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HDR and how it works

HDR stands for 'high dynamic range', a style of image processing that's become both popular and notorious. It's a technique that's used to capture scenes with a very high brightness range and employs various tools to bring the brightest and darkest parts close enough together that they can both be seen in a single viewable image.

There are two parts to this. The first is capturing a series of exposures (or even a single exposure, maybe with a RAW file) that captures the full range of tones on the scene.

The second part is using 'tonemapping' or HDR software to manipulate the very brightest and darkest areas so that the details in both become clearly visible. Some programs (Lightroom, Affinity Photo) offer HDR merge and tonemapping tools as part of their regular feature set while others (HDR Efex Pro, Aurora HDR) are designed specifically for high dynamic range imaging.

Some photographers try to make HDR images look as natural and 'unmanipulated' as possible. Others revel in the hyper-real colours, contrast and detail afforded by some of the more outlandish HDR tools out there.

How to use Aurora HDR with Lightroom as a plug-in: for single exposures or bracketed sets

November 10, 2020 by Rod Lawton

You can use Aurora HDR 2019 as a standalone program, but if you have Lightroom it’s a lot easier and more efficient to launch it from Lightroom as a plug-in. You can use Aurora HDR with Lightroom very easily, but the method is not the same for single images and bracketed exposures.

Filed Under: Aurora HDR, Featured, Tutorials, Workflow Tagged With: Aurora HDR, Bracketing, HDR, Lightroom, Plug-ins

HDR can work wonders on interiors: this is a church in Porto in Aurora HDR

November 7, 2020 by Rod Lawton

HDR can work wonders on interiors. HDR is not just for high-contrast outdoor scenes or extended dynamic range photography. It can also give interiors a unique, rich and dramatic look.

Filed Under: Aurora HDR, Featured, Ideas Tagged With: Aurora HDR, HDR, Laowa 9mm f2.8, Sony A6000

The Detail Extractor in Analog Efex Pro is like a magic bullet for contrast issues

August 25, 2020 by Rod Lawton

Analog Efex Pro, part of the DxO Nik Collection has an excellent tool that’s easily missed but lies at the heart of many of this software’s striking analog film effects.

Filed Under: Featured, Nik Collection, Tutorials Tagged With: Analog Efex Pro, Detail Extractor, HDR, Nik Collection

Dynamic range and exposure

June 1, 2020 by Life after Photoshop

Dynamic range is the camera sensor’s ability to capture detail in very bright and very dark parts of a scene. Cameras (or sensors) with a low dynamic range record dark shadows as a solid black or bright highlights as a featureless white.

Filed Under: Editing A-Z, Featured, General Tagged With: Dynamic range, Exposure latitude, Exposure value (EV), HDR, Histogram, JPEG vs RAW, RAW file

Bits and bit depth explained

May 19, 2020 by Life after Photoshop

Bits and bit depth

Bit depth is an important concept in digital imaging if you want the best possible image quality and if you intend to manipulate images heavily.

Filed Under: Editing A-Z, Featured, General Tagged With: 14-bit RAW, 16-bit image, 8-bit image, Bits and bit depth, Dynamic range, HDR, JPEG vs RAW, TIFF format

Using HDR Efex Pro for everyday enhancement

April 18, 2020 by Rod Lawton

Usually, HDR images are pretty obvious. The technique is part of the ‘look’. But it’s also possible to use HDR to enhance regular images to add depth and drama, but winding the effect back just a little so that it’s no longer center stage. So for this shot I used DxO PhotoLab and HDR Efex […]

Filed Under: Featured, Nik Collection, Tutorials Tagged With: DxO PhotoLab, HDR, HDR Efex Pro, Nik Collection

HDR Efex Pro review

June 16, 2019 by Rod Lawton

Verdict: 4 stars HDR Efex Pro 2 manages to make HDR relatively easy, and it produces ‘good’ HDR which is dynamic, rich and exciting. It still wraps it up in a bit too much jargon, but it does produce a good variety of ready-made HDR presets so that you don’t have to get caught up in the manual adjustments if you don’t want to.

Filed Under: Nik Collection, Reviews Tagged With: HDR, HDR Efex Pro, Nik Collection

Lightroom HDR: how the HDR Merge tool works

April 24, 2019 by Rod Lawton

Lightroom HDR merge

The Lightroom HDR merge option has been around for a while, so how does it work and how does it compare to a dedicated HDR tool?

Filed Under: Lightroom, Tutorials Tagged With: HDR, Lightroom

Aurora HDR 2019 review

April 21, 2019 by Rod Lawton

Aurora HDR 2019

Verdict: 4.5 stars Aurora HDR 2019 can create dense, wild and dramatic HDR effects, natural-looking images, and anything in between, and with out the ‘glow’ effects and other artefacts that plague other HDR tools. It also goes way further, with local adjustments, even image layers and masks. Brilliant.

Filed Under: Aurora HDR, Reviews Tagged With: Aurora HDR, HDR

How to create a single image HDR in Aurora HDR 2018 1.2

June 20, 2018 by Rod Lawton

Aurora HDR 2018 1.2

The Aurora HDR 1.2 update announced today brings a number of new features to the Windows version and speed improvements on both Mac and PC. The new version offers RAW support for a number of new cameras and is reportedly much quicker when working with both bracketed shots and single images. New version update: Read […]

Filed Under: Aurora HDR, Tutorials Tagged With: Aurora HDR, HDR

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