HDR Tutorial / Discuss

Ryan Eng says:

:: The Why ::

I've made this tutorial to teach people how to create an HDR image and show how to fix that nasty halo that Photomatix creates around objects with simple blending. My overall goal is to achieve a more "natural" looking HDR photo using some basic DRI (aka Digital Blending) and Photoshop layer masks. In my brief HDR journey I've come across hundreds of decent HDR photos that could have been real masterpieces if they had just spent a little extra time in Photoshop. Now for those of you who like that 'halo' in your photos and like extremely fake looking HDR's then this tutorial probably will not help much.

Before and After.
- The left image is the tone mapped file straight from Photomatix 3 with no Photoshop adjustments. The right image has been fixed with digital blending, a layer of curves, saturation, an unsharp mask of 100 at 50% opacity.

- Click Image To See Larger




Equipment used for this tutorial
- Nikon D90
- Sigma 10-20mm
- Photomatix v3.0
- Adobe Photoshop CS2 (CS3 or higher makes it easier with the Quick Selection tool)

This is my first tutorial so hopefully it makes sense. I'll try to make it as straight forward as possible If you notice any errors, have any suggestions, or have any questions, please post here and I will reply. Thanks.




:: The How ::

- Step 1
Keep the camera on Aperture Priority mode, turn Auto Bracket on and shoot the different exposures. With the Nikon D90 the easiest way to bracket more than 3 exposures is by using the Exposure Compensation button. Set it to -1 and auto bracket 3 exposures, then quickly set it to 0 and auto bracket 3 exposures, finally set it to +1 and auto bracket 3 exposures. When you're done you'll have (-3,-2,-1,0,+1,+2,+3) and an extra -1,+1 which you can just delete.


- Step 2
Generate HDR in Photomatix using Detail Enhancer. You can use any settings you want. I'm still not even sure what the optimal settings are yet. The red arrows are the halo that photomatix creates. This is what we will be fixing.


- Step 3
Open the Photomatix tone mapped file along with the -2 and 0 exposure into Photoshop and copy/paste the two exposures onto the tone mapped file. (You can use any exposure to blend onto the tone mapped file. If it's too dark or too light you can change the opacity or use the paint brush on a low opacity to paint on the layer mask itself.)


- Step 4
Select the areas of the tone mapped file that have the halo with any of the selection tools (Quick Select in CS3 an CS4 is the easiest). Once you have that area selected apply a feather of 5-10px and click the 'apply layer mask' button. If you need to add more of the mask or take away some just use the paint brush and change the opacity to the desired level. Use the color White to reveal more of the selected exposure or Black to hide. Then select the layer mask of that layer and paint where needed.



- Step 5
Once you've reduced the halo and achieved a desired look it's time to finish it off. Apply a layer mask and make the diagonal line in a slight S curve. Add a layer of saturation. And if you want to sharpen the image a bit just merge all the photo layers together and go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask. Set it anywhere from 100-200. A LucisArt filter called Wheyth has similar effects with some contrast.

- Click Image To See Larger


- Final Image






:: You ::

Hope this tutorial has helped anyone with this problem. Please feel free to comment or add suggestions below.
- Ryan Eng.



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Originally posted at 9:56AM, 24 November 2008 PDT (permalink)
Ryan Eng edited this topic 55 months ago.