Wednesday, February 28, 2007

3 Image HDR - Bishan Park Turtle Pond

Most HDR Images are made from multiple exposures. That is to say you take a number of photos then use them to create one HDR image.



What you do, is basically take at least one underexposed image (so it is too dark) , one properly exposed image and at least one overexposed image (so it is too light) - This is called "bracketing" by photographers, by the way. The HDR processing then "blends" these photos together creates a single image that contains all the dynamic range of all the original photos.



That image often looks "flat" and lifeless on its own. The next step is to do some post processing to bring the image to life. This is done by looking at the areas in the photo separately, and then using the best setting to bring out detail. I'll explain this in a later post.



This process is really similar to the way you look at a scene with your eye. You only look at one little bit at a time, and the bit you look at is kept in proper "exposure" by your iris constantly adjusting. The spot you look at is never too bright, or too dark, but just right!



That is the secret to why HDR photos look so great, in my opinion! They look like you would see it if you were there.



Anyway, the photo below is an example of a 3 image HDR. My camera cannot "bracket" by itself, so I have to reset press the button 3 times! That is not fun. You can see that it looks "different" to the single image HDR above. if you click on it look at the large image, you will see places in it that are blurred, due to the breeze moving the trees between shots!







turtle pond in Bishan Park on Flickr - Photo Sharing!



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Full Moon rising



Have you ever looked at a photo thought, "It looked a lot better
than that when I was there!" Well it DID. The photo hasn't the same
dynamic range as your eyes! I will not try to explain Dynamic Range
here, you can look it up on Google if you want.

HDR (High Dynamic
Range) is a method of post processing digital images that maintains the
full dynamic range of the image. The result is an image that can take
your breath away!

Really good HDR photos are made with more than one
photo, which I will explain in another post. This photo of the Kong
Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery in Singapore was made using ONE old
photo, and is technically an LDR (Low). This was done from an old
photo, that looked good, but not THIS good!

Full Moon rising on Flickr - Photo Sharing!



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