Pseudo-HDR in Lightroom

There are many techniques for giving photos a high-contrast look. Follow along with this workflow to create the effect using Lightroom.

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Visitor Comments »

 

Nice effect - yes
Interesting pp option - yes
HDR - No

There’s nothing more here then what the original RAW file had in the first place

 

Comment by Guy Einy | April 23, 2008 @ 5:34 pm

 

Guy,

It is a process designed to mimic the effect of HDR. The dynamic range has been expanded - yes using the information that was there in the original RAW - but expanded never-the-less.

This is ONE technique. As I state in the tutorial, there are many techniques that can be used to create an HDR effect.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Comment by Mark | April 23, 2008 @ 9:23 pm

 

Wow, I have tried this out on some of my photos I basically had given up on and it’s magic!!

Thanks

 

Comment by Angela | April 24, 2008 @ 11:18 am

 

Hello
the overall look of this technique is good. But if you would look at the hard edges (high contrasted), you will see very strange, absolut inacceptabel artefacts that produces lightroom here, caused by the extremly use of both sliders simultaneous, for highlight recovery an fill light.
Best regards
Willi

 

Comment by Willi | April 28, 2008 @ 2:17 am

 

This is a great technique. I was a real fan of HDR, but as a graphic designer not a photographer, shoot HDR is not really an option sometime. Now I can get the “effect” of HDR as a designer. Thanks a lot!

 

Comment by Michael Fillier | May 16, 2008 @ 4:15 pm

 

A hideous unrealistic technique, but thanks for doing the video. Interesting

 

Comment by Bob | May 30, 2008 @ 4:59 am

 

This is basically the same thing I do every day in Photoshop.. What do I need Lightroom for?

 

Comment by Michael Mastro | June 4, 2008 @ 4:59 pm

 

Nice tutorial , thank you for this .

 

Comment by BuBu | June 9, 2008 @ 7:34 am

 

All photos looked WAAAAY better before pp! It’s ugly cheap technique for typical photoshop pokemon!

 

Comment by BartK | June 13, 2008 @ 4:25 am

 

Really nice technique! Thanks for sharing. HDR or not HDR, it doesn’t matter. What really matters is that this technique makes the picture look better but still being natural.

 

Comment by Kirill | July 4, 2008 @ 4:06 am

 

@Michael Mastro
“What do I need Lightroom for?”
… basically to manage your photos and do minor edits quick and fast.

@BartK
Maybe your a poor color blind person … very sad … otherwise your just a troll … even sadder

 

Comment by Daniel Boettner | July 4, 2008 @ 6:44 am

 

Does this technique have a specific name which i can search for?

 

Comment by Sander | July 31, 2008 @ 1:40 pm

 

I recommend learning how to use a spot meter. The Pentax K200D (an entry level camera) has spot metering built in. You scene may be a “nightmare” for a general “center-weighted” exposure reading but not for a photographer with a spot meter.

Also, I’m glad you use the term “pseudo-HDR” because most people are calling a lot of crap HDR, when it really isn’t.

 

Comment by Darren Addy | August 21, 2008 @ 10:00 am

 

Hey Guy,

Go to http://www.flickr.com/sl33stak and tell me which of my images are “true” barcketed HDR’s vs. Psuedo. There is more than one way to skin a cat. Thanks for one more way to skin it Mark!

 

Comment by Jamie MacDonald | August 29, 2008 @ 7:23 pm

 

Guy, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Go to http://www.flickr.com/sl33stak and pick which of my images are “true” bracketed HDR’s vs. psuedo. Good luck.

Thanks for the cool tutorial Mark!

 

Comment by Jamie MacDonald | August 29, 2008 @ 7:25 pm

 

Sorry, but if you were not able to take your minimum 3 shots to create your tone mapped image, you can get SIGNIFICANTLY better results than this by opening the file in LR or Bridge and save it as a TIF, bring the EV to -2, save it as a TIF, and then bring the EV to +2 and save it as a TIF. Now bring those three images into Photomatix and get a reasonably good tone mapped image.

Sorry, but this just looks dreadful but it is an interesting approach.

And for terminology, we can’t see HDR images on our monitors, we can only see LDR images. What you are talking about is HDR images that have been tone mapped so they can be seen on a standard monitor or printed via a standard printer.

Best,

 

Comment by Gary | September 17, 2008 @ 2:38 pm

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