Adobe Photoshop - Merge to HDR attempts

I decided to attempt to play with a new feature of Adobe Photoshop CS2 called Merge to HDR. HDR apparently is an acronym for High or Hyper Dynamic Range. The concept behind the idea is this; one of the reasons why we fail to record the moment in camera that we perceive through our eyes is the issue of dynamic range. Whilst your eyes and brain are able to cope and interpret many depths, midtones and adjust for both highs and lows, a camera sensor or film has infinitely more restrict dynamic range. This is why we often see images that have either well exposed highlights or well exposed shadow, often the correct exposure at one end of the scale results in an incorrect exposure at the opposite end of the range. Now I’m no expert as the previous poorly explained example shows.

The idea behind merge to HDR, is that Photoshop attempts to give a correctly exposed, full dynamic range image by merging multiple images, usually with one correctly metered exposure, followed by a number of over and under exposed images to capture both highlights and lowlights. The number of images you use depends on diskspace, any moving objects (moon for example) and power of computer. Photoshop automagically combines them all and npresents you with a 32 bit image to manipulate. Problem is that 32bit images on todays consumer hardware aren’t much use to anyone, so the next step is to convert the image to 16bit. Once you tell it to convert, photoshop presents you with a set of (limited) tools to allow you to adjust the image from it’s raw(ish) state to something more acceptable. This is the part that I find hardest, the actual wrestling of the image into a visiually pleasing format, using curves, gamma, and a few other tools. My normal process is to save the 32bit HDR (.pbm) image so I can go back to it and have many do-overs of the 16bit conversion, since this is obviously the most important part of the process.

I’ve included below my 3rd attempt at a church I photographed during a sunset one evening recently, it looks a little odd, because I’m not that skilled at the process, I didn’t take any time over composition, and there is a range of tones not normally seen in my images.

I’m hoping to get some more practice in, and make more of the technology. All of this was inspired by a photogrpaher whose work I hold in high regard, Cambridge in Colour - Photography by Sean McHugh. Full kudos to you Sean!! With enough practice, I hope my work will one day be as fine.