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drisley
21st of April 2006 (Fri), 05:03
After looking at joshuacraig's fantastic HDR Portraits (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=161391)
I decided to give it a try using Photoshop's Merge To HDR function.
I had read that you can't use this function with 1 raw image that is converted with different EC settings. I had tried it before, and sure enough photoshop wouldnt let me merge these images. I figured it read the exif data, so this time I output 5 images, and removed the exif when I saved them. VOILA, it works!

I left all Adobe Camera Raw settings the same for each image, but I output at -4EC, -2EC, 0EC, 2EC, 4EC. Then I combined using Merge To HDR and I manually entered the exposure settings for each image. The image was taken at 1/60s, so I just added or subtracted the stops for each image (for example, the -2EC was 1/240s, etc).

Then, I used the LOCAL ADAPTATION setting for output, and adjusted the tone curve. The final image was a bit flat, so in PS I added a curve layer and brought down the shadows a little. This isn't the best image for this type of processing, landscapes would be better, but it was fun to try.

Please feel free to try with your own images and post the results.

http://images2.fotop.net/albums2/sharpnsmart/miscellaneous/hdr.jpg

schmoelzel
21st of April 2006 (Fri), 07:06
Looks really good (w/HDR)! I am presuming that you need CS2 to do this??

In2Photos
21st of April 2006 (Fri), 07:15
That is awesome. Time to look back through some older images and give it a shot. I did a landscape HDR (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=153359), my first actually, about a month ago. It was fun. Thanks for showing this.

schmoelzel merge to HDR is only a function of CS2, but standalone products exist for less than the upgrade, like Photomatix. (http://www.hdrsoft.com/)

drisley
21st of April 2006 (Fri), 17:52
I later found that I could get somewhat similar results with PS's Shadow/Highlight tool.
Both these tools are very finicky, and require just the right tweaking to get a nice image.
While merge to hdr does work well using various raw exposures, I'm sure it works way better using various real exposures, like yours In2Photos.