Friday March 06, 2009

Positive

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Positive Images can professionally present your products with our expertise with controlled light on location or in the studio including special lighting and backgrounds.

HDR Photography

Under Exposure
Normal Exposure Over Exposed HDR Composite

Four Piano Photos

High Dynamic Range

I have learned to appreciate photos as a professional photographer. When I see an interesting photograph I wonder - How did they get that shot? How did they get that lighting? - or - WOW that photo really looks great and almost jumps off the page. Recently I found a photo of a skyline that had that affect on me. I knew it had been altered or doctored. The photo had interesting lighting and composition and was accomplished with a technique called HDR which is a technique of combining several image with different exposures.

High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of luminances between light and dark areas of a scene than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.

My example using HDR is a BLACK piano on a WHITE floor in a relatively bright room. It is a tough composition to get it all to work together. Either the piano is a black hole in a normal room, or the room is blasted bright and the piano appears more normal. HDR makes an interesting photo taking lighting from all three photos especially intensifying reflections on the shiny dark surfaces.