6 tips to boost your HDRs

March 7, 2007

The HDR hype is out there, people seem to enjoy it (I sure do) and most photos look much better with the HDR effect, but HDR could be also a way to completely mess up your photograph.

Here are tips to make a good HDR photograph:

1. Shoot cloudy Skies

As you can see, cloudy skies provide great material for HDR. Remember that after tweaking the picture in Photomatix, play with CURVES in Photoshop so you can add more drama (by ading black) to the sky.

2. Don´t over do it.

HDR can produce some unrealistic results if you process it much. But if you just use it to help you reveal light in your pic you could end up with a great shot like this. Try with small adjustments in Photomatix first. (I´m sure the original pic of this shot was fairly dark)

3. Sunsets

These are bait for HDR shooters because well, they just come out great. Most of your sunset shots wont need much tweaking in Photoshop, but remember to play with the curves tool.

4. Shoot metal and rubber

When you have a shot with either these two materials, once in Photoshop tweak the contrast and saturation and notice the results!

5. Over do it

I know I just said Don´t over do it, but in some cases you´ll get a much better result by tweaking it to the max in Photomatix. (This pic has no Photoshop)

6. Go wide