Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Step Three:
If you're new to HDR, I recommend that
you choose one of the built-in presets
from the Preset pop-up menu at the top
as a starting place. I like to start with the
one called
More Saturated
(as shown
here) and use that as a starting point to
additional tweaking. The good news is that
if you come up with a look you like, you
can add your own custom presets to this
menu by clicking on the flyout menu at
the top right and choosing
Save Preset
.
Note:
Near the top of the dialog, you'll see
a pop-up menu with Local Adaptation. This
is the “new and improved” HDR in Photo-
shop CS5. If you choose any of the other
methods, you're reverting to the old HDR
from Photoshop CS3 or CS4, which were…
well…I'm not sure if you could really call
what they did HDR. Well, maybe technically,
but you couldn't call anything they did
“good,” so I would ignore those other choices
in that menu completely and just stick with
Local Adaptation.
Step Four:
Now let's start tweaking this puppy. If you
hover your cursor over any of the sliders, it
tells you what each one does (for example,
hover your cursor over Radius, and it lets
you know it controls the spread of the glow
effect, but you'll find that it seems to con-
trol more than that). In the image shown
here, I set the Edge Glow Radius at 176 and
the Strength at 0.47 (I just dragged the slid-
ers until I saw something that looked good).
The controls under Tone and Detail are
somewhat similar to the ones in Lightroom.
So, think of Gamma like Lightroom's Bright-
ness slider (here, I dragged it to 0.76). The
Exposure slider does what you'd expect,
so drag it to the right to brighten the over-
all image. Detail is kind of like Lightroom's
Clarity slider, and the farther you push it,
the crisper the image gets. The Shadow
slider is kind of like Lightroom's Fill Light,
and Highlight is similar to Recovery. The
Vibrance and Saturation are similar, as well.
