IS HDR for you

HDR photography is a technique that combines multiple exposures of the same scene to capture more detail in both the highlights and shadows. When I first got into photography, I was fascinated by the look of HDR images, but I didn't fully understand how the process worked. In this post, I'll show you a simple example of how it works, from the individual exposures to the final edited image.

This photo was taken at -1 exposure −1 EV

The first image was taken at −1 EV, meaning it is one stop darker than the standard exposure. In photography, one stop represents a doubling or halving of the amount of light used to make an exposure.

By reducing the exposure, the camera captures more detail in the brighter areas of the scene. This can help preserve things like bright skies, clouds, reflections, and other highlights that might otherwise appear washed out or lose their texture.

When looking at this image, you may notice that the darker areas appear almost black or lack some detail. That's okay. The purpose of this exposure is to retain information in the brighter parts of the photograph, which can be used later when the images are combined.

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This photo was taken at 0 EV

The second image was taken at 0 EV, which represents the camera's standard metered exposure without any exposure compensation applied.

This image serves as the baseline for the other two exposures. Depending on the lighting and how the camera meters the scene, it may provide a good balance between highlights, midtones, and shadows.

However, a standard exposure doesn't always capture the full range of brightness in a scene. If the sky is very bright and the foreground is dark, you may still lose some detail in one or both areas.

That's where the other exposures come in. The 0 EV image contributes the midtones and general tonal balance, while the darker and brighter images can provide additional detail where needed.

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This photo was at +1 EV

The third image was taken at +1 EV, meaning it is one stop brighter than the standard exposure. This allows more light to reach the sensor, making darker parts of the scene easier to see.

This exposure helps capture details in the shadows, such as darker foreground areas, shaded objects, or details that might be difficult to see in the standard exposure.

You may notice that the brighter parts of the image look washed out or that some highlights have lost their detail. That's not necessarily a problem, as long as useful information remains in the other exposures.

When the images are merged, the software can use the darker exposure for highlight detail and the brighter exposure for shadow detail, helping produce a more balanced final image.

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All 3 images merged together

The fourth image is the result of combining the three exposures into a single HDR photograph. Lightroom analyzes the images and blends useful tonal information from each exposure to create an image with a greater usable dynamic range than a single exposure may provide.

The goal isn't simply to make the photograph brighter or more dramatic. It's to recover and balance details across the scene while maintaining a natural and pleasing appearance.

After merging the images, I edited the resulting photograph in Lightroom. This included adjusting elements such as exposure, highlights, shadows, contrast, and color to bring the image closer to the look I wanted.

HDR gives you more information to work with, but the final appearance still depends on how you process the image. You can create a natural-looking result or push the contrast and colors for a more dramatic effect.

For me, this is what makes revisiting HDR photography interesting. When I first started, I was drawn to the look of HDR images without fully understanding how the process worked. Now, with more experience and a better understanding of exposure and editing, I can revisit that style with a different perspective.

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