Simple HDR Tutorial

As promised here is another simple way to use Photoshop for the stuff it was designed for.

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A HDR photo of Claverdon church

Afternoon,

I was out on another wedding last weekend, we was at a stunning little Church in Claverdon.  I thought it might be a great subject to use as for a HDR photo. But before we start, i know there are lots of software packages that can produce HDR work, but i am just going to use Photoshop.

Where to start ?   With most editing work you can pick and choose the effects post shoot, but with a good HDR photo you need to plan a little bit. you need a set of photos (RAW or Jpg) that are of the same view, see sample photo. If you need to use a tripod, that’s cool. The aim is to get a light (over exposed) version, a normal version and a darker (under) photo. your range of photos should cover and show examples of all the details that you are aiming to capture in your HDR photo, why, I hear you ask.  HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, you are going to make a photo from a set of photos, its going to be a combination of all the elements in the photos combined to show a larger range of colours than one photo could show on its own. So, pick your photos in Bridge using CTRL to highlight the photos you want to use and lets build.

Go up to the menus and find the open in Photoshop menu, then find the merge to HDR  button. see the photo if you need help. The next box you will see will be Photoshop asking some questions about which photos you want used, the Bit depth you require and where you want the white balance set. Leave the bit depth at 8 for now or unless you want 16 or 32 bits. Then set the white balance where is seems to set the photo sample next to it at the nicest level to see all the detail. The next step is really simple. Just wait for Photoshop to do all the hard work. If you are new to working in any other bit rate than 8, you should be aware that Photoshop will react different, For example, you can not use all the filters on a 32bit file.  Have a read up before jumping in.

After Photoshop and built your photo from the elements of all the 3 that you started with you should have a box pop up on your screen. This is the HDR Conversion tool box. In here you have all the normal levels and sliders that you would expect to see. The tool box is giving you the choice in how you wish to convert your photo, have a play with the settings here. I use the Local Adaptation method as my common conversion. Use the Radius and Threshold sliders to see how they effect the output then have a look at the curve and histogram at the bottom. See how the output is changed and find a nice looking combination for your photo and click to set those settings.  Let photo shop convert your photo.

You should now be left with a ok looking HDR photo, this time its only 8 bit, but try again with 16 and 32 to see how that effects the look of the photo.  But before you do that, we should finish this photo. As always, whenever I can, make your self duplicate layer and hide it, then make another and set a nice blur on your new layer. I like the Lens Blur with some nice soft settings, but feel free to pick what ever blur you like unless its somthing silly like motion blur. Set your blur and then pick Colour Dodge mode for that layer.

Select you magic wand, we need to bring back that detail that we lost when setting the screen mode, in my photo I just want to bring the sky back, so I have selected the layer below my blured layer (even though that is the layer i am going to remove bits from) and used the sharper image to set my selection around the walls and trees, use the Refine edge tools to get a really good mask. When happy, flip back to your colour dodged blur layer using the same selection you set and remove the bits over the sky, or what ever you are trying to let show though.

The next few steps are very simple and invole the Dodge, burn and Sponge tools. Go in and really show off some of those highlighted areas, use the Eraser to smarten up and bits of the layers that the mask did not get to, and you should have a photo which looks pretty much finished. On my photo, I have converted merged the layers together with CTRL+ALT+E, set them as a Smart Object then added some Lens filters while playing with some colour settings.

Enjoy,   As always, Please send me some samples of edits you have made!

Mail them to Dave@davepiper.org.uk

Tags: Church, Edits, HDR, Photography, Photoshop, Tutorial