Creating HDR from one single JPEG: Photomatix

Final HDR from 1 Single JPEG

Sometimes you are stuck with a single JPEG file and regret not taking several RAW’s to make an HDR. All hope if not lost, because if you play around with a bit of Photoshop and Photomatix, you can make a HDR like looking photo in no time at all. Of course it wont have really much of a dynamic range because the information is not truly there.

Step 1. Open the original file in Photoshop.

Original Image

As you can see its a really dull image taken from my camera from the car. Its a single JPEG with nothing special work done on it.

Step 2. Play with the curves to create an over exposed and an under exposed shot.

Adjusting Curves to create underexposure

Once you have do this, you shall have an underexposed and overexposed pic which look somewhat like this.

Overexposed Shot

Underexposed

Step 3. Open the 3 different exposures using photomatix, play with the tonal ranges and voila you’ll get your fake HDR.

 

Dragan Effect: My take on it

First picture is the original …next one after trying my own take on the effect using photoshop…its pretty close and Ill post the tutorial later

The effect is named after this polish photographer at warshaw who also happen to be a quantum physicist

This is a good tutorial on dragan effect if anyone wants to learn how to do it. This is what I followed. Involves a lot of adjusting the levels on photoshop.