Faking HDR or "high Dynamic Range"

[salvadore]

"HDR" or "High Dynamic Range" is a technique used by photographers to achieve "perfectly" exposed photographs.
The concept is to take a series of photographs at different exposures and combining them into one perfect image.

In this tutorial we will borrow this concept and use Photoshop layers to achieve an "HDR" effect.

I am still working on mastering this approach to photo enhancement, and like most techniques it may not work on every image, but it is an effective and fun way to get in there and bring life to a photo. Plus we will learn lots of cool stuff about layers, blend modes and other options for photo enhancement.

So lets get started shall we? Great.

Open up your image (you can work on the image I used or any other you choose, keep in mind the settings I use here may not work for your image, so play with the settings to your delight. This is not the end all way of doing things, just one perspective).

Step 1

Right click on the background layer and choose duplicate, name the new layer "screen".
Duplicate the "background" layer again and name it "multiply", and duplicate it one more time and name it "base"



Step 2

Click the eyeball next to the "screen" layer to turn that layer off, then select the "multiply" layer, with this layer selected go to "Image/Adjustments/Levels" and drag the white slider over to the left to "190" and choose "ok" now change the blend mode to "multiply" and opacity to 90%.

Step 3

Turn the eye back on for the "screen" layer and select the layer, again up to the "Image/Adjustments/Levels" this time drag the black slider to the right to "50" and hit "ok", set the blend mode to "screen" with a 60% opacity.

Again, feel free to play with these settings, these are not the rule but simply a guide.

Step 4

Turn the eyeball off for the locked background layer and go up to "Layer/Merge Visible", you should be merging the "screen", "multiply" and "base" layers, and leaving background alone.

Step 5

At this point you might want to rename your merged layer back to "base" or something like that.
and duplicate this "base" layer, then we want to add a "high pass" filter to sharpen the details of the we
the layer just duplicated.

Go up to "Filters/Other/High Pass". The settings I used was "3" on the slider, hit "ok" leave the blend mode on normal and set the opacity to 70%



Step 6

Merge your "high pass" layer with the "base" layer and duplicate the layer again.
Now lets add a little dept of field. Go to "Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur" I used "3.5" for the strength of the blur, hit "ok" again leave the blend mode normal and set the opacity for this layer to 75%

Step 7

Lets create a layer mask on the blur layer, to mask out the blur and achieve depth of field. Click the little rectangle with the hole in the center, down at the bottom of the layer palette to create a layer mask.

Now lets select the gradient tool, and set it up with a black to white ramp, and choose "radial gradient".
Make sure you have the layer mask selected and "shift/click" and drag your gradient from the center-bottom of the image to the top. You can keep dragging the gradient till you get the desired results.
Again, merge visible layers.



Step 8

"Alt/Option" click the "create new layer" button at the bottom of the layer palette, this brings up a dialog box, we want to select "overlay" as our blend mode from the drop down menu and check the "fill layer with neutral color(50% grey)" box




With this new layer we can "dodge" and "burn" our image without any permanent damage, and we can always go back and edit it.

Step 9

With our gray layer selected, we can begin to "burn" detail into our image.
Select the "burn" tool and choose "mid-tones" as the "range", and set the opacity of the brush to 50%, soften up your brush edge, I like full softness.

Then just paint over anything that looks like it needs more detail, you can also "dodge" the highlights using this same gray layer, just set the "range" to "high lights".

When satisfied merge visible.

Step 10

At this point you can turn back on your "background" layer, and if you want to, as I did in my image was use another layer mask and mask out parts of the image to blend the final result together with the original image.
Or you can call it good at this point.

Step 11

Lastly we want to brighten up the image with some color using a curves adjustment layer, so click the little half-black/half-white circle to the right of the layer mask, at the bottom of the layer palette, and choose "Curves"

In my image, I pulled the "red" channel down to "135" and the "green" channel I bumped up to "115", for the "blue" I used "115" as well.
Then I set the opacity for the curves layer to 85%.



And there you have it. We took a nice image and made it an amazing image!

Thanks for reading and I hope this was useful to you all! Feel free to post comments, questions, or share your results with the rest of us. Or any tips on making this technique even better.

Photo Enhancment Via The HDR Theory |

[Carson]

Your thread needs re-editing.

[Zeealex]

XD yeah, does a bit.

and so you know, there is an adjustment in the adjustments menu that handles HDR toning then you have a few sliders to play with... just saying.

[salvadore]

Thanks for the input but what needs re editing?
Did I miss spell words?

Also, I'm aware if the HDR options in Photoshop if that's what your are referring to but that means you have to have 3 images or more this uses one image to achive similar results with one image. And as I said in the tut this is just one way to do things, it's more of a guid through some tools and techniques.

[Steve]

Check your BB codes.
Change < & > to [ & ]

BB Code List - Photoshop Gurus Forum

Check the links too.

[Furio]

Thanks for the input but what needs re editing? Did I miss spell words?

The main issue is that your tutorial has images, but you're not showing them, because you just copy/pasted HTML code, when you should have used a BB code like IMG.

I don't want to sound picky, but your technique has little to do with HDR, regardless the fact that it's only using one image. The best way to fake HDR is to create multiple images based on 1 original and then use the traditional HDR tools in Photoshop or any other program. It would take me lot of a time to explain this in more detail, so I Googled this one for you:

Creating an HDR-like Image From a Single RAW File in Lightroom

Nevertheless I have respect for you taking your time to make this tutorial, which in itself is well written. Well done!

[Paul]

I have 'faked' HDR by using light tones two layers one inverted changed and played around with settings to achieve the desired look, it can be done.

[salvadore]

I basically did have multiple images in the sense I had 3 layers of the same image at different expousers. Like anything in Photoshop there's a hundred ways to do anything and this is one. It may not be the best but it is one way to enhance an image. And this being a Photoshop forum I did not see a need to do a lightroom tutorial, nor do I have a copy of light room. Thanks for the respect atleast. If you want to see the images you can check out the tutorial at my site.

It's a little hostile around here by the way, but maybe I'm to sencesative?

[Furio]

Like anything in Photoshop there's a hundred ways to do anything and this is one.

My comment wasn't about the tutorial itself (I even complimented you on it), it was about the goal; the illusion of an increased dynamic range. I just think that your tutorial doesn't achieve this and that's just an opinion.

It's a little hostile around here by the way, but maybe I'm to sencesative?

I know why you feel like that. I checked your previous threads in which you've posted several tutorials and each time a person had a suggestion or sometimes a critical word to say. Your mistake is to take those comments personal, after all they're nothing but opinions, for the same reason I wouldn't have any problem at all if you would consider my comments total nonsense.

[sprucemagoo1]

The only real critisizm on this thread is that the first post needs editing to BB code, which still hasn't happened, so nobody can tell for sure how effective this method is before trying it as the pictures aren't showing. Who's been hostile to you Salvadore?