How to: Create a HDR image from one exposure in Lightroom, Photoshop or Aperture

I'm not a fan of HDR myself, but some people are and it can be useful sometimes, so I thought I'd share my method on making a HDR photo from a single exposure. I've also included methods of increasing latitude without making the photo *look* like HDR.

What you need:
A camera that can shoot in RAW format (you CAN technically do this with JPEG but success rates are much lower compared to when using RAW)
A computer
Lightroom, Photoshop, Aperture or some other RAW processing application
A basic understanding of manual exposure shooting (you need to underexpose shots where there is harsh lighting)

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• hdr
• high
• dynamic
• range
• latitude
• one
• exposure
• shot
• lightroom

[krakowspleen]

Great stuff!

"Take an awful photo and turn it into an equally awful photo.

Add the ugly HDR look that a lot of hipsters seem to like."

Wonderful.:-))))

By the way, what's the accent? I'm intrigued by that "h". Can't place it.

[PeaceShot]

@krakowspleen Thanks. I'm Australian, by the way.

[hiian123]

That sucked. There's some good tutorials from others showing how to get HDR "LIKE" effects from a raw photo that do a great job. This however, was awful. If you do not personally like or know how to use a method, why would u make a tutorial on it?

[stipsazg]

HDR photo is created of minimum three photos of the same scene but with different exposures, than joined together in one photo.

[TheDigitalStone]

You better could have called it "How to: Create a HDR-looking image from one exposure in Lightroom."

Your "lesson" has a fundamental flaw in which you are teaching the wrong definition of HDR.

What you are doing is just still processing 1 photo with the information of that same photo.

[schnitzil]

Hmmm, its still not HDR. Just an ugly LDR

[masternonoy1]

i like hdr ,, your video helps ....coz it looks easy to do... thank much ,,dude,,,

[c4st4w4y101]

@PeaceShot aren't you half Japanese half Romanian??

[mxdvotion]

FYI you can't make an HDR photo with one exposure, by definition you need more than one exposure to create a true HDR image. this is an HDR look alike and of course it looks horrible. jacking up the fill light and recovery to make an "HDR" Image is like jacking off to having sex.

[Kevina1965]

I can fully agree with BurninC4rtrage, If you don't like it don't do a Video Tut. on it and degrade it. Maybe it is not your style or your thing to do, but, there are "Photographers" who do HDR and are excellent at it.... May I suggest an online class for you or maybe a book to read up on this. It can be used in a very useful manner

[fishnetworx]

Thanks for this awful tutorial it helped me awfully! he hee

[newcoyote]

I'm sure he kept saying HateDR.