This HDR Photoshop tutorial covers improvements and new features related to HDR photo processing in Photoshop CS5. Improved HDR workflow in Photoshop CS 5 is called HDR Pro. HDR pro provides extended controls over the HDR merging process, improved image processing and tone mapping adjustments. The styling of HDR output presets varies from photorealistic to hyper-realistic high contrast HDR images. HDR Pro also improves source files alignment and adds automatic webhosting feature. With Photoshop CS5 you can finally create the look of an HDR-processed image from a single photo with the new HDR Toning feature. Where is HDR Pro?  In Photoshop CS5, click File Menu and choose Automate, then click Merge to HDR Pro…

When you’re first starting out with the HDR toning options you might feel a bit overwhelmed with the number of sliders and adjustments you can do. Here is a detailed explanation of each of the sliders which should make things a little easier.

Radius

Radius specifies how large of an area to group in brightness regions. Moving the slider to the right will result in larger edge glow. Higher contrast areas (such as trees against a cloud backdrop) will have a noticeable glow. When you first see excess edge glow it can appear to be a cool effect, but trust me, it gets old fast. It’s a good idea to use lower settings for radius and strength to minimize the effect.

Strength

Strength tells Photoshop how far apart the tones of an image should be in order to be included in a brightness region. The further you move this slider to the right, the more detail you will have at the expense of creating halos.

Gamma

The gamma slider affects the contrast of the image. Moving the slider to the left will increase the contrast to give added punch, while moving the slider to the right will give a contrast which is closer to the feel of a painting.

Exposure

Often you will find that the merged HDR photograph is slightly off in exposure. Use this slider to to brighten or darken the overall image.

Detail

The detail slider adjusts the sharpness of your HDR photograph.

Shadow

Move the shadow slider to the left will darken the shadows to give more contrast. Moving the slider to the right will bring back some of the detail which may have been lost in the darker areas.

Highlight

Moving the highlight slider to the right will blow out the highlights in the photograph. Moving the highlight slider to the left will bring back detail while lowering the highlight brightness.

Vibrance

The vibrance slider works just like the saturation slider except that works on the less saturated pixels to prevent higher saturations from getting blown out. In other words it prevents colors from clipping.

Saturation

The saturation slider can be used to give the photo more color punch or to tone it down a bit. Lower saturation can lend itself to a more painting like quality.

Toning Curves and Histogram

You also have the option to adjust the photo using curves. Curves in HDR work just like curves you might apply to any other photo. I don’t use curves in most of my HDR work because I get the results I’m looking for with the other settings.

Here I attach some example of pictures using HDR photoshop CS5.

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