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HDR Tutorial: How to create ‘High Dynamic Range’ Images Using Photmatrix

petemc.net — The main aim of this tutorial is to help people use HDR techniques to produce photos with a higher dynamic range than they normally get in a standard out of the camera photo.

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  • Bhima, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I love HDR but I use it a lot more to 'rescue' photos taken in difficult light... in fact once tone mapped they are hard to tell from just regular photos... it's just the sky isn't blown out and the shadows are well defined
  • KevinWhite, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5great detailed tutorial
    i've been shooting HDR for awhile and loving it

    if anyone wants to see alot of great (and not so good) HDR work, there are a ton here:

    http://flickr.com/groups/hdr/
    • substrom, on 10/12/2007, -10/+14possibly the worst collection of "photos" ive ever seen.
    • thescimitar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I don't totally understand why substrom is getting buried. HDR images are much like hand compositing (or digital compositing) of old, but instead of being done by hand, it's combined automatically, resulting in a "perfect" blend. But when I look at these images, particularly in the flickr link, I don't see perfectly blended composites, I see images that quite honestly look silly. Look at a sunset sometime, your eye doesn't render the horizon in full-light detail. There's more to creating art than a wide-angle lens and ultra-high dynamic range.

      This trend of more resolution, more dynamic range, and as much crap as you can pile into a composition (e.g. ultra-wide lensing), doesn't strike me as progressing the art, just the science. Now, if it were not for science, a great deal of modern art, particularly photography, would not be possible. But the concept and meaning behind the image should get as much time from the artist as the procedures in creating it.

      I realize I'm probably going to get buried for this... but is asking meaning over medium really so bad a thing?
    • petemc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I do agree with you thescimitar, in some respects. Thats why I wrote this article to hopefully guide people in the right direction so they don't produce the stereotypical HDR images that everyone hates. In the past few months I've got quite a lot of support for my work which has encouraged me to update this guide and try to help others improve their skills.
    • KevinWhite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1i definitely agree with you guys
      some of that stuff is awful, but HDR is relatively new in amateur photography, it is a big buzzword, and many people are interested to try it.
      i merely provided the link for people interested to see alot of HDR photos all in one spot. There are over 27,000 photos so saying they are all bad is not fair, but I did warn that they aren't all the best
    • AssProphet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Seriously so many of these photos are awful... HDR should be used to enhance depth not remove it. Alot of these look like someone is trying to emulate Kinkade, by having crazy lighting with no depth or realism.

      Many of them also look like someone was going crazy with unsharpening masks. like this one.

      http://flickr.com/photos/michelevannucchi/281770716/in/pool-hdr/

      look at the comments, "you absolutely do the very best HDR people!" WTF? that's crap!
  • kevin45, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4God this article is on digg every week or so.
  • chris9902, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7I've seen that "Wordpress Error" page more times then I care to think about.

    http://www.duggmirror.com/
    • Ayavaron, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6http://duggmirror.com/design/HDR_Tutorial_How_to_create_High_Dynamic_Range_Images_Using_Photmatrix/

      Direct link to the Duggmirror for those who have referrer errors.
    • chris9902, on 10/12/2007, -16/+3you don't need the full link.
    • invader, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"you don't need the full link."

      read this part of the comment you were responding to again:
      "for those who have referrer errors."

    • dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If your taking the time to post the duggmirror.com link, can't you take the time to change the word "digg" to "duggmirror", and copy the URL to the comment comment box.. It's not much more work (It's less typing), and the full link will work on any browser, where as the referer-one will only work on some, pleases more people.

      Anyway, think I'm going to try some HDR photos. I've tried once or twice before, but they never turned out that great - Although, I've not tried tone-mapping, this tutorial seems nice
      - Ben
    • petemc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My site seems to be ok now. I always thought the old one was a bit too complex and now I've seen that it is. Way too many database calls I think so I'll be looking to redesign it.
  • bcardarella, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would like to get into HDR photography. Does anybody have a recommendation on a good beginner's digital camera to purchase? I've read about the Samsung NV10 http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/samsungnv10/ but I really don't know enough about digital photography to know if this would be a good camera for HDR. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
    • DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It doesn't appear to support bracketing exposures or RAW image format so I'd say it's not optimal for HDR images.
    • CeeJayDK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The new Canon 400D (or "Rebel XTi" if you're in the US) is a good DSLR for HDR photography. According to the review on dpreview.com ( http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos400d/ ) it has a wider dynamic range than the competition , plus it's cheaper.

      But you can do HDR with any camera, though to get the best results a camera that can take photos in RAW and can do exposure bracketing would be best.

      Also it doesn't have to be a DSLR , I use my compact Canon S60 to do it .. it can take photos in RAW and do exposure bracketing.
      The newer Canon S70 will also do great , but the latest S80 can't shoot in RAW.
    • GirSaysDoom13, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1no way! i'm getting that same camera, and was wondering the same thing. I guess no RAW is no HDR (?) but i could be wrong.
    • CeeJayDK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just read up on the Samsung you mentioned .. it has manual operation and exposure bracketing , but it cannot shoot in RAW , so I wouldn't recommend it for HDR photography.

