There are several ways to create an HDR image. I prefer to shoot the 5 exposures from my camera and tone map them straight to Photomatix and retouch everything later. But what happens when you only have one RAW file, you can tone map it by itself but sometimes that makes for some messy shadow noise and blown out highlights. Have no fear, you have other options!
Follow this simple tutorial and be on your way to tone mapping multiple exposures from a single Raw (or any single file for that matter).
Feel free to download the free Actions that I have created for making multiple 16 Bit Tiffs. Head on over to my EverydayHDR store if you would like to see more of the Actions that I offer.
- To install the free Actions, simply download the .atn file to your desktop (or ideal location). Double click the .atn file and it will automatically install into your Actions panel within Photoshop.
8 comments
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Jason
February 27, 2012 at 08:01 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
great video.. i’ve had a hard time with “HDR from a single exposure” in the past. This helps! It will be even easier to do in lightroom. LR makes it super easy to create virtual copies / change exposure / and export to photomatix (and back into LR).
Blake Rudis
February 27, 2012 at 22:14 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thanks Jason, HDR from a single Exposure can be difficult, especially if that single exposure was not a RAW file. If it was even close to compressed in any way shape or form, it may cause trouble in the multiple exposure creation. I tend to stay away from this with JPG’s and try to use a program like Topaz Adjust to try and pull something out of it. However, this is my most common way of making multiple exposures as I always tend to shoot in RAW. Take care Jason.
Jac
March 10, 2012 at 18:12 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Are you using noise reduction in Photomatix as well when importing the tiff files? if yes, which type (on source images or on the merged image)?
Anyone here interested in sharing some Photomatix presets? I am aware that every image is different thus need different processing but presets are good starting points and make our lives easier just like the photoshop actions above
Blake Rudis
March 10, 2012 at 20:25 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I used to use noise reduction almost religiously I Photomatix. I would do it on the dark exposures, but I have turned it off recently as I use Noise Ninja now for most all of my noise reduction during post processing. I agree, at one point I had over 300 presets, however, that machine crashed and I had to start from square one! I may start posting more of my presets from now on, we’ll see. It is difficult as they are very subjective to the dynamic range of the image. Take care Jac, thanks for stopping by!
steve
March 30, 2012 at 08:51 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hi and thanks for the great tutorials. Extremely useful for a complete beginner like me.
In this particular one I’d like to ask if it would be better to change the exposure for the different images in Camera RAW rather than using the Photoshop filter? Would that not pull more information out of each image?
Blake Rudis
March 30, 2012 at 18:30 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hello Steve,
Based on your comment I ran a little test and found something interesting. The Camera Raw does a very subtle job at creating a natural +2 exposure, but the Exposure Adjustment in Photoshop creates a fake exposure very similar to the original in camera +2 exposure, if you set the Gamma to 2 as well. On the other hand set the Gamma in the Exposure Adjustment to .85 for the -2 Exposure. The reason I would go with the Exposure adjustment layer over the Camera Raw even though the Camera Raw handles the +2 increase without blowing the highlights is simply because I can make it an Action and save those fake exposures much quicker! I will have to update my Action now that you brought that to my attention. Thank you Steve. Take care my critical thinking friend!
Warren
February 15, 2013 at 04:34 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hi Blake,
For some reason the action will not play in CS3. Any Idea’s?
Blake Rudis
February 15, 2013 at 19:23 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It was designed for CS5 and above. It may be something with the way 3 was designed compared to 5or 6. Sorry about that.