High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imagery
      All images copyright Alan Cole 2008 Usually 5-9 RAW files, 2/3 to 1 stop apart, processed in Photomatix Pro.  
All available light.
It's a lot of fun - but addictive - and can occupy a lot of your free time.

I used a WhiBal card to get the
right white balance for these interiors,
and applied the same settings
to all images in the range during RAW conversion before HDR-ing.

I've tried several RAW converters and workflow combinations, including RAW conversion in Photomatix and converting prior to it.  I think that the best results have come from converting RAWs to TIFFs and doing white balance before Photomatix instead of in PS after Photomatix.

HDR preserved the tonal range all the way through the kitchen down to the contrasting black and gray in the oven door.

 

The Basic Gear

  • Nikon D2H (4.2MP - it ain't all about the number of pixels, folks)
  • Tokina ATX124 12-24mm
  • WhiBal Card for white balance
  • Ambient lighting

 

 

The cabinets and bench to the left of the fireplace, I'm told, were milled from a tree taken from the owner's childhood home.

Always remember to light the fire!

Camera Settings for this image

  • ISO 200

  • f/11

  • 9 exposures, 1 stop apart
    1/350 to 0.7 seconds

  • Leave your f/ stop the same for the entire series!

Photomatix Settings (didn't save my settings, but loaded the mid-point images and tried to come close...)

  • DetailEnhancer method

  • Strength in the 70's

  • Color Saturation in the 30's

  • White Point looked like quite a bit of clipping (bunched up on the right)

  • Light Smoothing midscale

Photoshop Cleanup (Lots)

  • Curves - slight S-curve to increase contrast

  • 82 cooling filter for the interior

  • 85 warming filter for the outside

  • Selective Color to take the yellow out of the lighting

  • Cloning to remove the window light from the floor in front of the counter

Your range of source images might look something like this 9-frame series that went into the final print above.

Properly applied HDR
can do this for you.

Look at the uniformity of the finishes on the floor, millwork and closet cubbies.

Now look at the single-frame white balance reference shot.  See now the floor appears a lot lighter and the cubbies, of course, darker because of the shadows.

 

WhiBal cards in action

                  

An otherwise harmless-looking tree