A camera cannot see as wide a dymanic range of light and dark as the human eye. This is why some difficult scenes have blown highlights and overly dark shadows. HDR uses multiple exposures of the same scene at different exposure levels in order to get greater detail out of the shadows and highlights. You then merge these scenes, either manually, choosing which areas to include, or using software. A software merged HDR scene usually needs tonemapping afterwards to look right. Tonemapping is some sort of contrast and exposure trick with the midtones, but I don't understand it well enough to tell you exactly what it is.
You can have a tonemapped image without use of HDR. In modest amounts it gives an image some dimension and pop. You can also do a natural looking HDR image that nobody will realize used any special treatment. If you want to see some major disagreements on what HDR is and should be, go dig up the pre-challenge discussion for the most recent HDR challenge, which was in back June.
This was my recent HDR entry. I was aiming for a natural look, just using the technique to bring all the details out of the dark shadows.
In contrast, I used some moderate tonemapping on this one to give it some pop and bring out details, but it was a single exposure and is not HDR, by most definitions.
Message edited by author 2010-08-31 12:05:26. |
