HDR is dead, long live HDR
HDR, High Dynamic Range imaging was developed as a technique in the movie business to, about ten years, give extra control over lighting effects without significantly degrading the image. The technique slowly migrated to the stills and with the rise of digital photography gave a fairly quick fix to the limitation of the sensors (and film even more so) on not having enough dynamic range to properly capture shadow detail and highlight detail at the same time. This became very popular on the International Salon scene for a couple of years. Now there are lots of rumours that it was only a passing fad and is now out of fashion. I think, perhaps, this rumour has been taken up by those who either don’t know how to effectively use it or mistakenly believe it is simply a rather wild effect.
The truth of the situation is more likely that those who have been using it quite well have now gained to skills to use this technique to its best which can improve a suitable photo immeasurably.
The process is really quite simple, take two or more shots of the same scene at different exposures and combine these to create a single image in 32 bit space. You can then work on your image quite considerably without causing any damage to it like posterisation or pushing any data off the ends. You can then convert it back to 16 bit to tidy it and put in the finishing touches ready to print. There are a few difficulties in this, the first one is that 32bit cannot be displayed accurately which can make it tricky to edit and look very flat and dull, in fact most users completely bypass actually working in HDR which is, arguably, the most powerful aspect of this technique. They tend to use it simply as a way of combining the images and then getting access to the very powerful tone mapping controls of some of the more sophisticated HDR software. This leads me to the next problem, 32 bit images have to be converted to 16 or 8 bit to use, this needs some sort of tone mapping and where the process becomes rather subjective even, dare I say, artistic.
It is very easy to produce something that you can say Wow! that’s different, it must be good. Unfortunately “Wow! that’s different” doesn’t stay different for long and it soon becomes just another filter/effect that spoils what probably was a good image. How many tried the Cokin filters when they came out and how many tried the filters on Photoshop, its part of the learning curve, having gone through that phase it allows one to know how and when to use this effect.
What we are seeing now is HDR being used to improve images, to enhance the light and produce an image that the photographer saw and felt but the camera was unable to record. The early adopters of this process have a huge advantage now, they have got their messing about phase out of the way and can use this powerful technique to improve their image making.
Long live HDR.
Mike
