Ever heard of the term high dynamic range imaging or HDR? All the rage in the world of digital photography seems to be about HDR nowadays. So if you haven’t heard about it yet or don’t have a clue about what it is, then perhaps it’s time for an introduction to High Dynamic Range Digital Photography.
First, let’s define what HDR is. The HDR is a set of techniques that allows for greater dynamic range of exposures as compared to the normal digital imaging techniques. HDR can be applied in photography, computer graphics, and image processing. Thus, you can apply HDR techniques when taking shots or when editing it in your computer. The purpose of HDR or HDRI is to be able to showcase the wide range of intensity levels that are visible in real life scenarios. These could be the shadows or the sunlight or even the reflections in the sea among other things. However, the images that are being called as HDR or HDRI images are actually those that have already been tone-mapped.
Now that we’ve discussed the definition of HDR or High Dynamic Range, we now want to learn what tone mapping is. One of the techniques to edit photos is called tone mapping. It is used both in computer graphics and image processing. The technique is done by mapping a set of colors to another. This is a different approach to editing photos. Basically, what it does is to approximate with a limited dynamic range, the HDR images in media. For example, take a look at the images in LCD monitors, CRT, projectors, and printouts. The images that come out from these types of media have limited dynamic range, meaning, it is inadequate to produce the natural intensities that we can see in real life. The tone mapping technique does this. It manages to tone down the high contrast from the scene values to the range of the media displaying it.
Now to be able to produce real HDR images, you will need some plug-ins to use with your photo-editing software. But if you want to produce HDR images when taking shots, you can do so too. You will need to take multiple exposures with the use of your SLR’s auto exposure bracketing or AEB setting. But if you want to make use of your photo editing software or image processing software, try the Photomatix or the ReDynaMix plug-ins to use with let’s say your Adobo Photoshop, for example, to edit your photo to look like HDR images!
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