Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
In the following exercise you will merge a series of bracketed photos that are
part of a panoramic photo shoot. Here you'll be creating one of the HDR photos
for use in the next section, where you will be merging 12 photos into a wrap-
around HDR panorama.
1.
Open the first three files in this chapter's
Panoramic Photo Shoot
folder (
IMG_2241.jpg
,
IMG_2242.jpg
, and
IMG2243.jpg
). Figure 14.1
shows the three images side by side. The images were created in the
camera's automatic bracketing mode at three different shutter speeds:
1/250, 1/60, and 1/15 second, all at f/8.
the images used
in this exercise are
available on the
topic's downloads
page at
www
.sybex.com/
essentials
.
FIGURe 14.1
Three shots taken from a tripod bracketed by shutter speed
2.
Choose File a Automate a Merge To HDR Pro. Click Browse and select
the three images you just opened. Select Attempt To Automatically
Align Source Images (see Figure 14.2). This step is necessary because
even though the images were shot on a tripod, there were subtle vibra-
tions caused by wind or even the shutter itself that moved the frame
a few pixels between each shot. Click OK and Photoshop goes to work
merging the photos.
Bracketshotswith
a tripod for the best
results.
3.
In the larger Merge To HDR Pro dialog box (see Figure 14.3), you will
see the three source images at the lower left with exposure values
(EV) from +1.91 to -2.06, offering a high dynamic range of almost
4 stops. Begin by selecting Photorealistic High Contrast from the
Preset drop-down as a starting point.
4.
To improve the look of the HDR preview image in the Merge To HDR
Pro dialog box, set Gamma to 0.50, Exposure to +1.00, and Detail to
+100%. When you make these changes, the name in the Preset menu
changes to Custom.
