HDR Book, The: Unlocking the Pros' Hottest Post-Processing Techniques
- By Rafael Concepcion
- Published Jun 1, 2011 by Peachpit Press.
- Copyright 2011
- Dimensions: 8" x 9-1/8"
- Pages: 288
- Edition: 1st
- Book
- ISBN-10: 0-321-77689-5
- ISBN-13: 978-0-321-77689-1
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Product Author Bios
Rafael "RC" Concepcion is an education and curriculum developer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, and one of the Photoshop Guys. An award-winning photographer and Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop, Illustrator, and Lightroom, RC has over 14 years in the industry, designing sites and training thousands in technologies from Adobe and Microsoft. He has combined his photographic and Web experience to teach with wildlife photographer Moose Peterson at the "You Can Do It, Too" workshops, the Digital Landscape Workshop Series; and also speaks at the Voices That Matter Web Design Conference. RC writes for Photoshop User magazine, and is the author of Get Your Photography on the Web: The Fastest, Easiest Way to Show and Sell Your Work.
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.
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54 of 56 people found the following review helpful
3 HDR tone mapping software approaches plus post in Photoshop, By
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This review is from: The HDR Book: Unlocking the Pros' Hottest Post-Processing Techniques (Paperback)
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,... Read more
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Great HDR book,
This review is from: The HDR Book: Unlocking the Pros' Hottest Post-Processing Techniques (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... Read more
82 of 96 people found the following review helpful
Post HDR Processing, By
This review is from: The HDR Book: Unlocking the Pros' Hottest Post-Processing Techniques (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... Read more |
Online Sample Chapter
The HDR Book: Project: The Austin Capitol
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Gear
Chapter 2: Looking for HDR Images
Chapter 3: Processing an HDR Image in Photoshop HDR
Profile: Michael Steighner - MDS Images
Chapter 4: Processing an HDR in Photomatix HDR
Profile: Trey Ratcliff - Stuck In Customs
Chapter 5: Processing an HDR image in Nik HDR Efex Pro
Chapter 6: Processing Stitched Panoramas in HDR HDR
Profile: Moose Peterson - Natural and Aviation HDR
Chapter 7: Cleaning up the HDR in Photoshop HDR
Profile - Brian Mataiash - Urban Decay
Chapter 8: Photoshop Tips and Tricks in HDR
Chapter 9: Using Filters and Plugins
Chapter 10: People in HDR HDR
Profile - ImageWizards - Roger - Printing the HDR
Chapter 11: Black and White HDR
Appendix: List of Resources, tools, and discount codes
Sample Pages
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