The HDR Book: Unlocking the Pros' Hottest Post-Processing Techniques [Paperback]

Rafael Concepcion (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 11, 2011 | ISBN-10: 0321776895 | ISBN-13: 978-0321776891 | Edition: 1

When it comes to HDR, only three key ingredients are needed: hardware, software, and post-processing technique. Hardware is simple—there are only a few things you need to set up and shoot an HDR series. Software is vastly improved, making it easier for anyone to create an HDR image. The hard part is the post-processing technique. There are only two options: hours and hours of experimentation or The HDR Book.

Featuring real-world interviews with passionate HDR photographers, The HDR Book, by Rafael “RC” Concepcion, is more than a how-to and different from any other HDR book out there. While other books on HDR tend to lean toward the esoteric or formulaic, this book takes another approach. It's a complete and total HDR workshop that teaches you the one thing that most other books miss– once you've tone mapped your image with HDR software, you're still not finished.

Within the pages of this book, you'll find 10 projects shot with everything from a point-and-shoot to a 37-megapixel, medium-format camera. The projects are designed to show you how the subtle differences in each scenario (lighting, subject, environment, etc.) dictate the post-processing needed to achieve one of the many final looks covered. You'll learn not only the different tone map settings RC used, but you’ll also learn the final steps taken in Photoshop to complete each image. Then, you'll recreate these looks your self using the exact same RAW files that RC used! Plus, you get four bonus images to play with and create your own look. The end result: a more intrinsic understanding of the nuances of HDR that will help you create the images you’ve always wanted.

Best of all, The HDR Book is written using the three top HDR processing programs in the industry today: Photoshop’s HDR Pro, Photomatix Pro, and HDR Efex Pro. No matter which program you use, you'll be able to follow along and create your own stunning looks in no time.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Rafael “RC” Concepcion is an education and curriculum developer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, and the co-host of the D-Town TV videocast for DSLR shooters. An Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop, Illustrator, and Lightroom, RC has more than 14 years in the IT and e-commerce industries, and spends his days developing content for all applications in the Adobe Creative Suite at Kelby Media Group. RC also writes columns for Photoshop User magazine and recently became a best-selling author with his debut book, Get Your Photography on the Web.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; 1 edition (June 11, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321776895
• ISBN-13: 978-0321776891
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 0.5 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #306,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rafael Concepcion (RC) is an education and curriculum developer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, the co-host of DtownTV - The Show for all things DSLR, co-host of Photoshop User TV, and one of Scott Kelby's Photoshop Guys. An Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop, Illustrator, and Lightroom, RC has over 10 years in the I.T. and e-commerce industries and spends his days developing content for all applications in the Adobe Creative Suite. RC is a Photoshop World Dream Team Instructor, and has spoken at conferences and workshops as The Digital Landscape Workshop Series (www.digitallandscape.org), Voices That Matter Conference - San Francisco, CA, You Can Do it Too with Moose Peterson, and Photoshop World. RC has as delivered technical presentations for New Horizons Learning, and Intershop Communications GmbH. He is the author of "Get Your Photography on the Web" and the upcoming book "Exposing HDR" from Peachpit Press. He is also a regular columnist for Photoshop User Magazine, and Layers Magazine.

For more information on RC, please visit http://www.kelbymediagroup.com or visit his personal site at http://www.aboutrc.com

You can even connect with RC on Twitter by visiting http://www.twitter.com/aboutrc

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars 3 HDR tone mapping software approaches plus post in Photoshop June 14, 2011

By Tenna Merchent

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

When it comes to reviewing photography/Photoshop books, it really depends on where you are in your development.

This book was spot on for me in my HDR development.

Stong points:
He takes you through HDR step by step. First he tells you how to capture the image, how many shots you need, a tripod, cable release, set bracket to under-even-over, mirror up, and why you should experiment with JPG. Oh my goodness, nobody who is any good admits to shooting, much less using JPG! But apparently the software companies are saying that HDR may do better with JPGs than with Raw. I'm definitely going to try it.

Then he gives numerous examples of things that lend themselves to HDR. Some of it is obvious, anything with really high contrast, and anything you want to have really high contrast. Some things, like the inside of a church, however, are not so obvious.

He uses the top three software tone-maping programs, Photoshop CS5's HDR Pro, Photomatix Pro, and HDR Efex Pro from Nik. In the process, he highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each program in that particular case. He admits to preferring HDR Efex Pro, but he uses all three programs depending on the image.

He has a large section on essential Photoshop techniques, adjustment layers, adjusting brush size, layer masks, New Smart Object Via Copy, (right clicking on the layer in the layer stack). All stuff that I use all the time.

