PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place

Going to get my feet wet and try something new, HDR. Will be using Nikon D7100 and D7200 with a variety of Nikkor glass.
Going to do 5 shot sets at first. Merge in Lightroom 6 stand alone (only PP program I have).
Do you do ANY PP work on the 5 shot set before you merge them?
Any useful tips are greatly appreciated.

Don

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

I haven't done a lot of HDR but I think I would be inclined to do any other editing after the merge. That way you are working on your final product rather than 5 individual photos. I'm sure you will probably get more expert advice from others.

tramsey Loc: Texas

Lots of HDR tips right on the forum

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/search-topic-list?q=HDR+PHDR+Photography+--+Before+and+Afterhotography+--+Before+and+After&sectnum=0&username=

neillaubenthal

Don…the HDR processing in LR is pretty mild as far as HDR goes. It will give you the shadow detail enhancement and highlights not blown out but in my experience doesn’t give you the more saturated colors you might be looking for…nor does it allow the various art or grunge or other sort of HDR looks that some like…so I end up doing my HDRs in Aurora…but I tend to pull the saturation down as I think it overdoes it a mite and I want my HDRs to get the shadow/highlights improvements but don’t want the HDR look at all…I want them natural looking as the eye sees it rather than as a single camera frame sees it. If that’s all your looking for…then the LR HDR is decent but needs saturation and vibrancy up a bit…whereas an app like Aurora or Photomatix Pro lets you do a little more to the overall atmosphere of the photo as well without going overboard…but 8f you’ve got something like Luminar or the ON1 plug-ins you can do a lot with those on the HDR LR image to achieve those looks as well while still keeping it “not an obvious HDR”.

I haven’t tried any preprocessing of the images before HDRing them…but that would likely remove the exposure changes which are vital to the HDR…removing some of the noise in the overexposed images might help but you will have to experiment and see what works.

jamesl Loc: Pennsylvania

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With a 5 shot bracket you shouldn't need to do any processing before you stack snd merge them. If you wanted you could set the correct white balance first but if you do, be sure to set it the same on all of the shots in the bracked set so the white bslance matches in all of the shots.

Hamltnblue Loc: Springfield PA

If you are just trying hdr, you can download Aurora hdr and do the trial period.
Select the shots as is, preferably raw.
Don’t pre process the files.
Over blown and under exposed files are what you want.
The software uses the shadow areas in the over exposed images and highlights of the under exposed images to increase the image dynamic range.

PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place

Thank you all for your suggestions and links. Will try to put your kind advice into practice.

Don

Hamltnblue Loc: Springfield PA

Hi Don
Did you give it a try yet?

PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place

Have tried anything yet Hamltnblue, things have been a little hectic for me. Thanks for asking.

Don