Adobe Photoshop lesson. Creating a pseudo HDR effect

Hi all!

Photoshop Creative Cloud uses Adobe Camera RAW as a built-in filter. It is constantly being improved and acquiring more and more new and interesting features. So, in version 9.1 of this application, interesting opportunities appeared for creationHDR images and panoramic stitching.

A very interesting direction in photography is the creation of HDR images. The abbreviation HDR comes from High Dynamic Range and means “high dynamic range” in English.

In the material about the main stages of RAW conversion, I tried to talk in detail about the tonal range of the scene being photographed and the dynamic range of the photosensitive element of the camera.

Briefly, the point is that when shooting a real high-contrast scene, our camera is not able to capture the entire wide tonal range.

In this case, an unpleasant moment arises - the dark areas of the photograph, the tonality of which does not fit into the dynamic range of the camera, will turn black, and the light areas, lighter than the camera can record, will be brightened to bright white. All detail in these areas disappears.

In such cases, you can compromise and take a photo with correctly exposed shadows or highlights, depending on what is more important, or you can use the capabilities of specialized programs or Photoshop, which allow you to create images with an extended dynamic range - HDR images.

There are three techniques known to me that expand the tonal range of an image.

Mixing frames taken with different exposures in Photoshop, one image exposed to light areas, and the second to dark ones. After this, in Photoshop, both frames are opened in one document on different layers, a layer mask is applied to one of them and, for example, for an image with detailed shadows, normally displayed light areas from the other image are shown.

Tone mapping. The point is that monitors, and especially photographic paper, have an even smaller tonal range than cameras. To bring pictures into a format that can be displayed on specified media, i.e. into an 8 or 16 bit image, and this technique exists.

Well, and the actual creation of HDR itself - images with a greater dynamic range than in conventional 8/16-bit images. The limit from which HDR begins is considered to be 13.3 exposure stops (brightness range 1:10,000)

What is needed to create HDR images?

We need to take several frames in which the required real scene will be captured, but in each frame its own section of the tonal range will be recorded, that is, individual photographs will be exposed under various areas by brightness.

Modern cameras have a shooting function with automatic exposure bracketing. In this case, taking into account the special settings of the camera, at least three frames are taken - the main one is a frame with normal exposure, and the rest are automatically fixed with the exposure at a certain number of steps in “plus” or “minus”, for example +/- 1 EV.

To demonstrate the processes in this material I borrowed photographs of my very good friend, Photographer with capital letters, professional landscape painter – Oksana Ermikhina. In her works, Oksana often uses the method of creating HDR; you can easily find her excellent works on the Internet. The only thing is that she uses a specialized program Photomatix, and we will look at the principle using the example of the Camera RAW application in Photoshop.

So, we need to combine three images with different exposures into a single whole.

It is best to use the method of creating HDR images on RAW files, since they contain the maximum information recorded by the light-sensitive element of your camera. Open them in Camera RAW.

After that, press the key combination “Ctrl + A” or left-click on the icon with lines in the upper right part of the “Film Strip” window and select the line “Select all” in the menu that appears.

The process of combining images and generating a preview preview starts.

Upon completion of this operation, a preview window of the combined images appears.

The settings are minimized, but the main tasks here can be controlled. The Straighten Image option allows you to eliminate possible movement in the frame. If you turn it off, then when the “Remove ghosting” function is turned on, the program will show which parts of the image moved during the shooting process.

By enabling the “Align Image” command, this module uses a special algorithm to eliminate mismatched elements in the image. It does not always cope with the task and then retouching will be required, but this is mainly due to the movement of large objects in the frame.

The Auto Tone option helps automatically equalize the brightness and contrast of the resulting image.

Without using the Autotone function.

With its use.

If you want, turn it on, if you want, don't. Either in the first case or in the second, you will still be able to make corrections in the future.

Click the “Merge” button. The program asks where to save the linked file. Saving occurs in the DNG (Digital Negative Specification) format - an open format for RAW image files used in digital photography.

During the process of assembly and saving in the application, the final HDR image is formed.

After working with the adjustments on the “Basic” tab, we get the following picture.

Let's see - this is what we had as a normally exposed photo coming out of the camera.

And this is what we got as a result of assembling an HDR image by combining three frames taken with exposure bracketing.

Basically, you can say that you can achieve these results simply by resorting to the Highlight and Shadow adjustments in Camera RAW. In principle, YES, but this is the case if the tonal width of the scene being photographed is not so large, that is, the difference between the light and dark areas of the image can be included in the dynamic range of the image displayed on the monitor using a converter. But even in this case, creating HDR has its place, since raising the brightness in the shadows using ordinary conversion will cause a sharp increase in noise, and the method of creating HDR frees you from it.

Due to ethical reasons, I, unfortunately, cannot provide you with RAW files of the author, but I think you can easily test the effectiveness of this method on your own works.

CreationHDR it's very simple and effective!

Happy creative success!

