"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 |
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