Listen Visually

It seems that everyone has their own ideas about HDR.  One person likes it, another doesn’t, and yet another hates it. I think it all has to do with perspective and how much you are invested in HDR, to learn about it and to understand it.

Trey Ratcliff has become one of the “world’s” most well-known photographers. He has done this by perfecting his shooting of HDR, and he has become well known in just 5-6 years.  This would have been unheard of 10-15 years ago. That fact alone is almost impossible! How did he do it?  How could this happen?  Those questions are for another post.  Today we talk about how HDR is one of the coolest and neatest digital tools in your digital tool belt.

Digital photography has changed the world of photography big time. I see unknown people and people with little or no real-world photography experience producing absolutely wonderful, creative digital images. (In 2009 Facebook members uploaded around 30 billion photographic images.) We are without a doubt in the greatest age of photography since its inception. We have never, before this age and time, had the ability to experience the creative process and share our images with the world so quickly and so easily. In this creative process there are incredible tools available to the digital image-maker to help him/her be more creative in the digital world.  HDR is just one of these tools that we have to use in this “Creativity Revolution”.

The Zone System was invented by Ansel Adams.  I think if you were to look at an HDR print, you would be able to see clearly all of those zones that good ole Ansel described. “Moonrise Hernandez” is a great example. If you look at a print of the original negative, it is really boring; but after Kahuna Adams worked his magic with dodging, burning, and maybe some masking for high contrast areas, the image came to life and became the reality of “Moonrise Hernandez”. He could have over-done his dodging and burning and created a ho-hum image, but in the hands of a “creative master in printmaking”, the image took on a life of its own.

When shown an HDR image and other images, the average person will almost always choose the HDR image. Why?  Because it is the way our eyes see the world. Even if you can only see out of one eye like Trey Ratcliff, it is still something to cause a “Wow” to  gently escape our lips.

Landscape photographers like HDR, but they usually do a similar process by “blending images” in photoshop rather than by using an HDR software like Photomatix Pro or HDR Efex Pro. Landscape shooters claim that the color shifts that are given through the algorithms of the software are not acceptable. My response to that statement is: photographers shoot in raw in order to have the most information available in the image file. Why? So we can put it in photoshop and tweek it to become the way we first visualized it. If we have to mask one area and bring back original color, so be it. You have to do the same with “blending images”.  After you shoot your 3, 5, 7, or 9 images and run them through an HDR software, you then put the tonemapped image in photoshop to tweak. By dodging, burning, and masking as good ole Ansel did years ago, you get those beautiful “Zone System” images.

HDR gives you the ability of getting detail in the shadows and the highlights, a huge thing in photography by the way. It is really one of the greatest tools we have to give an image incredible depth.  It is so very much the “WOW factor” in modern photography that it makes an old guy like me get up and do the happy dance. (Not a pretty thing… but way fun.) However, you need to be careful not to over-adjust the sliders to the extent that you create a psychedelic image that makes your teeth hurt, that is unless you are still living in the “60’s and the little mushrooms you had for dinner make you just love the weird colors and tones. I am just kidding, but we all have seen those images, and they really do make my teeth hurt. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard.

So the next time you see that perfect sunset or sunrise, and you are wondering how to capture all of the beautiful things that are happening before your eyes…..HDR is the answer. HDR seems to really shine, no pun intended, when you are shooting into the sun. If you have a big highlight like the sun, you probably need 5-7 exposures to process, but what the heck. Just make sure you have a stop difference between exposures, then don’t over process it in the HDR software.  Be gentle and loving with your creation. Don’t turn her into something that a shrink might use for shock therapy.  Then slowly introduce her to her new friend, Monsieur Photoshop, who will give her a wonderful make-over to enhance her natural beauty with a gentle and soft touch. He will introduce her to some dodging, some burning, and maybe a little masking here and there. Then stand back and admire your creation. Sometimes we have to go back and process the image again the next day or the next week. (It might have to do with our digestion, or just that we feel different at various times during the day. Who knows? ) Each time might bring a different result, but the most important thing is to enjoy the creative process.  You are a unique artist who sees things like no one else. Be patient and gentle with the sliders.  Learn as you make mistakes.  If it looks great, remember what you did and why it affected your image in the way it did.  Creativity is a process.  Mistakes are a big part of the process if you take the time to learn from those mistakes by really analyzing the various parts and tones of your image.

Take the extra time to learn the subtleties of HDR processing and then understand how to tweak the image in Photoshop to really make it hum a happy tune. The processing in HDR is only the first 65-70 % of the work, then comes the post-processing where you bring out the tones and personality of your image. Learn well and go slowly, grasshopper. This learning process can be very fun and rewarding as you “paint” and coax the image to life.

Go forth and create. Turn loose the creative part of yourself and have fun creating photographic works of art.