I took the original image and under exposed it three times, by -0.3, -0.7, and -1.0 stops. Just as the over exposed images got brighter and more washed out, the under exposed images got darker and more shadowy. This is also what I want. (as an aside, as a personal preference, I typically prefer slightly under exposed images)

-0.3

picture 4.jpeg

-0.7

picture 5.jpeg

-1.0

picture 6.jpeg

Now, an HDR purist at this point will cry foul. "You can naught!" he will sneer, "take a single image and perform the over and under exposures in.. sniff.. post processing! Why, the sheer thought defies imagination." And, well, to an extent this person would be right, notwithstanding the fact that I do, in fact, have an imagination that let me accomplish this feat of wizardry. However, to be precise, post processing the exposures is a cheat. As I stated previously, the ideal solution would be to take multiple exposures originally.

The reason that I can perform this witchcraft at all is because I save my photos in RAW format, which is the digital equivalent of a negative. A JPEG is the digital equivalent of a print. I could go into more detail, but I have digressed enough as is.

Importantly, at this point, I have seven copies of the same photo in seven stages of exposure:

  1. -1.0
  2. -0.7
  3. -0.3
  4. 0
  5. 0.3
  6. 0.7
  7. 1.0

And now the magic comes into play. I happen to have a piece of software named Aurora HDR, and it is designed to perform just this one purpose: take multiple exposures of the same image, combine them, bring out the best of the shadows and the best of the light, and create an image that transcends them all. I did just this, with the result seen here:

picture final.jpeg

Not bad, eh? The story of this photo becomes much more clear now, and it's much more enjoyable to look at it.

HDR works well with black and white, too. In fact, I'd almost say it works better with black and white. Here's the same image, converted, with some blue and green filtering.

picture final copy bw.jpeg

Personally, I think the final b&w has much more character. What do you think?


(c) All images and photographs, unless otherwise specified, are created and owned by me.
(c) Victor Wiebe


About Me

Amateur photographer. Wannabe author. Game designer. I dabble a little in a lot. General all around problem-solver and creative type.

Founder of Photo 52 weekly photography competition.

Expert generalist. Jack of all Trades.

Dad.

Tags I Use

Photography
#photo52#pinhole#altphoto#crappycameraphotos
Lego
#spaceforce3

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Oh man that sounds like a lot of work!! Are you using Photoshop or some other app. One of my fav things in Photoshop is that I can use the Camer Raw Filter to have all my options that I have in RAW for a JPG. Not saying that it makes them the same, but just that it is a cool feature. This is how the panel look for a JPG.

Screenshot 221.png

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It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it. I have two editors that I use: Aurora HDR and Luminar 4. I got them both from a deal on Humble Bundle once and found I'm really enjoying them; Luminar in particular. I also use Photolemur occasional for "one click processing," and it does a surprisingly good job.

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Fantastic explanation, @wwwiebe. Even I could almost understand it!

I love your descriptions. Like the description of how boring the unedited photo is.

There’s no kick to the sky and the water tower simply exists in the background like a cow grazing in an apocalyptic field.

That is priceless!

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LOL! Thanks! I enjoyed writing this one up. Sometimes the muse strikes me.

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I think I like the black and white version most

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Thanks! I think I do too, honestly. I love b&w.

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Cool shot. HDR can be cool, but you have to be careful with it so it doesn’t end up looking too crazy.

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Thank you! And very true. It's easy to get carried away with all the colour and contrast. It can really be a fine line between classy and gawdy.

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Awesome! Thank you very much!

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