HDR Photo Processing
If you’ve spent even a small amount of time online looking at photos, you’ve likely stumbled across vibrant, almost 3d looking photos and figured out that you were looking at HDR Photography.
I’m not really interested in writing about HDR, whether I like it, hate it, etc, etc. I just wanted to give a quick blog that talks about how I process most of my HDR photos.
My process is actually quite simple, and I wish I had looked at doing HDR a few years ago.
Here’s how I do it:
Start by shooting RAW files in your DSLR.
Download the image to your computer. (I use a Mac, FYI).
Open the RAW file in Aperture. In Aperture, adjust the exposure to 1.00 and export the file to your desktop. Next, adjust another version to -1.00 and export that file to your desktop.
From here, I use Photomatix Pro and load the 3 bracketed image files. Select the +1, -1 and original exposures into Photomatix Pro. When you start messing around with this software you’ll find that you can do images that are way over the top, or quite subtle in processing. It’s your art, so I say do what you like. When you’re done messing with the pre-set options, as well as the manual adjustments, you simply process the HDR and save it to your desktop. It’s that easy.
File Examples:
Original Exposure
-1.00 File Exposure
+1.00 File Exposure
And a lightly processed HDR file of the 3 above files run through Photomatix Pro:
HDR Processing
By no means am I a pro at HDR, or even photography. I do enjoy the seemingly limitless possibilities to mess around with Digital Photography. If you have a process that is different, or some constructive criticisms, I’d be happy to hear them. Worth noting here is that in order to create an HDR of this image, I had to use the above process vs. bracketing in AEB on my Canon. Moving objects don’t stay put too well for 3 identical exposures 
You can see some other HDR shots I’ve done in my HDR Album on Smugmug. If you’d rather view them in Facebook, here you go.
Oh, by the way, there’s an APP for this. (as if you didn’t know that already!)
