HDR

I've noticed a lot of HDR-tagged photos appearing on Flickr lately. Via Cambridge in Colour tutorials:

High dynamic range (HDR) images enable photographers to record a greater range of tonal detail than a given camera could capture in a single photo. This opens up a whole new set of lighting possibilities which one might have previously avoided - for purely technical reasons. The new "merge to HDR" feature of Photoshop CS2 allows the photographer to combine a series of bracketed exposures into a single image which encompasses the tonal detail of the entire series.

By varying the shutter speed alone, most digital cameras can change how much light they let in by a factor of 50,000 or more. High dynamic range imaging attempts to utilize this characteristic by creating images composed of multiple exposures, which can far surpass the dynamic range of a single exposure.

I think most of the people testing this technique (Photomatix is one of the more popular tools) are missing the point entirely and just producing really ugly images: case 1, case 2, case 3. Their results contain such strong grey tones that they might as well just be greyscale completely! Also there's a fakeness about the result that I really dislike, even in some of the better results. Such as the following, which I selected from the "most interesting" of the HDR tag: case 1, case 2, case 3.

Am I missing a pair of HDR glasses or what?

Anyway, check out this other tutorial - Using the Photoshop Curves Tool. I've switched to using this tool in favour of the Levels tool for manipulating my photos from Namibia, and it works like a charm once you get the hang of it. Take a look at Dune 7 outside Walvis Bay (the highest sand dune in the world, supposedly) to see what I mean.