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Automatic creation of HDR photos is possible in Adobe Photoshop since version CS2. If you use earlier versions of Adobe Photoshop, you can try making an HDR photo manually using the partial layer erasing method that I talked about in It's better if the original images were shot using an exposure bracket on a tripod, otherwise you will have to come up with some way to mask the merged ones. plots or engaged in the production of pseudo HDR

What is HDR and pseudo-HDR photography

Have you probably taken photographs that show either a very light (bleached) sky? Sometimes it turns out the other way around - the sky is finely detailed, but the landscape itself is dark... The fact is that the matrix of a modern digital camera cannot always adequately convey the entire scene being photographed and the photographer often has to sacrifice some details - or the sky comes out completely white without clouds, or the dark parts of the scene being filmed are sacrificed: o(

A long time ago, when there were no digital cameras, and not every photographer had a photo exposure meter, beginners (often experienced photographers) took several frames of the same scene with different frames, so that later, after developing the film, they could choose the best frame. Modern digital cameras allow you to automate this process - this function is called automatic (AEB) or exposure bracketing.

4. Convert to HDR

Now all that remains is to click OK and start creating an HDR photo. In this case, Photoshop will return the finished HDR photo to its usual window.

So, we got a 32-bit image with extended dynamic range. Before saving, convert the image to 8-bit:
Image > Mode > 8 Bits ⁄ Channel...
Photoshop offers us to adjust some photo parameters (hover over and get a translation):

In this window, four methods are available for converting a 32-bit image to 8-bit. Some methods allow correction along curves, but this is for experienced users. For beginners, I advise you to limit yourself to the option shown in this illustration - as a last resort, move the sliders a little Exposure and Gamma (Gamma)

Saving an HDR photo with 8-bit color depth
You can apply all the capabilities of Photoshop to it.

The technique of creating HDR photographs has been around for a very long time, dating back to the days of film cameras. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. As you know, a camera is capable of conveying in one frame a much smaller range and depth of colors and details than the human eye can see. HDR allows you to capture multiple photos of the same place, taken at different exposures, in one photo. This allows you to expand the dynamic range and make the photo more detailed, rich and realistic.

The most common use of HDR is to simultaneously convey details of the sky and ground. Without using the HDR technique, you can take a photo that shows detail in objects on the ground but the sky is too light, or shows detail in the sky but objects on the ground are dark.

1. Bracketing

Bracketing is a camera function or shooting technique where the same photo is taken with different exposures. It is best to shoot from a tripod so that when overlapping frames, all objects remain in the same place. The picture is taken by changing the shutter speed or using exposure compensation. The pitch can be different, from fractions of steps to several steps (EV). It is recommended to take three shots: normal, light to capture detail in the shadows, and dark to capture detail in the highlights.

Sometimes taking 2 photos is enough. This is done if two pictures are enough to convey everything dynamic range, but there are times when more than three pictures are taken.

Having sufficient quantity images, you can proceed to combining them.

2. Combine photos

Photoshop is the most convenient and flexible tool for creating HDR photos.

Place the light photo above the dark one in the layers tab.

The top photo shows the ground well, but the sky is too light. So you need to select the sky and delete it. In this example, the easiest way to select the sky is with the magnetic lasso tool. It is worth carefully working on the selection so as not to miss any piece of the sky.

Maybe you like photos that look like they've been painted on, or maybe you hate them. In any case, it will be useful for you to know how they are made. This tutorial shows a very simple way to take pseudo-HDR photos in Photoshop. You don't need special photos for this, regular JPEGs will do. If you know how to work with masks in Photoshop, this will help you.

This is the result you can get with this lesson:

The first step is very important, it is the basis for the future HDR image.
Go to the image menu > adjustment > shadow/highlight (click on options) and set the following settings (from top to bottom):

Shadows amount :50%
tonal width 45%
radius 44px
high-light amount (Effect) 67%
tonal width 65%
radius 46px

Duplicate the layer (CTRL+J) and change the layer blending mode to Color Dodge (lightening the base). This action will intensify the colors and make the highlights appear pure white.
In the next step, these areas will be restored through some actions.

Duplicate the current layer (CTRL+J) and change the layer blending mode to Linear Burn. The photo is covered with black spots? Don't be alarmed.
Set the foreground color to black and use the command select (selection) > color range (color range) fuziness (Scatter) = 100 > OK.
Create a layer mask (the icon is marked with a red circle in the layers panel below), now the black color has disappeared. To smooth out the unevenness of the photo, select the layer mask and apply filter (Filter)> gaussian blur (Gaussian blur) (value from 1 to 5 depending on the photo).

The next step is very simple. Duplicate the “linear Burn” layer, change the blending mode of the copy layer to Overlay, select the layer mask and press ctrl+i (select > invert). This action will darken shadows that are too light and increase contrast.

Now let's adjust the photo a little more. Play with the layer's transparency. The optimal transparency value for the “Overlay” layer will be approximately 40%, and for the “Linear Burn” layer 55%.