He does a good job of describing his post HDR workflow in Photoshop. If you are a regular consumer of Photoshop User TV (a podcast) it will all look familiar, the famous merge up command, duplicating a layer then using a layer blend mode to darken and create a vignette, things that may seem sophisticated, but are easy to do.

It was such a relief to see that HDR creates a lot of junk in his images too. I thought it was just me, and that I wasn't neurotic enough about keeping my sensor clean. Halos too are a constant problem, and he works around that on occasion by dropping in a sky from one of the original exposures. Yes, it seems obvious now, but I was in the "I'm going to get this HDR to work!" mindset. There's more than one way to do that.

He even has a photo where he HDR tone maps the image twice targeting different areas of the image. Again, that's not something I would have thought of. He also uses Glamour Glow, a filter from Nik a lot on his HDR images. To me that was counter intuitive because HDR is all about detail and texture, but it was an interesting twist.

Weak points:
His before and after images were images he had tone mapped with HDR software compared to the same images with his Photoshop post processing. I think a stronger comparison would have been a single exposure image with the camera set on matrix metering compared to his final image.

Some of his images just didn't wow me. Unfortunately, the cover image in particular. But that doesn't diminish what I learned from the book. The book to me taught me technique. It's my vision used in combination with these skills that will make or break my images.

Then when you go to the companion website to the book, as of this writing, all the content isn't up. I wanted to see the video he describes where he talks about shooting for the basement (making sure your underexposed shot appears to have no detail). This is a foreign concept to me, so I'm eager to learn more about it.

Summary:
The strengths of this book far outweigh the shortcomings. It's easy to read, understand, and emulate his techniques. I like it enough I will probably buy one copy for home, and one for the office.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great HDR book July 7, 2011

By DanielJGregory

Format:Paperback

I just finished reading and working with RC Concepcion's newest book titled The HDR Book, and I would highly recommend this book to someone getting started with HDR or if you are finding that you just can't get what you want out of your HDR images. While I know there are a lot of opinions about HDR, I have always been a fan of HDR processing. The reason is pretty simple. I still shoot film for a large format camera, and HDR gives me access to something that I could easily do with film that was very difficult for me to do before with my digital imagery.

In the zone system, Ansel Adams said that there were ten zones that photographers work with. Those ten zones referred to creating the print. Sometimes an scene will have more than ten zones of light, and film can actually capture those zones. But to get those scenes captured, you have to expose and develop the image such that the range of light captured by the film can be translated onto the print. This process is called compensating development. The result of this process is a negative that is pretty flat with very little contrast, but lots and lots of detail (sounds like a basic tone mapped file). You then do some work in the darkroom (like with Photoshop on a HDR file) and all the sudden you have a print with detail in bright windows and dark corners of a room at the same time. Because of this, the HDR process has always been pretty exciting to me.

I learned about this particular book when I attended a workshop with RC prior to the release of this book. He did several hours of training on HDR, and I learned better ways to work with my HDR files. So once the book was announced, I quickly placed an order. As you would expect from RC, the book is very clear, concise and easy to follow. He quickly covers the tools and techniques you need to capture good source files to start working in HDR. Things like a tripod, bracketing, EV compensation and ISO should not be forgotten as critical to the success of the final image.

There are several other things that RC has done that I really liked as well. The first is that all the exercise images are available for download so that you can do the exercises that are in the book along with RC's instructions. I dislike hate books that have lots of instructions and examples with the author's images, and you are expected to have your own images to follow along. In those cases, not only do I not know if I am doing the steps correctly because my screen doesn't match their screen, but often times I don't even know what would be a good image to practice with.

RC eliminated this issue by supplying the images. This makes the book even more worthwhile, because as he notes in the first chapter, HDR is not just about the post processing. You have to get some things done in capture that really impact your ability to produce great looking HDR files. If you didn't have good HDR images to work with, this book could have been a frustrating process trying to match your bad captures to very clear instructions. Luckily, this is not the case.

A second aspect of this book that I really like is the variety of subjects that get looked at with HDR. I have seen a lot of HDR online where it is pretty much the same subjects over and over, and I like how RC is able to show how HDR can be used in everything from landscapes and panoramas to interiors and architecture to portraits and black and white subjects.

I also found it very helpful that RC shows the tone mapping options in a variety of HDR programs. As he points out, all software has strengths and weaknesses. His choice to show every exercise with a tone mapped file from Photoshop CS5, Photomatix and Nik's HDR EfexPro is a great teaching tool. I also found his analysis of the tone mapping results of each program to be very helpful. In the end, I believe that showing each program rather than a single option allows the reader to see more of the impacts that software choices make in the creation of the HDR file. While I now personally lean more towards HDR EfexPro, I still keep a full copy of Photomaix on my computer because sometimes it is the right choice for an image set.

