Can i do hdr in photoshop

You want to bracket the exposure time, not the Aperture. If you look at the three image that I used here, the middle image has a lot of detail. However, the details in the shadows are lost in the boats and the city lights are too bright and lose detail information.

The left image is under exposed to pick up the details in the highlights such as the buildings in the background. The right hand photo is over exposed by 2 stops to pick up the detail in the shadows, such as the hulls of the boats and water reflections. Time to merge the photos together into a single 32 bit image. Choose either images or folder. I organize each set of photos in its own folder so I used the folder option.

Select your photos to merge. Click OK. Photoshop uses Auto-align technology that even allows you to create HDR without the use of a tripod! Your images will now be merged into a single photo. You can turn off individual photos by un checking their boxes on the left filmstrip. If you get some blurring caused by camera shake in the longest exposure, you may want to turn off that photo. If there is ghosting because of movement, click the box: Remove Ghosts.

When the mode is at 16 or 8 bit you will see settings like this, if 32 bit is selected, it will look like step 4. The merged result is a floating-point 32 bit image. Change the mode to 32 bit. You can view the available tones by sliding the White Point slider. Note: In Photoshop CC there is a new option. If you are on Photoshop CS6 and lower, jump to step 5 right now. Click the option off and you will be able to move the slider and continue with the rest of the tutorial just like in CS6.

In this case, s kip to step 8b. However, I recommend learning both methods as they each have merit. You could do your tonemapping right now if you like, but I like to save a 32bit negative. Click OK to merge the photos into a 32 bit image. Now is a good time to save your file. Save as a psd, tif or open EXR. Join our list to receive more tutorials and tips on Photoshop. Get exclusive tutorials, discounts and the free super guides.

No spam, all content, no more than once a week. When we convert them we will create what I call interpretations of the photo. The reason I say this is because we have unlimited ways we can make the photo look. While we have this huge dynamic range available in 32 bit, we will no longer have those options after conversion. Always work from the saved 32 bit version, and then convert and save versions personal interpretations. Now we get to play with some fun options. This is were all the creativity can ooze.

The most important of these is the Exposure control. Exposure and Gamma is the default option. Best way to approach this? Set the gamma first, then adjust the exposure to suit. If you want an image with lots of contrast, lower the gamma. For less contrast raise the gamma. Finally, adjust the exposure to get the desired brightness.

If you want more control, read on… otherwise press OK to convert. Change the Method to Local Adaption. There are 4 available methods, but these are the only 2 with user input. With local Adaption, you get some advanced Tone Mapping sliders and you can adjust the curves. The use of curves is optional as they allow you to fine tune the other settings. Edge Glow Once your happy with the curve, adjust the radius and strength sliders to make sure there are no halos in the photo. Badly converted HDR images have a glow around the areas of contrast.

The radius controls the mask blur while the strength decides how strong to apply the effect. Tone and Detail Gamma: This is where you control the contrast. Extremes are washed out or super punchy. Exposure: Controls the overall brightness. Detail:This sharpens or softens the appearance.

Advanced Shadow: Opens up details in darkest parts of the photograph. Highlight: Recovers detail in the brightest areas of the photograph. Vibrance: This makes the photo more colorful without over saturating areas that are already colorful.

Saturation: Increases or decreases the overall amount of color. Be careful not to over saturate the colors as a rule. Of course all rules can be broken on occasion. Here we have a merged image from HDR. Photoshop is great for producing very realistic HDR images. A new development in the latest release of Lightroom. Our previous ocean sunset example would therefore not be well-suited for the HDR technique, as the waves would have moved significantly between each exposure.

Here we use Adobe Photoshop to convert the sequence of exposures into a single image, which uses tonal mapping to approximate what we would see with our eye. First, we need to combine all exposures into a single bit HDR file:. If your images were not taken on a stable tripod, this step may require checking "Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images" which greatly increases processing time.

Once your computer has stopped processing, it will show a window with their combined histogram. Photoshop has estimated the white point, but this value often clips the highlights.

You may wish to move the white point slider to the rightmost edge of the histogram peaks in order to see all highlight detail. This value is for preview purposes only and will require setting more precisely later. Note how the image may still appear quite dark; only once it has been converted into a 16 or 8-bit image using tonal mapping will it begin to look more like the desired result.

