I assume you’re here because you want to learn about how to create HDR Photography or you already are outstanding at HDR Photography and you want to see what other photographers are doing as well.

I would like to start off with my own disclaimer: I am not a professional and my workflow may not be perfect.  This workflow is what I go through in creating an HDR image.  I am always learning and I am self-learned thus far from experimenting and reading online.  If you notice anything that you can fix, or found useful, please leave a comment.

HDR PHOTOGRAPHY WORKFLOW OUTLINE

1. Take Photographs to Capture the Dynamic Range of the Scene [think HDR]
2. Download + Organize the photographs you took for HDR [lightroom use]
3. HDR Generation [Individual or Batch Processing]
4. Tone Map that HDR [Bring HDR to Life]
5. Optimize Your Image in Photoshop [Life after Photomatix]
6. Turn Down the Noise [If Required Or desired]
7. Sharpen Like a Ninja [Show it off on the Internet]

As I mentioned, I’ll expand on these steps over the next few posts.
I’ll try and go indepth as much as possible to help out and explain the dynamic process I walk through each time.
You can also view my HDR photoblog or my flickr photographs are off to the right.

Anyways, so you want to read more about HDR Photography?

I will present the steps I go through as of today.  This is an overview on the workflow one goes through to produce their Final HDR Image for Web Publish or Print.  First and foremost, I am addressing the key steps from start to finish.  This is basically an outline to future posts in the series.  Each step will be expanded and focused on to go over what my workflow looks for it.  Keep in mind that you don’t have to do all of these actions that I am going to present.  People do all kinds of different things and that is why I love these types of topics.  I know that in a week or a month, I’ll probably stumble upon another photographer’s workflow and consider changing something up.

I firmly believe that learning is all about a mindset and I want to allow you to see that creating HDR photography is 100% within your reach. People are not creating these photographs with one shot, straight out of the camera. If they say they are, please tell them to e-mail me. However, I know some photographs can be created with special filters and long exposures. My point is that there is a workflow to this and most of you [and me] are not going to be aware of the ways people create their work.

Do I need 6 grad filters and a polarizer with bulb exposure and drive out to the beach at 9pm?  How do they achieve those eye popping photographs sometimes?  I am amazed at what a lot of photographers can do today.  Also, with this type of tutorial I feel that we can slowly eradicate the negativity around High Dynamic Range Photography because it should help to avoid most of the problems you see with images today [ie halos, noise, 'over-cooked'].  Remember though, we all see things differently and what may seem too saturated to you, could be just right to someone else.  In my workflow I am trying to recreate the vision in my head, or the feeling I associate with that scene or location.

People love to keep their secrets to themselves, almost as if someone else knows, they’ll no longer be unique. I know that there is an abundance of work and knowledge out there and I want to help us all out and create awesome work that people will be in AWE of every time.  The more we all share our tips and techniques, the better we’ll all become in our chosen path.  Reminder: Please leave a comment if you want to challenge anything, or could help my workflow. Also, if you have a workflow of your own documented, please link to it with a comment.