How to Make HDR Photographs
- 1). Mount the camera on a tripod. It is essential that the images used for the HDR photograph be alike except for exposure.
- 2). Change the camera's shooting mode to continuous. That allows the number of images you will combine in the HDR picture to be shot with one press of the shutter button. Some cameras have a dial that allows you to change the shooting mode. Others require you go to the menu and change the setting there.
- 3). Set the ISO to 200 or less. The ISO is the digital camera's equivalent to film speed. The ISO can be changed by pressing the camera's menu button and scrolling down to "ISO." Lower ISO numbers produce less digital noise. Having a "noisy" digital picture is the equivalent of having a grainy picture using film.
- 4). Set the camera's auto bracketing to shoot from three to nine exposures. Typically you should capture a properly exposed image, an image that is two stops underexposed and an image that is two stops overexposed. For instance, if proper exposure is made using a 1/60 of a second shutter speed, you would also shoot an image using 1/15 of a second and another at 1/250 of a second.
- 5). Download the pictures to your computer.
- 6). Open Photomatix.
- 7). Click on the "HDRI" tab. Select "Generate HDR" and click.
- 8). Browse your pictures and select the pictures you want to merge. Click on "Align Input Images." That will create the HDR image.
- 9). Go to "HDRI" tab. Choose "Tone-mapping." Move the sliders for the image's luminosity, strength, color saturation, white clip, black clip, smoothing and microcontrast until you like the results.
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