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In order to capture the dynamic range of an HDR scene you need to bracket several exposures. For the best results you must ensure, that with the exception of exposure times, little varies from frame to frame. The best way to do this is to lock your settings in manual mode.

Most modern cameras allow you to save custom user settings in the camera so that they are easy to recall when you need them. If you are serious about HDR photography it makes sense to dedicate one of these custom user settings for HDR.

Here is the list of settings I recommend.

So often we come across an interesting landscape or cityscape and just start shooting. Just as often we return to our computers to find a troublesome power line, car or other distraction that kills the shot. In this tip Terry Eggers shows us how to combine HDR techniques and Photoshope CS5 to eliminate those distractions.

Here's Terry:

I captured three images to use in this HDR image which I show here in Adobe's asset manager Bridge. I generally work with three images captured at minus -2 stops, plus +2 stops and one image with the exposure right on. This spread of exposures allows for more detail in the shadows and the highlights. Then I merge and edit the images with HDR Express, my HDR package of choice.

In this example I've chosen to use the "Vivid" preset and then made some additional minor adjustments. I made adjustments to exposure and contrast and I've also adjusted the warmth slider to the left just a little. This is done to bring the color to what I remember the balance was.

In my previous tip, I recommended that you shoot more photos than you will actually need to create the HDR Image, and demonsrtated how to later decide which ones to actually use for the HDR process. The idea was that by shooting more on location you will better ensure that you have covered the whole dynamic range of the scene and have a couple spare shots to use if needed just in case something may have gone wrong with one or more of the shots you took.

When it comes to the HDR Merge process you’ll actually want to use as few of the images as possible to get the job done.

Here's one of the most valuable tips we've had the pleasure to pass on to you. Whether you do HDR photography or just stick to the basics, commit this tip to memory! Be advised that this tip requires the use of Photoshop CS5.

I've been shooting since the 1980s but I never took the time to acquire an effective and easy method of adjusting converging perspectives in my images. Anyone who's walked around a quaint little village on a photo excursion has taken their wide angle lens and gone crazy shooting old buildings, fountains, plazas and churches.

If you're shooting up from street level all the vertical lines tend to converge to the top of the image. This can be corrected using a perspective control lens but who among us carries such an animal unless we do architecture photography professionally?

Here we have the perfect solution to fix this problem from Julie Eggers which she demonstrates on a recent Florence image.

Here's Julie: Read More

How many times have you come home from a trip, looked at your photos and wished you’d only taken one step to the left or right to avoid something that ruined your composition? Or, you thought you had the shot only to later find out that a bird flew through the scene or you’ve had some other technical glitch?

When shooting for HDR these issues are compounded because of the exposure series you need to capture in order to cover the whole dynamic range of the original scene.

Our favorite travel photographer Terry Eggers is in Tuscany as you read this. He's generating some great images which he'll be sharing with us, complete with shooting tips.

Here's Terry commenting on shooting the Blue Light.

The short window before sunrise and particularly after sunset are known as the blue light time to photograph. I've made some of my favorite images during this truly magic time of day.

The timing for these shoots is easy. You will need to start shooting around 45 min. before sunrise. This blue light will end about 15-20 min. before sunrise. Shooting blue light after sunset takes place 15- 20 min. after sunset and will last about 20 min. You can see you need to be up and out early for sunrise and be out late after sunset to capture these great images.

To capture these images I shoot on aperture priority and use the depth of field to cover the subject. For the images I 'm using as examples, I was set at f11 and used HDR Express with a 3 shot capture. The first was right on exposure. The next was -2 stops and the third was +2 stops. This allows for more shadow detail and also covers the highlights. Be aware not every place will require using an HDR capture. Make sure to check your histograms. These tell the story. You just need to cover the light.

In an evening shooting situation here's what you can expect to see before the Blue Light kicks in.

After the Blue Light retreats you can expect to be shooting in normal evening mode where the sky is black.

As I write this tip I am in Florence Italy and have 12 people with me for a photo tour of Tuscany. We have been out early and stayed out late. The blue light has been with us for the trip. I hope you get a chance to try this. I'm am sure the resulting images will be an extra tool in bag.

This is the second of ten valuable HDR photography tips from our VP of Marketing, John Omvik. Check back here every few days to see another tip. All of John's tips will remain on our blog.

Capture The Whole Range

One of the questions I am asked most often is, “How many photos do I need to shoot for HDR, 3, 5, more? The answer to this question is as it is for so many photography questions; It depends. The truth is, there is no single answer that will apply to all cases. The dynamic range of every scene can vary significantly. As I mentioned in my first tip, there are many types of low contrast scenes that don’t even require HDR techniques.

You need to develop an eye for contrast to see when HDR is actually needed. This typically begins with bright sun lit landscapes and cityscapes that have high contrast levels between the shade and bright lit areas. If you have a landscape scene with a dramatic cloudy sky and you want to bring out the tonality of the clouds as well as the landscape below, this may be a good use for HDR.

If you are balancing an interior room exposure with windows, this is definitely a HDR situation. If you have small bright light sources and dark shadow areas that you want to capture you have an even higher contrast range.
The key to all of these is making sure that you have enough bracketed exposures. It is critical that your exposure series be large enough to capture the whole dynamic range of the scene, make sure that you not only shoot the right number of bracketed shots, but that you are also capturing the key highlight information.

