After I published my tutorial for HDR processing, some people asked me what was exactly braketing and how it works. My apologize, I should have explain it before. It's true that even if for experimented photographers talking about braketing is like talking about the sunny daylight, it's not an obvious thing for beginners or just curious people. I'll correct my mistake on this tutorial, explaining what is braketing and how to apply it for HDR.
Things you need
Of course, you'll need a camera capable of braketing (even if you don't yet know what it means, you can read your stuff manual to verify that).
In the HDR context, you'll need a tripod (or a powerful arm).
Not a "must have", but it could help, it's a remote trigger.
I'll explain all this below.
The objective
As you may have understood by reading my previous tutorial (I hope), HDR consists of fusioning three (or more) photos with different exposures in order to obtain a unique photo well-exposed.
Braketing is the method that will allow us to take a serie of several photos with different exposures for a same scene. Let's see how to get that!
First step: No move!
The condition to get a good HDR result (even if Photomatix can align source images) is that photos taken with braketing are well aligned (or look exactly the same, just exposure must seem to have change).
Knowing this, for a three or more continuous capture, there is not much solutions: we'll have to use a tripod.
I talked to you about a remote trigger, it's also a good way to limit vibrations for this type of shooting (or maybe you can shot faster than your shadow)... I'm talking about vibrations that could occur at the moment you pull the trigger of your camera, but this is especially true for night shooting where vibrations are much bad than for day one's.
Next step: Braket!
I will not explain how to use braketing on your camera, but just the idea of it, how I manage it on my D7000. So please refer to your camera's manual!
The Nikon D7000 allows bracketing for up to three shoots with several increments of Exposure Value (EV, remember that acronym and refer to google for more information about it). When I shoot for HDR, I usually set up a bracketing of three photos with increments of 2EV. I also put the D7000 on continuous capture mode.
This means that at each shoot, I'll get the following three photos:
- The photo I saw through the lens, with an average exposure (I set up exposure metering on matricial mode, refer to your camera's manual if needed),
- An under-exposed photo (-2EV compared to the first one),
- An over-exposed photo (+2EV compared to the first one).
I always shoot RAW files to be able to adjust exposure at my own, without loss of quality.
This three photos represent the base of my future HDR work.
Hope you appreciated my tuto about black and white processing with lightroom? Feedback about it were good so thank you!
I'm now going to show you how to make an hdr black and white photo with the photomatix plugin of lightroom. If you didn't already read it, I suggest you to follow this link and read these few words about the HDR technic, just in order to clearly understand what will happen here.
We are going to see two ways to produce a HDR photo. First, from three photos (or more,with different exposures) taken with braketing method (Tuto 3: Braketing for HDR photo). Then, from a unique photo that we duplicate with different exposures (here, the RAW format is highly recommended).
Note that a video is available at the bottom of the page for a live demonstration.
If you're done with that, let's go to the next step!
Things you need
You'll need to have two software installed on your computer: Lightroom and Photomatix. First thing you shall verify is if your photomatix plugin is correctly detected and enabled on Lightroom. You can check that on your Lightroom plugin manager:
If you want to do HDR from a unique photo, you must capture it with the RAW format, in order to duplicate it and modify the exposure without altering the photo quality.
If you want to do HDR from the three photos you took with braketing, the need of RAW files is not really true because if Lightroom can handle RAW files, Photomatix can't (and will convert RAW files into JPEG). In the case you have RAW files, I suggest you to convert them in JPEG using Lightroom instead of Photomatix (the result will be a bit better), we'll see it just after.
The objective
Let's imagine you wanted to take a photo of a beautiful railway, with a wide-angle lens, in difficult conditions (typically, high variety of contrasts and brightness). It will be difficult to do the perfect shoot in just one photo.
For this first part, we'll see how to obtain from this three braketed images (click to enlarge):
Under-exposure Average-exposure Over-exposure
A correctly exposed HDR photo that we will then convert in black and white:
Just a note about braketed photos: I use a Nikon D7000 that allows me to braket only three photos. EV increment can be of 0.3, 0.7, 1.0, 1.3, 1.7 and 2.0.
In most cases, I use braketing to get three photos with increment of 2EV which was good on all situation I met. It's up to you to know what is possible with your stuff!
