HDR question

I know that generally you take several shots at bracketed exposures and combine these to produce HDR's. But if I want to play around with it, would it work to do exposure adjustments in lightroom on copies of the same image?

yes it would

Thanks. I'm going to find some freeware and play around.

Photomatix is the current HDR leader and it is free to play with (it will put the Photomatix watermark on the image). It will take a single image (preferably RAW) and use all the dynamic range available in the file so you do not have to fabricate multiple images.

http://www.hdrsoft.com/

TF

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OldClicker

Photomatix is the current HDR leader and it is free to play with (it will put the Photomatix watermark on the image). It will take a single image (preferably RAW) and use all the dynamic range available in the file so you do not have to fabricate multiple images.

http://www.hdrsoft.com/

TF

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so what are the advantages of taking bracketed shots with the camera vs manipulating a single raw file? Or are there any? I realize this may get little technical, but i am a technical person :)
thx

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ronin2307

so what are the advantages of taking bracketed shots with the camera vs manipulating a single raw file? Or are there any? I realize this may get little technical, but i am a technical person :)
thx

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A single RAW file may get 7 stops of dynamic range (still more than the 5 stops that can be used directly). With 5 shots you could, theoretically, get 35 stops of range.

The software works best when you provide multiple shots with lots of overlap and have the brightest and darkest only using about 1/2 to 2/3 of the histogram.

TF

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OldClicker

A single RAW file may get 7 stops of dynamic range (still more than the 5 stops that can be used directly). With 5 shots you could, theoretically, get 35 stops of range.

The software works best when you provide multiple shots with lots of overlap and have the brightest and darkest only using about 1/2 to 2/3 of the histogram.

TF

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RAW has more dynamic range than JPG but it's still only one shot. A bracketed 3 shot, even if it's JPG will give better results than the one shot raw. HDR can be over done and then it looks surreal and flat.