In the last years digital cameras were greatly improved but they still can not expose correctly some images. For example they struggle to capture details in scenes with high contrast. That is why HDR (High Dynamic Range) became so popular among photographers. Some cameras have the DRO option but it can make things worst.
What is HDR?
High dynamic range photos blend different exposures of the same scene into a single and correctly exposed image. Using HDR allows you to balance between the dark and the bright areas of a photo. Usually photos with high contrast have overexposed highlights (clipped) and underexposed shadows.That means more correctly exposed highlights and shadows, no more blown-out (white) skies or loss of details in the dark areas of an image.
There are several applications to create HDR photos. Lets mention some of them: Aurora HDR, Easy HDR, Photomatix Pro etc. But today we are going to use Adobe Lightroom and the Photo Merge feature. The images were shot using a DJI Osmo action camera. To shoot HDR, go to Photos and select the AEB mode. I also selected 1EVX5p. 5p means 5 pictures with different exposure but you can choose a different option. Any digital camera can use bracketed exposures though. Today even smartphones include an HDR option in their arsenal.
Lightroom - Photo Merge
The first thing you will need to do is to open Adobe Lightroom and select your exposure bracketed photos. To do this go to File, Import Photos and Videos. In this example i used five pictures but you can use three or more. The images are RAW (DNG).
Then go to Photo, Photo Merge, HDR. If you like to use keyboard shortcuts, press Control and H then right click and select Photo Merge, HDR.
Merging the Photos - Lighroom will build a preview
Now you will see some options and the preview of the image that Lightroom just created.
If there was any movement from frame to frame, Auto Align will try to correct it. If there is not a lot of movement it is an easy job. Auto settings will take care of the rest (contrast, Vibrance etc). If you see parts of the image that look unnatural (usually ghosting) you can try to fix them using the Deghost option. Be sure that the option Show Deghost Overlay is checked so that you will be able to see which parts of the image the de-ghosting option will affect and what level of deghosting you must select. The options are NONE, LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH. I selected low because cars were stuck in the traffic and there was not a lot of movement in the frame. Experiment yourself with these options to see what suits best with your pictures.
After selecting Merge, Lightroom will produce the final RAW image in the DNG format.
Now you can edit your DNG image as usual and save it as JPEG or PNG etc.
This is our final High Dynamic Range picture.
Our final High Dynamic Range Photo exported and saved in the JPEG format
That was it. From now on both the bright and the dark areas in your pictures will be perfectly exposed without the lack of details in the highlights and the shadows, thanks to HDR. In my case, some HDR pictures i created using the DJI Osmo action camera had decent quality and they were accepted to a stock photography site.
You might also want to read: DJI Osmo Action camera.
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