First step: Import files on Lightroom
Let's imagine that your three braketed photos are in RAW format. First thing you have to do is to import them on Lightroom. There is no adjustment to do right now, just maybe apply a lens correction profil to your three photos. For example:
Step 2: Convert RAW into JPEG with Lightroom
As said before, it is much better to converte RAW files in JPEG with Lightroom. To do so, make a selection of your three bracketed photos (ctrl+click), and choose "export":
I then select the JPEG format and use the maximum quality setting. Click export to convert your RAW files into JPEG:
Step 3: Import JPEG files into Photomatix
We are now going to import our three jpeg files into Photomatix. Just select them in lightroom (ctrl+click, again), and choose "export -> photomatix":
The following window appears. We want to make one photo from three, they would better be aligned. To be sure of that, I tell photomatix to align images and crop aligned result. I also ask it to automatically re-import the HDR result into lightroom in JPEG format. Click "Export" to go to Photomatix:
Step 4: HDR adjustments with Photomatix
Photomatix opened itself and shows an overview of our future HDR photo. You can notice the main Photomatix adjustment menu on the left and a histogram next to it:
Here are the main settings I usually adjust (up to you to play with others :):
Strength: My goal is to get an HDR looking natural. After several tries I understood that this parameter had to be at its maximum (100).
Color saturation: Adjust it at your convenience, I always try not to over-saturate colors here.
Luminosity: Same thing here, play with it till it's good for you.
Microcontrast: Modify the overall contrast of the scene. To the left for a painting aspect, to the right for a most natural looking aspect.
Smoothing: It allows to play with the exposition of the HDR image on different zones according to original imported JPEGs. Adjust it with caution in order to give maximum harmony to your photo!
White/black Point: Adjust them in order to avoid under and over-exposition on your image (refer to the histogram and make sure there is no overflow on the right or the left of it).
If you're done with adjusments, just click "save and re-import". The final HDR image is directly imported on Lightroom. You can work on it like on any other photo. So, for a black and white conversion, you can refer to the first tutorial for black and white processing with Lightroom. Here is the kind of result you'll be able to get:
Step 5: HDR From a unique RAW file
In the case you couldn't do braketing to get different exposures for a same photo, it will be possible to get approximately the same result from a unique RAW file of your photo.
Here is the idea: Lightroom allows to do virtual copy of a file. So, if your original RAW file is on a average exposure, you'll be able to do two virtual copy of it and modify their own exposure with Lightroom (on development mode): one will be the over-exposed file (for example, +2 on exposition), the other one the under-exposed one (-2). To do a virtual copy, just select your RAW file and choose "create virtual copy":
At this state it's like if you just did three photos with braketing. You can go back to Step 2 of this tutorial to continu your HDR processing.
Video Example
Here is a video example I made to illustrate this tutorial. I just followed step by step what I explained here (with just few variations).
Here is the result I get from that video (after few more tweaks on lightroom):
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The next tutorial I'll share here will talk about black and white HDR photographs. Thus, I thought those lines would be really helpful before I upload it and you read it.
The first question you may ask would be "what does HDR mean?"... HDR is the acronym for "High Dynamic Range". The simple explaination could be "that's a way to make your photographs looking like what you see in real life".
If I go deeper, I would say that your eyes can capture images with high differences of intensity and contrasts, things that your camera's sensor, even if it's better and better, can't make without post-production.
So, without going too deep with technical stuff, the objective of HDR is to fuse several instances of a same photo with different expositions, in order to get a unique photo which would be well exposed everywhere.
An example is better than words. I took this picture with a cloudy sky which means a high brightness sky. In this case, you don't have much choice: you can expose the little wood or the sky, but not both... This is where HDR comes. The first photo is the original shot, the second is the same processed with HDR (using photomatix without any adjustment). I let you make your own opinion...
If you want more information about it, if you want to know what is tone mapping or other stuff, you should trust google and make some searches.
Here we are, serious things begin. First I must admit I'm very happy to share this tutorial with photographers or curious people. As a reminder, you won't find here THE way to do black and white conversion, but just A way (that may help you to get YOURS).
