Better input image: HDR photography

[Darren Null]

HDR. High Dynamic Range.

Problem- digital photos have only a limited dynamic range, so if you are taking a picture inside a room -for example- the view from the window is brighter and totally washed out. Or you're taking a picture outside- your subject is fine, but the sky has no details.

Solution: Take several images of the same scene at different exposures and stack the images. The resulting composite image can draw from the dynamic range of ALL the photos, so you can have your room and the view. Or your landscape and the sky.

How to do it:

The easy way:
1) Take a bunch of photos at different exposures and feed them into this free photo-stacking program:
http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html

The hard way:
Explained here:
http://backingwinds.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-create-professional-hdr-images.html

And this are the sorts of results you can end up with:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/10/35-fantastic-hdr-pictures/

[Robert Alexander]

HDR photos are a great way to show the full dynamic range of a scene. In the photos I have here are some examples of a sunset scene I shot this summer. I did both color and black and white. Which the black and white photos would be of interest for lasering. As you can see the HDR black and white photo will show alot more detail than the normal photo to the right. This type of photography might work well for doing lasering on tiles for murals on walls, or for more detailed images in wood. I have not tried it on a large scale yet, but for smaller images the detail is better.
In order to do this type of photography you need a digital camera that will auto bracket photos and least 2 E.V. otherwise you will not get all the details of a scene you are shooting. And you will need a software program that will put your photos together. If this is getting you confused :eek: Just google HDR.
I think there are some interesting applications for lasering with this type of photography.