Yay! I am finally writing a tutorial on how to create an HDR (High Dynamic Range) photograph. The tutorial will assume you have already taken bracketed photographs using your camera. This tutorial will focus on what to do with those images with software. I use Photomatix Pro, Adobe Lightroom and Nik Software’s Viveza 2 to edit my HDR images. There are other software solutions out there – but these work best for me.

I photograph with Nikon and Canon cameras. The Canon 5D Mark II will bracket 3 exposures and the Nikon D300 will bracket 9 exposures. Do you need 9? Sometimes. Often that might be overkill – but it is digital and you can always deleted the exposures afterward. The following 9 exposures were taken with my Nikon D300 with a Lensbaby just for fun and I used a tripod with a cable release.

You begin by dragging the exposures from Lightroom to Photomatix Pro – I love it when drag and drop make it easy.

Bracketed exposures

Drag bracketed exposures to Photomatix Pro

Click OK once the images are listed in the dialogue box. If you can’t drag and drop you can browse to the images.

Click OK

Occasionally you will see this dialogue box. This means Photomatix Pro is confused on your exposures. The Nikon D300 has a 1 stop of light per bracketing exposure. The Canon 5D Mark II will have a 2 stop. I just set it to one or two in the drop down and click OK. If it doesn’t work you can always redo these steps at any point.

Occasionally this dialogue box appears

This dialogue box has a lot of options – and sometimes you can ignore it. The first option will try to line up the images – just incase you didn’t use a tripod. You can take exposures without a tripod and Photomatix Pro will try to line up and arrange the images. The other dialogue options I use are typically if there is movement in the photograph like water, trees or people. If you check this Photomatix Pro will try to figure it out – you might have to clean it up later in photoshop. I also like to pick my white balance here – you can try and change it later after the HDR is created but it is best to change it ahead of time.

Lots of options - keep it simple

This is a true HDR image – and it looks like crap. Because you would need a very expensive monitor or LCD screen that can display HDR content – for everyone who has normal monitors we will need to tone map the image – so just click the Tone Mapping button.

This is a real HDR image

This is the dialogue box that will bring you fortune or fame! For many photographs the default option will be perfect – the image is going to look a bit crappy and washed out and colorless. Yes, you can make those edits here – but lets leave that work to Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, and/or Viveza 2.

Default tone mapping settings work great

I am sure you have seen the surreal HDR photographs – there are two sliders that make a world of difference: Strength and Smoothing. If you slide the strength to the right to full power and then slide the Smoothing all the way to the left you are going to get the surreal “Harry Potter” look. If you like that then hooray! If you don’t then just slide the sliders to a more balance position. These are tools and you are the artist. You will find the look that you like and remember some people – many people like the look of a tone mapped image that has a little hint of the surreal. But it is your art so you make the photograph work.

2 sliders make it go surreal

Here are the sliders set to a bit more realistic setting. The smoothing will have the same effect of over-sharpening an image. There will be some halos that appear – and they can be minimized with Nik Software’s Viveza 2 or even some Photoshopping. I am sure this will get better as the technology behind HDR improves.

Same two sliders can make the image more realistic

Once you want to use the tone mapped image you will click on the process button and then save the image to your computer. I like to save the image in the same folder as the bracketed exposures. I then will use Lightroom’s Synchronize Folder option. After a few seconds or minutes it will find the new tone mapped file and bring up an import dialogue. I wills start with a General – Auto Tone the image and keyword the new photograph.

Bring this back into Lightroom for editing

Synronize the folder

Click Syncronize

Auto Tone and Keywording are the start

Then head to the Lightroom Develop module to add some vibrance, saturation, contrast and other artistic edits. You can take the image into Photoshop and do all sorts of magic on your newly created HDR image. Me? I will usually go into Nik Software’s Viveza 2 to edit the photograph a little bit more. I like to change brightness, add more contrast and warm up areas of the photograph.

Lightroom Develop Settings - go nuts!

You can launch Viveza 2 right from Lightroom (assuming you have the trial version or the full version). There is a 15 day trial so check it out. It’s make it easy to selectively edit without making complex masks.

Edit in Nik Software Viveza 2

Nik Software’s interface is to drop a little pin into an area and then change the brightness, contrast, structure, shadow, warm, color and more. You can add more drop points in different areas.

Masks are so last century

Here is an example with about five drop points – I am warming up the Buick and am cooling down the sky I am adding contrast and saturation to the car. Lots going on and it took about 1 minute to make these edits.

Multiple edit spots in meer seconds

And save your work and the images is brought back into lightroom.

Save your work

And “ta da” the finished image.

Ta da, all done - ready for printing

You can download a PDF presentation that I gave at Photocamp Utah.