High Dynamic Range (or HDR) refers to images which have a greater range of luminosity than is normally recorded via photography. HDR images attempt to simulate what the human eye perceives. We demonstrate how to achieve various professional photography effects in our Adobe Photoshop training courses.
First open an image in Photoshop. The image shown here is Antoni Gaudi’s Church of La Sagrada Familia. Go to the top Image drop-down menu and choose Duplicate.
Next go to the Image menu again and select Adjustments and HDR Toning. (Note that this adjustment is only available from Photoshop version CS4 onwards.)
Adjust some of the settings, for example: Detail 135, Saturation minus 100, Radius 100, Strength 1.3, Gamma 1.2, Vibrance minus 100, Exposure minus 0.6.
If you like this effect choose Save Preset, name it and hit OK.
Note that a similar HDR effect can achieved by going to Image menu and selecting Adjustments and Desaturate. We would then duplicate the layer, turn up the tonal contrast on the bottom layer and experiment with the various the layer blending modes. Then do a final tweak to the tonal Levels to increase the contrast slightly.
Many more tips and techniques can be found at the Adobe website. And see many examples of our clients’ work on our Facebook page.
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