Jeff Beard

I love color and lots of it. Rich, vibrant, totally luscious color and that was what drew me to HDR in the first place. I just had to figure out how to make images like the ones I was seeing.

I found a tutorial by searching for my camera model plus HDR. This tutorial used Photoshop. I followed the instructions but really couldn’t get the effects that I had seen. I love Photoshop but it is a powerful generalized tool which means in a lot of cases going from idea to finished product can be difficult, time consuming and frustrating. (I found a better tutorial for Photoshop here, but I will still have to practice to be able to get the same results I get with less effort from Photomatix.)

Anyway, I was aware of some other tools that create HDR images so I let my frustration drive me to try Photomatix. Photomatix provides credence to the notion that purpose-built tools are many time superior to more powerful and generalized tools. Not only did it create the type of images that I have seen on Flickr and other places on the Internet but it is faster too. Here are some test images that I took and processed today:

[Show as slideshow]

(Note that I put in the two bird blind pictures as a comparison to those in my previous article, which were created with Photoshop.)

Anyway, the technique is reasonably straight forward with current technology and Photomatix. I have a Canon Rebel XTi which has an automatic bracketing feature that my friend Chris Masters introduced me to yesterday. So I configured the camera to automatically set the exposure to -2, 0 and +2. It requires a tripod so don’t forget it if you plan to try this out.

I’m going to continue to experiment with this technique to refine my understanding of it but wow…it’s just amazing what can be done with digital photography even for someone getting started with it.