      And a DSLR camera would not be a good beginners camera.

      Depending on your needs you're looking at an advanced compact with manual control and RAW like the Canon S70 ( most compacts only have auto modes and no RAW or bracketing ) or a bigger camera with a good but still built-in lens like the Canon PowerShot S3 IS , which is also a great camera and features Image Stabilization which is especially great for beginners since it can be hard to hold a camera completely still without practice.
    • etruscan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The Nikon D50 kit is wonderful and supports Bracketing, the feature used to take HDR shots. It's less than $500 now and is a great bargain. The Nikon D70/D70s or the D80 are also great choices, and not very expensive.
  • petemc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Nice to see my host can cope :D haha bcardarella get a cam with RAW so you can get the best from HDR
  • wolfer, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0Edit: Link works now.
    Dugg.
  • iamausername, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1hey, I've always wondered this, and maybe someone can enlighten me..
    normally, to create an HDR image, you take multiple shots and get HDR software to combine the LDR images with the EXIF info (exposure time etc..)

    why can't a camera just take one image (with the longest exposure time) and as its taking the image, save the data multiple times?

    so for example, the shutter opens, and after 500ms it saves one file, but still keeps the image in memory (like keeping the film in the same spot on a conventional camera), after 1sec it saves another and after 3 secs saves another, adding the exposure to the current shot, so you end up with 3 photos, a 500ms, a 1500ms and a 4500ms shot, this way, you don't have to click the button 3 times on the camera, and its less likely that the image will change (eg: clouds move, tripod moves etc..)

    the camera could even save all 3 as an HDR image right there and then.

    does anyone know a camera that does this?
    or is it a setting you can possibly set?
    I would guess that a simple firmware update would make it possible.

    Camera manufacturers : steal my idea and make one, and send me a free camera :)
    • petemc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I guess because its not a highly used feature, but who knows? The way things are going its entirely possible they'll add HDR directly to the camera.
    • iamausername, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i say we need to step up from this LDR for everything... HDMI for TV (30bit), dvd-audio for sound (24bit / 192khz) and HDR (24bit) for Images.

      i wonder how you could do HDR for video...

      i'm sure hdd manufacturers would like this too ;)
    • iamausername, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0aah, exposure bracketing I guess...
      still, it'd be nice to get a single HDR image from the camera
    • DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"why can't a camera just take one image (with the longest exposure time) and as its taking the image, save the data multiple times?"

      Sounds somewhat plausible but the shutter is there on digital cameras for a reason. Otherwise, the sensor would just need to turn off and on to snap a photo and we could dispense with the shutter altogether. I'm thinking there are technical problems with this idea.
    • DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"The way things are going its entirely possible they'll add HDR directly to the camera."

      http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1043202460.html

      Fuji already has. They have a sensor with extra pixels to capture the highlights. The sacrifice is in resolution. But you know what, I actually prefer non-HDR images.
    • anonym41414, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"i wonder how you could do HDR for video..."

      It's been done for a long time. Professional video is often done in 10-bit 4:2:2 YCrCb format, which while not HIGH high is still considerably better than 8-bit 4:2:2.

      If you shoot on film and then scan it, you have many choices. One common choice is 12-bit log color.

      Here's the thing about all that, though: You really can't see the difference between an unprocessed, correctly exposed 8-bit linear image and an unprocessed, correctly exposed 12-bit log image. In fact, if you're viewing it on a digital display, you won't see it at all, because almost all digital displays are 8-bit.

      The reason you capture more color than you can display (or even see) is so you can adjust things in post production. If a shot was underexposed, you can bump it up by a few stops to pull out detail from shadows that rounded down to black on the display. And you get much better keys and composites when you have more color resolution to work with, because each processing step you take degrades the color a bit as you go. Start with more, end up with more.
    • UrbanPug, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why you can't take 1 image and save multiple times:

      The imager senses photons and stores them as a charge. Every so many time slices, it reads what that charge is, and clears the charge out. So, you get a situation where if you let the sensor accumulate charge for longer, it will sense more light.

      the problem is that you don't know what the value in the sensor was at various intervals between the start and end. also, the sensor can only store so much charge, so when it "fills up" it's over (and that part is overexposed).

      so, if they designed an imager that could dump data out but not clear itself, that would work. however, there are probably problems with that.
      • butch81385, on 03/12/2008, -0/+0You can effectively take 1 image and save multiple times, but not in-camera. If you take the image in RAW format, it saves the actual light data from the sensor as opposed to pixel data after compression to a JPEG. Using RAW software (can be done in Photoshop for most cameras via a plug-in) you can take the image and create 3 separate exposures from it. Then, you can take these 3 images, put them into Photomatix (or another HDR software, or even try Photoshop's HDR) and create your own HDR image. It takes alot of skill to make a beautiful HDR image as opposed to a so-so image. And don't forget, no matter what type of image you are trying to create, your original composition probably matters more than any post processing.
  • romanr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6It's Photomatix, not Photomatrix.
    Common mistake by someone who didn't pay for product perhaps?
  • ayeroxor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Oh God. Here we go again encouraging people with their absurd images and people who think HDR can make their picture of their retarded cat look SO AWESOME MUST SEE!
    • petemc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Haha ayeroxor. Well the point of my guide was to make people understand how to use Photomatix to avoid making retarded images of their cats :p It shows how you can use a cheapish DSLR and get studio like effects.
  • CeeJayDK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2For the people just skimming the article , remember that there's also an excellent guide on how to do realistic HDR in Photoshop (which BTW this article also links to) :
    http://digg.com/design/Use_Photoshop_CS2_to_Create_High_Dynamic_Range_HDR_Images

