So you fancy trying a little high dynamic range (HDR) photography? well you’ll be happy to know that the basic technique isn’t too hard to master, the hard part is choosing the scenes that work well with the HDR effect. I’ve been experimenting now with HDR photography for about 2 years and its become a dominant theme in most of my work. HDR seems to have a strong polar effect when it comes to its fans and enemies within the photographic world with most people falling into two categories, those that love it and those who hate it! I guess those who love it like the surreal effect and the added depth that comes from the dynamic range of light something which you simply cant achieve from a standard exposure! Those who hate it claim the technique looks over processed and the increased saturation makes the image look fake and almost computer generated.
I must admit I fall in with those who love the effect! I like the extra detail, and the photos seem to jump out from those standard exposures they sit next to in my libraries. For that reason I decided I’d post a bit of a beginners guide on what tools to use and how to generate the kind of HDR images I produce. Everyone will have their own preferred methods and there are probably hundreds of other tools out there, some better and some worse than those I use, feel free to experiment as much as possible. I’d strongly encourage it but for those of you new to HDR photography I hope that by the end of this guide you’ll be able to start producing countless amounts of superb HDR shots….
