Posts Tagged ‘High dynamic range images’

How to Take Natural Looking Landscape HDR Photos

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Author: Max Therry

HDR photography can create some absolutely jaw-dropping effects when implemented correctly. This type of photography, however, can be extremely difficult to perfect. Due to the nature of HDR composite shots, the finished piece can often look artificial and contrived – in short, you can tell that it is an HDR shot. If you want to achieve perfection and create magnificent HDR photos, the finished piece should look natural, and people should not be able to tell that it has been edited.

Landscape HDR photography presents additional challenges due to the high level of contrast in the composition. Let’s look at an example – you have hiked to Malham Cove in the Yorkshire Dales and want to take a shot of the rocks and surrounding countryside. The only issue is that the sky is hugely over-exposed, whilst the rocks and fields are under-exposed and wreathed in shadow – due to the extreme contrast, an HDR composition of this particular scene could look unnatural.

So how can you achieve perfection and improve your HDR photography? How can you capture stunning landscape photos and create a final effect that looks both beautiful and natural? If you follow the simple steps and guidelines we have formulated below, we are confident you can improve your HDR compositions ten-fold!

Sun shining through the leaves of a lone tree in a field, natural looking HDR image

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Written by Discover Digital Photography

March 1st, 2018 at 9:36 pm

Fixing exposure problems – What to do if your photos are too bright or too dark

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Although the auto exposure of modern cameras is pretty good, they doesn't always get it right. This is especially true if there is a large difference in brightness between your subject and the background.

For example, a person in a dimly lit room with the sun shining in through a window behind them. You'd probably end up with a photo where the person is a silhouette, but the window is exposed correctly. Great if this is what you wanted, but not so great if you were trying to capture the person's portrait.

Underexposed portrait photo
IMG_0870.JPG by busbeytheelder on flickr (licensed CC-BY-SA)

There are a few different things you can do to fix this. We'll first look at the camera settings etc. you can use to fix the problem on location. Then we'll look at options for fixing existing shots using image editing software.

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