Mister Wilson's Digital Photography Class: HDR Pro Project

Thursday, March 5, 2015

HDR Pro Project

Hello Students,

Your new assignment is to shoot a set of bracketed exposure images and combine them with Photoshop's "Merge to HDR Pro" feature. HDR Pro is a powerful tone mapping program, and is the best way to merge multi-exposure images.

Project Requirements:

• You will produce 4 final images for this project.

• You must use a tripod to shoot a set of multiple exposure images. and then combine them with the Merge to HDR Pro feature in photoshop. Take 3 different exposures, underexposed, normal and overexposed. Team up since we only have a few tripods.

• Write down the shutter speed, aperture and ISO for each image you take, HDR Pro may need this information. You can look it up in your EXIF data as well. Use the inspector in the Preview program to see the data.

• For your first image you will merge the separate exposures and use the sliders in the HDR Pro interface to achieve your best desired look.

• For the other 3 images, reload your separate exposures in HDR Pro and choose your 3 favorite Presets from the Preset Menu.

• Upload your 4 final images as jpgs to your blog when complete.

Tips and Advice to get great results:

Subject matter is your choice, but avoid any portraits or any subject that will move between taking each picture.
HDRI process works best with landscapes, cars, architecture and objects that have rich texture or very shiny surfaces, like cars.
HDR Pro can align your images, but if there is too much movement between exposures than results can be less than desirable.
Use a tripod, it is mandatory for this project!
If you want to use this for portraiture, make sure your subject can hold themselves extremely still between shots... otherwise there will be ghosting and blur in your image.