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Francisco -> HDR technique for Pimientito (Jan. 29 2009 12:49:06)
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That's right, you use a digital picture exposed to different values (called 'stops' in photography). Most people only use 3 different exposed images, but you can use as many as you want, and I have heard of some using up to 15 images or more. You can use Photoshop to merge the files, but you need a program called Photomatix to actually do the tonemapping. I heard that Photomatix now has a plugin that you can use inside of Photoshop, but I heard it's not quite as good as the stand alone program.
I basically learned the technique the same way I have learned some of the flamenco I know - by reading, and joining a forum. Flickr is going to be the best resource to learn the technique. There are some groups there devoted completely to HDR. There's also a great video by a guy named Ben Willmore called Digital Mastery that does a great job of explaining HDR.
There's actually about 3 different ways you can achieve the look, but to achieve 'true' (according to the purist - which I'm not) HDR, there's only one way.
To get true HDR, you have to have a DSLR that can shoot in RAW format, and that has the ability to change the shutter speed. You leave the aperture the same for each shot so the depth of field doesn't change. There are some higher end cameras that will auto bracket the different shots for you, and you literally just press the shutter button and the camera does the rest.
The second technique calls for a program that can create different exposures from a single image. This creates what's called pseudo-HDR, or iDR (increased dynamic range). I forget the exact issue that makes this technique not quite an HDR, but I tend to agree somewhat with the purist. A caveat to that is the fact that there are so many people that can create some beautiful HDR images from a single exposure. Look at some of Kris Kros' work on flickr. Anyway, you use a program like Adobe Light Room, and there's a selector to manipulate exposure. Using this technique, you can create the three (or however many exposures) you need. The only thing is when you do it this way, and you're working with a Jpeg, you must save your file as a Tif, which is a 16 bit file. The Photomatix program requires 16 bit files.
The final and easiest way is to simply just tonemap a singe image. There is a selection in Photomatix where you can convert a single image to HDR. Again, this is not true HDR, but it can be very effective depending on the shot. A big problem with this technique is the digial 'noise' you introduce with the process. Do a search on flickr for single exposure HDR, and you'll see some pretty impressive work.
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