The Anti-HDR HDR Photography Book

Book excerpt: The Anti-HDR HDR Photography Book contains everything you’ll need to know in order to get the best results from your High Dynamic Range images. Designed for those who want to extend the dynamic range in their work, but are frustrated by over-processed and hyper-saturated images, this book proves that HDR techniques are capable of producing photographs that are both stunning and realistic. In addition to helping you choose the right equipment and settings to optimize your shoot for HDR, the book explains how to use post-processing software to create natural-looking photographs, blend source images with layer masks, and establish an efficient workflow. By teaching you to effectively use all the most important tools of HDR, it will expand the scope of your portfolio and allow you to create images that you never thought were possible. Key features include: What to look for when choosing a camera for HDR Description of gear that is important to the HDR photographer How to use the HDR software applications Photomatix and SNS-HDR Pro to achieve natural-looking results Discussion of blending multiple source images using simple masks and techniques An in-depth examination of the use of Luminance Masks for blending and editing bracketed images to a photorealistic composite Guide to workflow, from organizing images on the computer to pre-merge editing of RAW files using both Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Bridge The use of black-and-white in HDR and image-blending, including ways to convert color images to black-and-white