Part One Beginners Guide

Part One Beginners Guide

Note The explanations, workflow and everything else in this beginners guide is how I have developed my HDR images. The guide is just that, I am not trying to tell you this is the only way to produce HDR images far from it. On the internet are various tutorials and information about HDR images and a thousand and one ways with various software explaining all the in s and out s. This guide is a starting point for people wishing to try HDR or for those that wish to improve, I would encourage you to develop your own style. If you do have problems of any kind, feel free to contact me on faceonimages@btinternet.com I will help all I can. Les Forrester

Canon 5D Mk1117-40 F4 wide angle F16 ISO 100 3 images 0, -2, +2

Canon 5D Mk11 17-40 F4 wide angle F8 ISO 1250 handheld

Canon 5D Mk11 24mm tilt & shift F16 ISO100 2 X 3 images 0, -2, +2

Canon 5D Mk11 17-40 wide angle F11 ISO 50 3 images 0, -02, +1

Canon 5D 24mm Tilt & Shi< F16 ISO 100 3 X 3 images, mixture of 9 exposures

Canon 5D Mk11 24mm Tilt & Shift F16 ISO 100 2 X 3 images of 0, -2, +2

Canon 5D Mk11 17-40 wide angle F16 ISO100 0, -1, +1 images

Canon 20D 8.2mp 10-20mm Sigma F16 ISO 100 multiple exposures

Basic set up

Wacom tablet or similar is extremely useful for the processing of images

Hardware DSLR Wide angle to medium focal length Canon Cable release would be handy but you can use the camera self timer Level bubble fits into the flash shoe just helps get everything straight Tripod & head

Settings - it is handy that everything is set the same through your workflow but not essential- the list below just shows my settings in various components

HDR Settings for the camera A basic and good starting point

Camera Position Shooting the subject Landscape or Portrait Whichever the camera needs to be level with your subject OK Not OK

Aperture - Exposure / Focus DOF HDR usually your are looking for sharpness throughout the image Choose a smaller aperture Small aperture = Big number F8 F11 F16 these would be suitable Shoot in AV Mode - Aperture Priority (Canon) A Mode - Aperture Priority (Nikon) Reason for AV/A Mode is to keep the F-stop constant ShooKng with the lens in Manual Mode Switch the AF to MF

Aperture - Exposure / Focus DOF Metering Mode Use Evaluative metering White Balance Use AWB auto white balance Shoot with Continuous mode rather One shot Shoot in RAW format

Camera mode set to bracketing Different cameras = different set up Your camera will set to take either 3 / 5/ 7 images 7 = will produce 0, -1, -2, -3, +1, +2, +3 5 = will produce 0, -1, -2, +1, +2 or 0, -2, -3, -2, +3 3 = will produce 0, -1, +1 or 0,-2, +2 Good starting point 0-2 +2

Next section Creating the HDR image

GBSP 2012 Gold Medal YPU 2012 Award Best Architectural Print 2011 Wath Salon, Solway, Glasgow, Welsh Internationals, Swansea, Royal Photographic Society

hqp://www.hdrso<.com

Upload images direct Upload via Adobe Lightroom 4

+1 stop 0 stop -1 stop The Images used to demonstrate the process with Photomatix and the settings I have given you below

Method of uploading directly into PhotomaKx

Use RAW or Tiff files those in the box opposite (jpegs) were for demonstrakng

A<er loading the image, this box appears, I have le< it set how I would use it

Tone mapping with detailed enhancer My base se`ngs page one

Tone mapping with detailed enhancer My base se`ngs page two

Tone mapping with detailed enhancer My base se`ngs page one

The 3 images at the base settings without moving any of the sliders

Result with various slider adjustments adjustments

PhotomaKx adjustments Strength went up to 80 SaturaKon up to 65 Light adjustment was kept at Natural Smooth highlights up to 65 White Point down to 0.65 Gamma up to 1.45 Micro smoothing down to 7.5 All these are the main sliders I tweak, every image is different So these adjustment will not work on your images, try various sliders on your images to see what effect you get, you can always go back to the starkng point and try again.

Final image adjustment via Photoshop

Photoshop adjustments The basic settings are levels and curves First check the levels The levels tool can move and stretch brightness levels in a histogram using three main components: a black point, white point and midtone slider. The position of the black and white point sliders redefine the histogram's "Input Levels" so they are mapped to the "Output Levels" (default is black (0) or white (255), respectively), whereas the midtone slider redefines the location of middle gray (128). Each slider is shown below as they appear in Photoshop's levels tool, with added blue labels for clarity There are various tutorials on the internet explaining about levels.

Photoshop adjustments Once you have finished your various adjustments, check the curves. By clicking where the lines cross it will drop a marker. Click on the two intersections to drop the markers Push the top one upwards to lighten the image Pull down a little the lower one, which darkens. You are looking for an S curve, again on the internet you will find lots of tutorials on the subject of curves.

Photoshop adjustments A simple but very effective way of sharpening images is the following method, it is one I use a lot. Sharpening with the High Pass method Instead of writing what is already available, take a look at this tutorial, it shows and explains the process very well http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/sharpen-highpass/ You can use the High Pass method in both Elements and Photoshop

I have purposely left out some of the Photoshop process that were demonstrated on the evening. It is one step at a time, use the HDR settings in this guide to experiment with your HDR images, that s what the evening was about. At the next evening there will be more on Photoshop which will help you develop your images, you could call it the next step. Thanks Les Forrester www.faceonimages.co.uk