Some of you may be familiar with HDR photography. It is basically the layering together of multiple exposures into one image. The overexposed shot picks up the details in the shadows while the underexposed shot eliminates ‘blowouts’ of highlighted areas. This is extremely helpful for us architects, especially in photographing interiors. Our eyes see many more levels of light then a single camera exposure can capture so an HDR image is more visually accurate…if you want it to be.

I was first introduced to HDR Photography by the talented photographer Steve Silverman and I thought I would try it myself!  The test images at the top of the page (I know, not that inspiring of a scene!) are 3 different exposures of the same shot taken at 2 f-stops apart. Most newer DSLR cameras have this as a standard function. I then imported them into Photomatix, one of the more popular HDR programs. Trey Ratcliff, an expert in HDR has a link from his website for a discount plus some great tutorials.  The program has several presets to try and a bunch of sliders to…well, slide.  It is fun and frustrating to play with the settings and it takes a bit of trial and error to get something you like.

This first image is my attempt  to get a somewhat accurate representation of detail in the shadows as well as the highlight areas.  This image is right out of Photomatix.  I would then adjust the color, etc. in Photoshop.

The other image is a more surreal or ‘painterly’ look.  Kind of fun!  Please click on the images to make them larger.

Here are some examples of HDR Photography from people who know what they are doing.

Written by Michael Huber AIA LEED AP
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