gmcnaughton (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} gmcnaughton) wrote,@ 2007-03-04 22:32:00 |
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| Entry tags: | hdr, photography |
HDR Photography
When some people take HDR photos (HDR = high dynamic range), they look ridiculously, breath-takingly beautiful.
When I take them, it looks like I had a camera malfunction, or like light leaked in from the fourth dimension. While the effect is unusual, it is not quite as stunning.
I made a page of links to HDR resources. The math behind the process is interesting, but the basic idea is:
- Take several pictures of the same scene at different exposures. (DSLR owners: shoot in aperture-priority mode with auto exposure bracketing set to +2/-2. This can be found under Menu on my Canon.)
- Digitally post-process the photos into a single HDR. This image will contain correctly-exposed data for all parts of the scene, from the brightest to the darkest. (People with money use Photomatix. I use QtPFSGui).
- Tone-map the resulting image back into a JPEG (e.g., squash the 32-bit HDR back down into an 8-bit JPEG). (Again, I use QtPFSGui.)
- You're done!
