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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

HDR? I'm going to think about it!

This is my first attempt to HDR using Photomatix (http://www.hdrsoft.com/), probably the bets program around to edit your HDR photos. What is HDR? The word stands for High Dynamic Range and in very simple words it is the result of 3 or more images taken at different exposures and mixed together to achieve such an incredible dynamic range that most of the times neither the human eye is able to detect. For example one image is exposed for the shadows, one for the mid range and one for the highlights. The program blends them together and gives you a vast array of sliders to play with every aspect of the photo.

Usually the results look like a tad fake to me. People either overwork the images on purpose to achieve a specific effect, or they do it by misusing the program and create monster images, amazing to see but tiring, due to their non realistic look. The good ones, those who master the software, make great works, and I bow to them. Check out the HDR group in Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/ to see what this is all about.

I have tried with a couple of photos on the trial software, this is why it comes with a water mark, and finally decided to keep this one to show you. We are far from the editing of some stunning images, here I used the blending mode that is said to give the more realistic results and played very little with the sliders.

When I browse people’s work in Flickr (www.flickr.com)I am always a tad suspicious about HDR images. Being a bit on the conservative side, those photos look just stunning compared to the others and still I’m not sure if this is ok or not. Confused by progress, that’s what I think I’m suffering now but…let me learn how to use the machine from hell and I might become a great HDR fan… !

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