Guide to HDR Photography

The complete process of high dynamic range photography in photomatix and if you chose adobe lightroom using the adobe lightroom photomatix plug in

NOTE ALL OF THE PICTURES SHOWN AND USED ARE COPYRIGHTED AND ALL OF MY HDR PHOTOGRAPHY IS RESISTED BOTH ON DEVIANT ART AND FLICKR I HAVE DEALT WITH ART THEFT AND WON A $12,000 CASE ART THEFT IS IN INTERNATIONAL CRIME
i have hard and digital watermarks on all my shots prints can be purchased on my page biozz.deviantart.com

and please excuse my english

Camera-
any DSLR with a supported raw or jpeg format and has mutable exposure settings
i use a nikon D90 because of its image stabilization and exposure bracketing
Tripod -
i hardly use one because of how fast my camera can take all 3 shots required but one is highly suggested if your camera does not have a vibration reduction lens
Programs-
HDR
Photomatix - what i will show here ... its the best but costs $99 USD
Photoshop - CS2 CS3 and CS4 have a very basic and glitchy HDR program under File-Automate-merge to HDR
QTPFSGUI - no its not gibrish its a free hdr program ... i don't use it but im told its reasonable
Post Processes -
Lightroom - Adobe lightroom is what i use ... photomatix gives you a plugin for lightroom appon installation. its not cheap but it works great
Photoshop - expensive not as powerful as lightroom when it comes to this BUT its more common and some school programs give it away for free
GIMP - free cross platform no more powerful to photoshop when it comes to this
Sharing your master peace
Deviant Art - the myspace of the art world ... request quitics get positive and nevitae feedback for any art from from drawing to photography to funny things ... has a VERY strict art theft program and helps get your art out there
Flickr - general image hosting ... not much of a community but still nice

LINKS
GIMP http://www.gimp.org/
Photoshop https://www.photoshop.com/
Lightroom http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/
Photomatix http://www.hdrsoft.com/
Deviant art http://www.deviantart.com/
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/
Qtpfsgui http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/
My Page http://biozz.deviantart.com/

the concept is simple
as you can see you can see one picture the ground is right but the sky is to bright the other the sky is right but the ground is not and in the last is all bright (normaly used to remove shadows) this was taken using 0ev -2ev and a +2ev shot ... you can take more exposures of the image but AT LEAST 2 is necessary

find a nice place with nice clouds and a nice range ... try to picture the result before you hit the shutter button
set your image quality to a raw quality (nikon cameras are NEF and canon is RAW) or jpeg if non eof that is available (tiff works also)
Bracketing-
i suggest you put your camera on a tripod than set your shutter mode to continuous set your bracketing to 3 exposures 0ev +2ev and -2ev hit the shutter hold it down until all 3 shots are taken

Manual Bracketing-
put your camera on a tripod in a stable place turn your shutter mode to single capture a shot on metering (0ev) take your shot change your exposure variation to +2ev take another shot and set your exposure variation to -2ev and take another shot

now is the simple part ... record the image name from the shots insert the card in your computer and copy them to to a folder in your computer

!! this is an optional step !!

upload the files in lightroom
click on the first image (the 0ev one) than click on the "develop" option select the brush and select exposure and remove anything that may give you problems in photomatix like slivers of clouds exc

you can ignore the second (-2 ev shot) and only need to modify the +2 ev shot if it has the same cloud problem

select the 3 images and right click > export > photomatix pro

if you are asked any extra dialog select "stack with first selected photo" leave all the defaults (unless you have means to do otherwise) and click ok

NOTE IF YOU USED LIGHT ROOM IGNORE THIS STEP

open photomatix click "generate to HDR image" select the files that you want and click ok
when the options dialog pops up select "align source images" an select "by matching features"
reduce chromatic aberrations
reduce noise
attempt to reduce ghosting artifacts
background movements
adobe RGB
than ok

this works for both light room and without light room

the image will look strange and dark DONT WORRY its not done yet
click the tone mapping button

now here its best to play around and get lots of practice .. when you get the image you want click the button "save and re-import" if u used light room or select "process" if you did not (in the same spot)
if u did not use light room wait for it to finish than click file>save>jpeg

NOTE SKIP THIS IF YOU DID NOT USE LIGHTROOM
go back to the devolving tab and go back to the exposure brush thing lighten up spots you want light and darken up what you want dark
I WILL NOT GO IN TO GOT TO USE LIGHT ROOM THERE ARE TUTORIALS FOR THAT

go to File>Export and export to the folder you want

watermarks are very impotent if you plan to upload online it tells people "if you try up clam this as your own i will sue your ass"
open in photoshop (or paint or gimp or anything) and watermark your shot now don't make it annoying or obnoxious because it may kill the appeal ... some people say hiding it is best so you can enhance the shot showing it in Cort but i play by the honor policy and i may make some money if they get in to trouble

odiously this is optional

step one - make a free account
step two - go to my page and select "deviant watch" http://biozz.deviantart.com/ (cant balme me for wanting to meet new people ;D )
step three - name it, upload your art, add a description, add keywords, request crits (if u want you must have a premium member ship to deviant art) set your mature content filter than click upload
step four - enable prints or dont (if someone buys a print you make money!)
sit back and wait for people to favorite comment and give critics become popular meet people artists and get new ideas

email me at onebiozz@gmail.com
watch me and view my art at http://biozz.deviantart.com/

MY ENGLISH SUCKS ... I KNOW DONT HASSLE ME FOR IT!

want sample images? want the images i used here? email me so you can practice BUT YOU MUST GIVE ME CREDIT FOR THE SHOTS!