The best way to confirm this is to check the camera histogram to ensure that the selected range has at least one image containing all highlight information. In most images shadow areas are not as critical as highlights and can be clipped in order to preserve a certain level of contrast.

The best way to verify your HDR Exposures is with the histogram view on the LCD display. Make sure that you have a shot with a gap between where the data ends on the left and the left side of the histogram. This indicates that you have at least one underexposed frame that preserves the highlight information. From there simply increase your exposure time by 1-stop i.e. double the exposure time. If the image with the gap was shot at 1/1000th f/8.0 shoot the next one stop brighter at 1/500th f/8.0 and the next at 1/250th f/8.0 until you see a gap between where the data starts on the right and the right side of the histogram.

Here is an example of an HDR scene I photographed. I wasn’t sure how many stops of exposure were needed to render the dynamic range of the scene so I set my Nikon D300 to bracket 9 exposures at 1-stop increments to ensure that I captured everything. If you are using a camera that does not support 9-stop bracketing, you can set the camera in manual mode and manually double the shutter speed between each exposure or use a programmable 3rd party device such as the Promote Remote to set the brackets.

You can see that this scene has a lot of rich shadow detail as well as some definition in the clouds even though it was an overcast day. After the first 0ev default exposure, I could tell that HDR was needed.

Note how both the shadows and the highlights are clipped. There is no way a single exposure could capture the full range of this scene.

John Omvik has spent his entire working career in the photo industry. He's developed a slew of great products ranging from digital camera designs to software to pro NAND Flash memory devices and even a photo security product. John's also an accomplished pro photographer and he never misses a chance to shoot.

Since coming to Unified Color he's concentrated on the issues surrounding HDR photography and he's developed a great set of tips that, if followed, will raise your success level with HDR photography. Check back here over the next few days as we'll be rolling out these tips a little at a time.

John says:

1. Know When To Use HDR, And When Not To

As much as we’d like to think so, not every scene requires HDR processing. Evaluate the contrast of the scene before taking photos, if the contrast is low you won’t need HDR and you’ll get better results with a single exposure.

Overcast or foggy landscape scenes do not usually require HDR treatment

Clear sunny skies or rooms with bright windows usually have to high a contrast to capture in a single shot and can benefit from HDR. Here's a perfect example of a low-contrast image that just doesn't require HDR techniques.

And, here's another image that didn't need HDR techniques because the difference between light and dark in the image was not wide enough to make HDR worthwhile.

In this following image you can see the wide spread between the lightest and darkest points in the image. This is where HDR was employed for a very pleasing effect.

The Eggers returned from their instructional tour through Portugal and Spain a couple of weeks ago. When you're shooting every day you don't always get to process your entire take in the evening. That's why returning home can be exhilarating even though you're dog tired from the trip. Your hard drives are full of images that need editing, processing and a little time to be enjoyed.

The Eggers passed through Avila, Spain on their way to Madrid which was the last stop on their trip. Here are some great images they worked on after returning home.

This one is by Julie Eggers: "I have just processed this image from Avila Spain where Terry and I stopped for one night before arriving in Madrid. Avila is a Spanish city located in the community of Castile and Leon, capital of the province of the same name. The city is notable for having complete medieval city walls."

"This town scene would not have been possible had it been processed as one image. The dark foreground was in shadow, and the buildings had bright evening light on them. HDR Express allowed me to combine 3 images, one underexposed 2 stops, one even exposure, and one image overexposed 2 stops. It also gave me more saturation in the colors."

Here's a great one from Terry: "These images are from the night shoot in Madrid. This one is the Metropolis Building. I shot it at 30mm to give the wide look. Again it was captured using three exposures at +2, -2 and the right exposure."

"The Metropolis Building or Edificio Metrópolis is an office building in Madrid, Spain, at the corner of the Calle de Alcalá andGran Vía. Inaugurated in 1911, it was designed by Jules and Raymond Février for the insurance company La Unión y el Fénix. It is currently owned by Metrópolis Seguros."

Terry and Julie Eggers continue to make their way through Spain and Portugal leading an excited workshop group. We have to say that the images coming in from the Eggers' are showing some of the best use of HDR techniques we've seen yet. The Eggers' use HDR Express and they say that its gets them the HDR file they want quickly and without color shifts. With a little further processing in Photoshop their images are ready to go.

Let's take a look at their latest group of images.

Here is one of the Spiral staircases in The Convent of Christ of Tomar, one of Portugal's most important historical and artistic monuments. It has been in the World Heritage list of UNESCO since 1983. Notice the detail in the area of the window which would be blown out using a single exposure. The image was shot hand-held and processed using HDR Express. A 15mm fisheye was used.

The Festival of the Trays is held in the Portugal town of Tomar every four years. The Festival can be traced back to the 16th century when it was a five day Fair.

The streets are decorated with paper roses and there is music as well. When the festival starts the most colorful and original decorated street of Tomar receives an award. It is a unique event with music and a procession where young women carry on her head a tray with 30 loaves. The last Festival of the Trays was in July 2007. The Eggers were very fortunate that this was the year since we decided to visit Portugal.

Here is a closer look at the paper flowers created for the festival. They a very large up to 2' across. I think the HDR made it possible to capture the color detail in the long road full of flowers. Just like the staircase, I used 3 exposures: +2, -2, and one right on.