Hdr

[elwoodsusanm]

How do I merge 3 photos into one to get this effect? Do I need a special plug-in?:confused:

[Jeff Perry]

elwoodsusanm,

Since you didn't attach a picture as an example "result" I'll assume you are asking generically about creating an HDR effect using three photos. As you may know the three (or more) photos need to be essentially exactly the same, but for the exposures. (Note: you can in fact use two, I've been experimenting to see of three is better than two images).

You can also multi-proces the same RAW image in ACR with different exposure settings and accomplish much the same thing, all though it is not as good as the three separate images each with a wider tonal variation.

You start with images (normally captured using a tripod) with exposure comps of say, +0, -1 and +1, or +0, +2 and -2, and then combine them together to create a single image with the expanded tonal range of all three. It can be done in Photoshop CS3 but without the Tone Mapping plug-in from Photomatix you won't be very happy with just CS3.

Photomatix also has a standalone HDR generator that IMHO works better than CS3s by allowing a lot more adjsutments and variations int he Tone Mapping end of the porcess (after the HDR file has been created). It also does a super job at aligning impages that are not perfect spatial matches (I recenetly shot baracketed images, hand held, in Utah and Arizon, and have had a great deal of success aligning the images using Photomatix).

Jeff

[elwoodsusanm]

Thank you for your explantion, I will look into Photomix :)

[Benny Pedersen]

This image is pure HDR of three photos. Photomatix then tonemapped.

http://www.elementsvillage.com/gallery/files/5/1/9/2/8607w600x400q81_thumb.jpg (http://www.elementsvillage.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=5331&c=member&imageuser=5192)

Today I figured out that the tonemapped result depend on how much it's sharpened. Try open a single file into PhotoshopElements using the ACR plugin and sharpen it 0 (zero). Tonemap with default settings (Photomatix Tonemapping Plugin). Then try open the same image but use sharpen 150 instead :eek:

If you don't have a RAW file, just load a JPG file into the ACR (AdobeCameraRaw) instead...

Benny