I do think the best part of this book is the education that you get on how to edit and process your images in Photoshop AFTER they are out of the HDR program of choice. RC does a fantastic job of showing that it is not just tone map and done. Show-ready work requires you to finish your work. Sure you need to understand what things like gamma, smoothing, microcontrast, and strength are, but those are only half the equation. As with my film discussion above, HDR software does nothing but give you a working negative, it is still up to the artist to develop and create the final image. Images still need color correction, spot healing, cropping, masking/merging and lots of other adjustments to be finished. I think the reason that some people don't like HDR is that the images they see on Flickr only have half the work done. People create the negative then post it and call it good. Just like the capture of a RAW file, HDR files need to be finished to complete the vision of the artist. And no, I don't think the vision is ever just the default settings of a software program. RC guides you step-by-step in Photoshop with each excise on what he does to finish the various images. If more people took these techniques to heart, I believe that HDR discussions would return to talks about the image rather than the technique.

Finally, I really enjoyed the "Now it's your turn" exercises in the book. RC still offers some guidance, but these excises are really there for you to tryout various things on your own and create your own interpretations of an image. Anyone can copy setting from a book, but working on new images and generating your own visual stamp based on just completed lessons is a wonderful teaching tool. I also liked the chapter on Black and White image creation. This is one area of HDR that I think gets ignored a lot and shouldn't. HDR does a great job of giving you lots of tones to work with in an image. And black and white image are about changes and shifts in tones. If you are a black and white shooter, HDR can really make an impact on your work.

Even after sitting in a classroom with RC, I found this book to be very helpful. I even ordered a second copy to give to a friend who wants to try this "HDR thingy." I can't imagine a better place to start than with RC's guidance.

81 of 95 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Post HDR Processing June 9, 2011

By Conrad J. Obregon TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

To understand what is wrong with "The HDR Book" it might help to understand how high dynamic range (HDR) photography works. The human eye discriminates a range of tones about twice that of a digital camera. That means that the human eye can see details in shady or sunny spots in a scene where a standard digital photo would just show black or white. The HDR process combines photographs taken at different exposures so that the light areas are selected from the darkest photos and the dark areas are taken from the lightest photos. The tonalities are then remapped. The blackest tone in the scene still appears as black, but some tonalities that might have appeared as black in a standard photo show as dark grey tonalities, just as a standard photograph's white tones would also show detail. An HDR photo can show the same amount of detail in dark and bright areas as the human eye sees.

All of this occurs by shifting tonalities in the photograph, either changing all of the tonalities of a certain level, or by changing tonalities based on the ratio of tonalities of adjacent pixels. In order to achieve that, HDR software offers a variety of tools, each represented by a slider, that offer different methods of shifting. As a result of the options offered, the photographer can not only extend the range of light but also change tonalities to achieve what may be considered surrealistic effects, although surrealism is not necessarily inherent in HDR processing.

In "The HDR Book" the author begins by introducing the techniques of capturing images for HDR processing, like bracketing and using a tripod. Next he discusses what subjects are particularly suited to HDR photography, although his emphasis seems to be on subjects that will lend themselves to the surrealistic approach. The third chapter discusses the software to be used in HDR processing, including Photoshop CS5, Photomatix Pro and HDR Efex Pro, with an emphasis on processing in Photoshop after creating the HDR image. (This creation process is known as tone mapping.) He next offers 10 different images that he captured and processed first in HDR, and then in post HDR processing in Photoshop.

My experience is that many photographers are interested in extending the tonality of their images to approximate the human eye without adding any special effects but almost all of Concepcion's work seems to be of the surrealistic variety. This might have been mitigated if he had offered detailed explanations of how the various sliders in the three pieces of software covered affected tonality and interacted but his advice seems to be to experiment with the sliders. When it comes to the sample images, a single screen capture and a short paragraph are devoted to the sliders that he moved in tone mapping and then several screen captures and paragraphs explain how the pictures were processed after tone mapping. Moreover, the Photoshop adjustments that he covers range from the simplest techniques that even tyros will be familiar with to intricate techniques that only experts might consider. There is little general explanation of these techniques so that to benefit the most, one should be well familiar with Photoshop.

I was disappointed that while discussing the details enhancer process of Photomatix Pro, Concepcion did not mention some of the other HDR processes available in Photomatix, like tone compressor and exposure fusion, especially since these processes may prove useful for individuals not seeking a surrealistic image.

I have no doubt there is a need for learning about post-tone mapping Photoshop cleanup. However, this book does not provide much help in understanding the tone mapping uses of the facilities in the discussed pieces of HDR software.