What is HDR Photography And How to Use HDR Correctly

You have many questions if you are a beginner photographer and encounter such a concept as HDR photography. This article provides a brief and very accessible explanation of this concept and how you can use it in your professional life. This information will help you make one spectacular picture out of several. There is a wide variety of artificial intelligence that will help with HDR photography. If you are interested in the best HDR software, you can try Luminar Neo, a photo editor that will help you improve your photos to the best of your ability.

HDR Photography: What Is It?

This photography technique means that you take two pictures simultaneously. Still, they have some distinctive parameters that allow you to overlay these two pictures on top of each other - one unique picture. To do this, of course, you have to use artificial intelligence that you are comfortable with. The choice of the program depends only on your requirements and convenience.

The Necessity Of Use

Any camera has a certain dynamic range, which prevents you from capturing radically different tones in the same frame, and in this case, the method in question comes to your aid. For example, if you take a photo of the ocean at sunrise against a bright sunlight background, one thing (the water or the sky) will come out not detailed or too dark. In this case, adjusting the exposure will not help you, no matter how much you experiment. To solve this problem, take two or more shots with the entire tonal range. To make it clearer, let's break down the shot options you can take as follows:

• take a dark shot that will capture all the details of the morning sky;
• a shot in bright colors will help us display every nuance of the ocean;
• as a frame with standard settings, which will display the other nuances of the medium tones.

After the above steps, we combine all these photos and get a good exposure.

When HDR Photography Can Come In Handy

In this section, apart from the advantages of this type of photography, it is important to point out its disadvantages. HDR is proper only in some cases because modern cameras can handle most tasks. We are talking about photo shoots in which the scene changes dynamically, which does not depend on you, and superimposing several photos is impossible. These can be situations such as:

• photographing a theater scene where the actors are constantly changing their location;
• or photographing a metropolis where people and cars are constantly moving around;
• even photographing an aquarium where the fish are moving chaotically.

With HDR Photography, you can't do without the help of a tripod so that the shots are millimeter-perfectly identical and avoid even the slightest shake. Approximate still situations when this technique of photography can be useful for you, namely:

• Photographing architecture during sunrise when you have different tonalities of the two plans, but you need to take a detailed and attractive photograph;
• When you are photographing at night but using artificial lighting.

Stages Of HDR Photography

To take an HDR photo, you need to know the steps involved in creating it. So let's get into the details. Primarily important, again, is the use of a tripod. Then switch your camera to manual mode to avoid changing exposures. Set the shutter speed for exposure balance and the minimum ISO (to eliminate unnecessary noise), and adjust the aperture for the sharpness you need.

Shooting Exposure

Once you set your settings up, I recommend either using the shutter speed mentioned above or a remote shutter. You take an experimental shot and see what kind of result you get. You should get quality exposed mid-tones. If the tones in the frame are darker or lighter than necessary - you need to change the shutter speed.

Overexposed And Underexposed Images

To achieve such an image, adjust the shutter speed, and keep the focus, ISO, and aperture settings unchanged. After that, the picture should be overexposed, with most details present. After that, perform the same action with a slower shutter speed so the picture will be underexposed. That is, the picture will have less detail and more tone.

Merging Files

To realize HDR Photography, you must join the frames together to create the conceived composition. This is where artificial intelligence comes in handy! Parameters in all programs are relatively the same, so the approximate sequence is as follows: select the frames and HDR function in the program section; it is also desirable to use the alignment or to defocus; use the option to combine - you get HDR-photography!

Improve The Resulting File

Of course, at this point, you are again turning to artificial intelligence and engaging in post-processing. What kind of processing depends only on your requirements, but the most popular changes are editing, exposure, contrast, sharpness, and color correction. Finally, we get a capture of the frame and then use it for its intended purpose!

Conclusion

All the basic words are already written. Next, it all depends on how carefully you read the set-forth information and how well you apply it to your work. You will succeed! Once you understand HDR Photography, learning more about HDR software is an excellent feature of Luminar Neo! So explore this photo editor, try it out and enjoy!