Just a few weeks ago, when I was doing my GAPW photo workshop out in Montana, Barney Streit (one of my students in the workshop—-a really great guy and accomplished photographer, who I’d met at a previous workshop), turned me on to an HDR program he uses that just might make an HDR believer out of me after all. The program is called Photomatix Pro, (available for Mac and Windows) and it makes the process of combining multiple exposures into a single HDR image much more simple and straightforward.
In the example shown above (photos by Barney Streit); the top photo is the regular correct exposure for the building, which was shot in flat overcast mid-day light. The bottom photo is the HDR image which displays a much broader dynamic range. That image was processed in Photomatix Pro, from nine separate photos (all shot on a tripod), each with a different exposure (bracketed in the camera) to capture the full range from the darkest possible shadows to the brightest highlights.
You can download a trial version from the Photomatix Pro Web site (click here), and here’s a link to Barney’s NAPP online portfolio, where you can see more of his HDR work. My thanks for Barney for the use of his images, and for turning me on to this very cool program.