At this stage, very few image processing functions can be applied to a bit HDR file, so it is of little use other than for archival purposes. You may want to try adjusting the exposure to have this reveal any hidden highlight or shadow detail. This requires interpretive decisions about the type of tonal mapping, depending on the subject matter and brightness distribution within the photograph. The tonal mapping method use one of four methods:.

Before using any of the above methods, one may first wish to set the black and white points on the image histogram sliders see " Using Levels in Photoshop " for a background on this concept. Click on the double arrow next to "Toning Curve and Histogram" to show the image histogram and sliders.

The remainder of this tutorial focuses on settings related to the "local adaptation" method, as this is likely the most-used, and provides the greatest degree of flexibility. In contrast to the other three conversion methods, the local adaptation method does not necessarily retain the overall hierarchy of tones.

It translates pixel intensities not just with a single tonal curve, but instead also based on the surrounding pixel values. This means that unlike using a tonal curve, tones on the histogram are not just stretched and compressed, but may instead cross positions. Visually, this would mean that some part of the subject matter which was initially darker than some other part could later acquire the same brightness or become lighter than that other part — if even by a small amount.

In the above example, even though the foreground sea foam and rock reflections are actually darker than the distant ocean surface, the final image renders the distant ocean as being darker.

The key concept here is that over larger image regions our eyes adjust to changing brightness such as looking up at a bright sky , while over smaller distances our eyes do not.

Mimicking this characteristic of vision can be thought of as a goal of the local adaptive method — particularly for brightness distributions which are more complex than the simple vertical blend in the ocean sunset above. An example of a more complex brightness distribution is shown below for three statue images.

We refer to contrast over larger image distances as global contrast, whereas contrast changes over smaller image distances are termed local contrast. The local adaptation method attempts to maintain local contrast, while decreasing global contrast similar to that performed with the ocean sunset example.

The above example illustrates visually how local and global contrast impact an image. Note how the large-scale global patches of light and dark are exaggerated for the case of high global contrast.

Conversely, for the case of low global contrast the front of the statue's face is virtually the same brightness as it's side. The original image looks fine since all tonal regions are clearly visible, and shown with sufficient contrast to give it a three-dimensional appearance. Now imagine that we started with the middle image, which would be an ideal candidate for HDR conversion. Tonal mapping using local adaptation would likely produce an image similar to the far right image although perhaps not as exaggerated , since it retains local contrast while still decreasing global contrast thereby retaining texture in the darkest and lightest regions.

The distance which distinguishes between local and global contrast is set using the radius value. Radius and threshold are similar to the settings for an unsharp mask used for local contrast enhancement.

A high threshold improves local contrast, but also risks inducing halo artifacts, whereas too low of a radius can make the image appear washed out. For any given image, it is recommended to adjust each of these to see their effect, since their ideal combination varies depending on image content.

In addition to the radius and threshold values, images almost always require adjustments to the tonal curve. This technique is identical to that described in the Photoshop curves tutorial , where small and gradual changes in the curve's slope are nearly always ideal. This curve is shown for our doorway example below, yielding the final result.

HDR images which have been converted into 8 or bit often require touching up in order to improve their color accuracy. Subtle use of levels and saturation can drastically improve problem areas in the image. In general, regions which have increased in contrast a large slope in the tonal curve will exhibit an increase in color saturation, whereas the opposite occurs for a decrease in contrast.

Changes in saturation may sometimes be desirable when brightening shadows, but in most other instances this should be avoided. The main problem with the local adaptation method is that it cannot distinguish between incident and reflected light.

Ghost trails appear along the edges of any objects that were moving in the original images. Tone the image. Use Camera RAW for toning. If you use Photoshop CS6 or Lightroom 5, save a bit.

Now, you can use your familiar controls to adjust the exposure, open shadows, introduce clarity, add warmth, and make any other adjustments you desire. He notes that the HDR is much more vibrant, detailed, and shows a great dynamic range.

Add this tool to your editing repertoire to add depth and detail to your best photographs. Join over , photographers of all experience levels who receive our free photography tips and articles to stay current:. I just wanted to take a thumbs up for this great article. Spending hours watching the process with single exposure photos. This is awesome. The photos came out beautiful.

I just want to think twice to go or make something more realistic. Can you use copies of the same image or do they need to be of different exposure values.