    Photomatix can be used to create HDR on acid-like pictures though, that look totally unrealistic but very cool.
    • petemc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Or with care it can be used just as well as Photoshop. Just depends on whether you know what you're doing and whether you have an eye for a good image or not imho.
  • substrom, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3nearly every hdr image ive seen is like every bad/cheap/tacky photoshop filter rolled into one filter from hell.
    done well...it looks like a still from a video game...whoop de doo
    • anonym41414, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"nearly every hdr image ive seen..."

      You've never seen any.

      This is a fundamental misunderstanding of high-dynamic-range photography. With normal JPEG photography, you capture no more color data than you can display. Your display is 8-bit, so the camera only captures 8-bit color.

      With raw photography, you capture more color than your can display. But in order to see your picture, you have to process it through a look-up table or other transform that turns the high-range camera data into an 8-bit image that your display can show.

      With HDR photography, you capture even more color by taking different exposures of the same shot and combining them into a data file with a truly absurd amount of color resolution: up to 96 bits per pixel in some cases.

      But you still can't display that data. It has to be transformed into an 8-bit image so your screen can show it to you.

      What you've seen are 8-bit JPEGs created from high-range data files. And yes, most of the ones out there on the Internet are awful. But that doesn't mean high-range photography is bad. It means that people who don't know how to use it are bad.
  • Chesterfield, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Please...
    This stuff is the photo equivalent of bad "velvet-pastel-crying-clown" portraits. There is clearly a serious lack of taste and poor understanding of high-dynamic range imaging going on here, as well as a lack of skill with Photoshop matting.
    True HDR imaging requires very little Photoshop touch-ups. These images look way too bizarre and phony.
    Check out some more skilled work...
    http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/cambridge-gallery.htm
    along with a good explanation of digital photography...
    http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm



    • petemc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Please... pass the cheese to go with the whine ;) Who said art had to be realistic? :p
    • mjpatey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Chesterfield, thanks for posting. Most of the standard super-fantastic "HDR" shots on Flickr get annoying pretty quickly. The shots you've posted links to are absolutely gorgeous!

      Hopefully in a year or so, the fad will die down, and only people who are really trying to create art (or faithfully reproduce a scene) will continue to advance it.
  • sabarsky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"This stuff is the photo equivalent of bad "velvet-pastel-crying-clown" portraits"

    Dude that was the best description of HDR.
  • kotatsu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I'm sick of HDR stuff, it frankly just looks like someone has got rather over excited with photoshop filters and produced a complete mess. Give me quality photography which looks real any day, as HDR is a lame gimmick which I won't be sorry to see the back of.
  • Philbert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Great find! I use HDRIs all the time for lighting my scenes, but I couldn't really create my own since my Powershot S20 takes great pictures, but saves them all as JPG. Nice to see that you don't have to use RAW.
  • molecool, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1WOW - everyone seems to be very negative on HDR... strange. I looked at Peter's example and was completely blown away. Turns out my old Canon D30 supports AEB and I just did a quick little test inside the house. No Ansel Adams material, but hell - this solves a LOT of problems for me where my chip was abandoning me in the past. I'll see it this way - it's either HDR or pay for a $10,000 camera. I've tried everything from polarized filters to tiny apertures on tripods - a lot of times I simply cannot capture the latitude I need on my digital cam. HDR, tastefully used could really help out.
  • woodie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I found this link last night and downloaded the sofware. I've had faily good results with it; takes a lot of tweaking but it has made a lot of my photos look pretty cool. The problem is the plastering of 'Photomatix' onto each image. Someone find me a crack/serial ;]
  • mrynit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1HDR + CS:S + my video card = 5fps
  • zack12349, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have been following this stream, of comments. I work with HDR all the time. One thing is that yes, there is a lot of bad HDRs out there, Just the same as there are a lot of bad photography out there, also. HDR in itself will not make a bad photograph look good. You have to start with taking good photos composition etc. And then, it is in the hands of the user to make HDR work for the image. The intent of HDR was to make a picture more like what the eye really sees. And that can be achieved, Or not achieved if the picture is mangled in post processing. If you have only seen what you consider flat or terrible images done in HDR, I invite you to my photo stream, were I think you will see what good use of HDR can do. Here is a set of my 10 most liked pictures, that have viewed thousands of times. 9 are HDRs and 1 is not. And If I did not tell you they were HDRs you would not know they were at all. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynchburgvirginia/sets/72157594155927866/
  • treetops18, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Awesome tutorial. I love your photos.
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