My HDR 1 was rock-bottom shocking (in a funny way). HDR 2 was an improvement. Since then I have developed a healthy addiction to HDR and post-processing (see Andy Confesses here). Most of my recent photos on this site are HDR or at least a fair attempt.

I am still on a big learning curve and the next goal is to become well-versed in Photoshop (I know a few basics only). One of my favourite artists in this field right now is Jimmy Mcintyre – click here. Plus Art Hakker also always grabs my eyes.

This post is dedicated to my beautiful life-partner who often wonders why I disappear from home for a few hours with my camera and then return home, only to sit in front of the computer for a few more hours.

The state of “meditation” I achieve staring at, fixing, mixing and creating the photos is very important to me. It nurtures and calms my soul. Nothing else is important at this time; neither pleasures nor worries.

To save time, let’s use Wikipedia’s explanation of HDR. I will also insert my set of images (only displaying 3 of the 9 used – exposures +4 to -4, ISO 100) and the final results (one shown below).

The final results were achieved in 1.5 hours (post-processing time after the 9 photos were taken off the camera and loaded on the computer). Still lots of extra skills needed and I will have fun acquiring same in the years to come.

“High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI or HDR) is a set of methods used in imaging and photography to capture a greater dynamic range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard digital imaging methods or photographic methods.

HDR images can represent more accurately the range of intensity levels found in real scenes, from direct sunlight to faint starlight, and is often captured by way of a plurality of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter.

HDR methods provide higher dynamic range from the imaging process. Non-HDR cameras take pictures at one exposure level with a limited contrast range. This results in the loss of detail in bright or dark areas of a picture, depending on whether the camera had a low or high exposure setting. HDR compensates for this loss of detail by taking multiple pictures at different exposure levels and intelligently stitching them together to produce a picture that is representative in both dark and bright areas.

HDR is also commonly used to refer to display of images derived from HDR imaging in a way that exaggerates contrast for artistic effect. The two main sources of HDR images are computer renderings and merging of multiple low-dynamic-range (LDR)[4] or standard-dynamic-range (SDR)[5] photographs. Tone mapping methods, which reduce overall contrast to facilitate display of HDR images on devices with lower dynamic range, can be applied to produce images with preserved or exaggerated local contrast for artistic effect.