Oct
17
2007
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2 Responses to “A question about creating Pseudo HDR images in Lightroom (and an answer)”
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I admire your hdr and pseudo hdr work very much. Have been working on using raw (Nikon D80/Lightroom/Photomatic Pro) and am wondering if you could direct me to some good stuff on processing the files in Lightroom after importing them.In using just one raw photo, instead of 3 or 5, (I understand that this is what you mean by pseudo hdr) I am wondering how to adjust the photo 1 or 2 exposures in both directions to emulate the triple shot with the tripod! Can this be done? Seems to me that if I could do that, the photo would be just as good as the standard way.
October 17th, 2007 at 8:18 pm Roger,
If you want to create the effect using Lightroom, you could create virtual copies of your image and then go to the Development module and make your exposure adjustments for the over and under images. Once you have done that, go down to the thumbnails, select all of the copies, and right-click (ctrl-click on a Mac) on your virtual copies and click on Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments. When you get your three separate exposures open in Photoshop, go the the File menu and then choose Automate and then Merge to HDR. When the dialog box opens, click on the Add Open Files button. Also, you can turn off the Attempt to Auto-Align Source Images check-box since your images all came from the same exposure and shouldn’t need aligning. A little warning box will pop up telling you that you will get better results from Raw images. Just click OK to start the process and get rid of the warning box. When the next dialog box opens, just click on OK to create the HDR file. Now that you have a file, go to File, and then Save As. In the dialog box, give your file a name and then select Radiance from the Format drop-down box. Now you have an HDR file that you can open in Photomatix Pro. Once you open the HDR file in Photomatix, go up to the HDR menu and select Tone Mapping and let the fun begin.That being said, you can also generate this HDR file directly from the Photomatix program. Under the Automate menu is a selection titled Single File Conversion. This will open a dialog box that will let you select your single Raw image and then turn it into a Pseudo HDR.As for being just as good as the 3 or 5 shot HDR, I would have to say that it isn’t just because you aren’t able to work with the expanded dynamic range available from multiple exposures. The single image is only using what is available in terms of dynamic range from the Raw image which, when using multiple images, is much broader and contains a ton more exposure information for the shadows and highlights. I will usually use the single exposure method when I just didn’t have a tripod handy or on older Raw images. Also, as I have said in past blog entries, it’s not for every image and sometimes it can really make an image look worse. But in the end, it’s all about what you have in mind, not anyone else. I hope this has been of some help.