Make the Foreground color white. Let's use the command select (Selection)\u003e color range (Color range) with a value of fuziness (scatter) = 100. “Crawling ants” will appear in the light areas. Duplicate the first layer and move the copy on top of the other layers. Add a layer mask. Select the layer mask. and apply filter > gaussian blur.

Click on the icon marked with a red circle and select gradient map from the menu. This is an adjustment layer that transforms the colors in the photo according to the selected gradient. On the right side of the picture you can see the gradient that was applied to this photo. Load a selection from the “light” layer mask (Ctrl+click on the “light” layer mask; keep the gradient layer active), invert it (select > invert) and click on the “add” icon layer mask" (Add a layer mask) (On the layers palette there is a small rectangle with a circle inside). Change the blending mode of the gradient layer to Hard light (Hard light) and reduce the transparency to 72%.

I used some adjustments to get the final result, for example, filter > render > clouds. But you can stop at this step.

Author: Roman Flossler, article was taken from hdrphotos.net (now no longer working)
Translation: Nadik
Added translation (English terms): Erian

The HDR effect is achieved by superimposing several (at least three) photographs taken with different exposures on top of each other. This method gives more depth to colors and light and shade. Some modern cameras already have a built-in HDR function. Photographers who do not have such equipment are forced to achieve the effect the old fashioned way.

But what if you only have one photo, but still want to get a beautiful and clear HDR photo? In this tutorial I will show you how to do this.

So let's get started. First, let's open our photo in Photoshop.

The next stage will be the development of small details and the overall sharpening of the image. To do this, go to the menu "Filter" and look for a filter there "Colour contrast"- it is in the section "Other".

We set the slider to such a position that small details remain, and the colors just begin to appear.

To avoid color defects when applying a filter, this layer must be desaturated by pressing the key combination CTRL+SHIFT+U.

Now change the blending mode for the filter layer to "Bright light".

We get increased sharpness.

We continue to improve the photos. We will need a summary copy of the layers already finished photo. To get it, hold down the key combination CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E. (Train your fingers).

During our actions, unnecessary noise will inevitably appear in the photo, so at this stage it is necessary to get rid of it. Go to the menu “Filter – Noise – Reduce Noise”.

Recommendations for settings: Intensity and detail preservation must be set so that noise ( small dots, usually dark in color) disappeared, and the small details of the image did not change shape. You can look at the original image by clicking on the preview window.

My settings are like this:

Don't go too hard or you'll get a plastic effect. This image looks unnatural.

Then you need to create a duplicate of the resulting layer. We have already discussed how to do this a little higher.

Now let's go to the menu again "Filter" and apply the filter again "Colour contrast" to the top layer, but this time we set the slider in such a position that you can see the colors. Like that:

Desaturate the layer ( CTRL+SHIFT+U), change the Blend Mode to "Chroma" and reduce the opacity to 40 percent.

Create a merged copy of the layers again ( CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E).

Let's look at the intermediate result:

When setting up a filter, we look not at the car, but at the background. Small details should disappear, only the outlines of objects should remain. Do not overdo it…

To complete the effect, we will also apply a filter to this layer. "Add Noise".

Settings: effect 3-5%, Gaussian, Monochrome.

Press and hold the key ALT and click on the mask icon in the layers palette.

As we can see, the blur and noise have completely disappeared from the entire photo; we need to “unlock” the effect on the background.
Let's take it soft round white brush with opacity 30%(see screenshots).

Be sure to click on the black mask in the layers palette to draw on it, and carefully paint the background with our white brush. You can make as many passes as your taste and intuition tell you. Everything is by eye. I walked twice.

Particular attention should be paid to pronounced background details.

If somewhere a car was accidentally hit and blurred, you can fix this by switching the brush color to black (key X). Switch back to white using the same key.

Result:

I'm in a little hurry, I'm sure you will do it more accurately and better.

Let's sharpen the photo a little more. Let's go to the menu “Filter – Sharpen – Unsharp Mask”.

When setting up the filter, we carefully look at the boundaries of light and shadow, colors. The radius should be such that “extra” colors do not appear on these boundaries. This is usually red and/or green. Effect set no more 100% , Isohelium we remove.

And one more thing. Apply an adjustment layer "Curves".

In the layer properties window that opens, put two points on the curve (it’s still straight), as in the screenshot, and then drag the top point to the left and up, and the bottom point in the opposite direction.

Here again everything is by eye. With this action we add contrast to the photo, that is, we darken the dark areas and lighten the light ones.

We could have stopped there, but upon closer examination we can see that “ladders” have appeared on the straight white (shiny) parts. If this is important, then we can get rid of them.

Create a merged copy, then remove visibility from all layers except the top and original.

Apply a white mask to the top layer (press ALT don't touch).

Then take the same brush as before (with the same settings), but black, and go over problem areas. The size of the brush should be such as to cover only the area that needs to be corrected. You can quickly change the brush size using square brackets.

This is our work on creating HDR the snapshot from one photo is completed. Let's feel the difference:

The difference is obvious. Use this technique to improve your photos. Good luck in your creativity!