Old Mission at San Juan Batista Canon 7D, 17-55mm Chapel inside the San Juan Batista Mission near Hollister, CA (built 1817) How was this photograph taken? This is a HDR (High Dynamic Range image) of three bracketed exposures merged together in Photomatix. The window on the far right was still too bright in the composite image. I merged in the window from a bracketed exposure using a simple layer mask.

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Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia
(HDR)

Fort Point, San Francisco
Canon 7D, 17-55mm

This is a HDR image of Fort Point made from two bracketed images.

Hoysala Architecture
Karnataka, India
Summer 2012

Old Mission at San Juan Batista
Canon 7D, 17-55mm

Chapel inside the San Juan Batista Mission near Hollister, CA (built 1817)

How was this photograph taken?

This is a HDR (High Dynamic Range image) of three bracketed exposures merged together in
Photomatix. The window on the far right was still too bright in the
composite image. I merged in the window from a bracketed exposure
using a simple layer mask.

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography

Here's a short tutorial on how to do HDR photography. This image was taken inside the main chapel at San Juan Batista Mission, near Hollister, CA. Some parts of the scene were in deep shadow, whereas others were lit by the window on the left. Digital camera sensors struggle to record extreme light ranges which are easily handled by our human eyes. High dynamic range photography is one of the techniques that can be used to capture a wide range of light levels and tone map it into a single image which represents the scene as seen by the human eye.

To process a HDR image, it is easiest to use the auto-bracket function in your digital SLR. Most cameras support taking three bracketed images - I usually bracket images at -2EV, 0, +2EV. Further, HDR software like Photomatix Pro, can auto-align hand-held shots, which is handy if you are shooting without a tripod.

Once in Photomatix, I play around with the luminosity, lighting, white point and the dark point sliders till I get the image looking just right - not too "HDR-ish". The next step is to save the image as a 16-bit TIFF file. At this point I will re-import the tone mapped TIFF file back into Lightroom.

The final step of processing is to export the image back into an image editing program - I use Adobe Photoshop CS6. Once in Photoshop, I will further enhance the image using curves and luminosity layers, and a final bit of burning/dodging, resulting in an image like the one you see.

The interior exhibit room. This was a HDR processed from three bracketed exposures. The tools used by the native Americans are displayed in the cases on the right.

Old Mission at San Juan Batista
Canon 7D, 17-55mm

Chapel inside the San Juan Batista Mission near Hollister, CA (built 1817)

How was this photograph taken?

This is a HDR (High Dynamic Range image) of three bracketed exposures merged together in
Photomatix. The window on the far right was still too bright in the
composite image. I merged in the window from a bracketed exposure
using a simple layer mask.