10 years ago, it was commonplace to see extreme HDR tone-mapped images all over the photographic community. Between cameras with better sensors and a change in tastes, HDR isn’t all that noticeable anymore. This week, we look at the role HDR plays in our own photography and the techniques we use when processing our images.
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Did you know that with a little tweaking, you can extract tremendous dynamic range from single RAW files in Adobe Lightroom without using HDR? The trick is to take advantage of Lightroom’s Camera Calibration panel. There, you set the initial tone curve of your image (contrast & color). By using a low-contrast tone curve, you can recover more highlight and shadow details than by using sliders alone. If you use Nikon DSLRs, you can choose the “Camera Flat” profile to get more dynamic range. If you don’t have a Nikon camera, you can create your own custom profile with a linear tone curve by using the Adobe DNG Profile Editor. My video above will show you how.
Discover more Lightroom processing secrets with my comprehensive PDF guide.
Join me February 6th, 2016 for special tripod access to photograph the amazing vehicle collection at the Forney Museum of Transportation, followed by a hands-on HDR image processing workshop where we will process our images together.
The Forney Museum of Transportation has a wonderful collection of 600 historical transportation artifacts, including antique cars, motorcycles, and the famous Union Pacific “Big Boy” steam locomotive #4005. There is even a car once owned by Amelia Earhart on display and a huge collection of classic Indian motorcycles.
In this workshop, we’ll have exclusive tripod access before the museum opens to the public. Normally, tripods are not permitted in the museum. After the shooting session, we will download and process HDR images and I will teach you the best practices for HDR photography and post-processing.
When: Saturday, December 5th from 1-2:30pm US Mountain Time (3-4:30pm Eastern)
Where: Online class via GoTo Meeting
How to register: Registration is via my Meeup.com workshops page. If you’re not already a group member, just create a free profile and then you can register.
This online class is a great opportunity to learn about how HDR works and the best way to optimize camera and software settings to create your own HDR images, from completely natural to the surreal.
Attendees receive a printable PDF notes package and will be able to ask questions live during the presentation!
I just got word that Aurora HDR for Mac was updated today to version 1.1 with a significant improvement for Lightroom users. Before today, Aurora would only open original images (usually RAW) from Lightroom. Now, you can choose “Use TIFF files with Lightroom adjustments.” Continue reading Aurora HDR Update 1.1 Improves Lightroom Support