Commentary # 47: January 2011
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Increasing Dynamic Range - With Just ONE Exposure


January 2011


- by Craig Wassel


I am kicking off my 2011 commentaries with a break from commentary, and instead with my first foray into a Quicktime Photoshop tutorial. I think it will be not only useful to digital photographers, but also thought provoking. This tutorial is about an alternative to High Dynamic Range software.

Like many photographers, I have been interested in high dynamic range techniques and software and have been experimenting with them for a couple of years. As I look around online, though, it seems that the goal of many HDR photographers has become to produce "painterly", ethereal images rather than produce natural looking images that have an extra stop or two of exposure range.

The over-processed (in my opinion) look of so much HDR is not much to my liking, and in so much experimenting with HDR plug-ins and software I have found that "HDR" look hard to avoid. There are other things about most HDR software and techniques I don't care for, like using a tripod and taking multiple exposures to get the best results. There is also the element of developing HDR images; getting the stack of different exposures aligned to minimize the "ghosting" that is the result of anything moving (including the tripod) is a challenge. So often final edits that look aligned and clean on a monitor do not hold up when printed larger, when smaller ghosting artifacts can show up and ruin a print.

I am glad I have spent so much time experimenting with different software and techniques, though, because it has brought me to the point of developing my own method that takes bits and pieces of what I have learned and combines them into one very flexible and effective approach. The Quicktime video below demonstrates it, but before you play it here are the highlights of it:

  1. You only need ONE well exposed RAW image - although you can use more than one if you like or need (that re-introduces the "ghosting" challenge, though)


  2. You don't need to use a tripod - although you can if you like or need


  3. You don't need any special software - other than an image editor that is capable of reading RAW files and creating layers and masks. If you are reading this, chances are you already have Photoshop and everything you need.
So with only a little further adieu of a few footnotes, you can view the tutorial below by clicking here (link) or on the image below. I did have some production problems with microphone level, so you might want to grab some earphones.



Footnotes:
[a.] If you don't have Quicktime player, the page should prompt you and give you a download link. If not, you can download it here (link)

[b.] Some have asked me if this method can be done using one .jpg image instead of a RAW image. The answer is "not really". RAW images and RAW image processors give much better exposure compensation results than merely brightening or darkening a .jpg file

[c.] The video is about 21 megabytes and runs for around 9 minutes. Hopefully it will stream quickly to your computer, but give it a few moments if it does not start playing immediately.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial, and feel free to email me if you have any questions.

". . . Advances in equipment and in technology have always made the impossible merely difficult and the difficult little more than routine. The area that we can all concentrate on now is being creative. . . ."

~ Neil Turner ~








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" . . . I am glad I have spent so much time experimenting with different software and techniques, though, because it has brought me to the point of developing my own method that takes bits and pieces of what I have learned and combines them into one very flexible and effective approach . . . "








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