Everything is about sharing, so feel free (to share this tuto, of course) and to send me your feedbacks and own methods, there is always something to learn!
UPDATE: I just added a video example of blak and white processing at the end of this page. Note that I made it using the new Lightroom 4 version...
Things you need
Of course, this is a Black & White conversion tutorial using Lightroom, so it would be nice if you had it. I don't know photoshop very well, but this is Adobe and the few things I saw about it let me think that what I'll do here could be easily done with it. Same thing for The Gimp I guess...
Of course you'll also need a (good) photograph. This type of conversion implies to do some heavy manipulations that could have bad influence on your photo if it's not of a certain quality. I think high resolution images are a good start, I'm sure that RAW files are essentials. I shot using a Nikon D7000 that allows me to capture RAW files, you should do so if possible. I won't talk about my lenses, I prefer to shoot with normal prime lenses, known for their optical quality and sharpness...
The objective
So, we are here to "transform" a coloured photograph into a Black & White one. In order to be as understandable as possible, I'll use an example with a screenshot for each phase of the process. I recommend you to save all photos of this tuto on your hard-drive in order to make them scroll on your picture viewer (in order to highlight evolutions between each others).
I'll show you how to transform this:
into that:
First step: Cropping
You know it, cropping is an important step. In this case I think a square format would be more adapted, the right part of the photo being not really interesting. To do so, I go to the crop menu (in development mode):
First, I make the horizon horizontal thanks to an angle modification (possible by manipulating the cursor on the right, or directly the picture).
Then, I choose the 1x1 aspect (means square format) and adjust it on the photo. Of course, as all good student, I try to respect the rule of third... It's easy here, the phonebox will be the main subject on the left. On the right, I'll try to highlight the trees on the background and the lines of the sidewalk: success in black and white is a question of harmony, it's highly recommended to play with shadows, contrasts, textures and... Lines!
Step 2: Black and white activated
We go now to the treatment menu. First I adjust the white balance (using the pipette on a neutral point). I then fix the exposition with the good cursor.
An important thing, to my mind, is to "boost" brightness and contrasts, what will give you a most impacting result.
This being done, you can turn you photo into black and white (I do it by clicking on the "black & white" button).
I really like to play with the "clarity" cursor. For this kind of photo, I often put it to its maximum in order to make lines and blacks more punchy! Please, notice I mentioned "for this kind of photo". It would be completely different if I was working on a portrait (or your model will probably hate you). Just try and you'll understand how it works.
As you may notice (I hope for you), your photo looks a bit "pale". Next steps will give it all the power it contains...
Step 3: Tone curve
Ok, that will begin to become interesting. The tone curve will determine the dynamic of your photo. To my mind, what makes a good black and white photo is to have white whites and black blacks. To do so, I often work with a "S" tone curve. Just adjust the curve till the result is good for you.
Admit it begins to have a face!
Step 4: Sharper
I give a bit more of "aggressiveness" to the photo in the "detail" menu. The main cursor to move is the "amount" cursor. You can adjust others to refine the result.
Step 5: Graduated filter
In order to give a better balance to the overall, I will use one or more gratuated filters. It is also possible to process that with the brush, but what you get on precision, you lose it on harmony: the brush is better to correct a precise point of the photo, not for an overall.
In this case, I apply three graduated filters in order to localy modify the exposition of three part of the photo.
Again I recommend you to play with that tool in order to understand how it works, it's really powerfull!
Step 6: Qualified black & white
Here is the last important step of our conversion. The aim is to play with "colors". Yes, I know, I talk about colors for a B&W photo. What you should understand here is that each color has its intensity, converted in grey levels during the B&W conversion phase.
As you can see, each colour is represented by a cursor that allows you to modify its specific grey level. Thanks to that, you can darken or lighten each part of the photo according to the color it depends.
No best practice here, it's at your own appreciation, try to make it looks like what you were feeling at the moment of the capture.
Last step: Final touch
This last step is really personal. Many people see vignetting like an optical default
. To my mind, it's a good way to highlight the subject of a photo. I often use it, like in this case. Once again, it's at your own appreciation.
Same approach with the grain. I like to break the perfect-looking-aspect of numeric photos. Try and manage it as you like!
Words of the end
That's it, you now know how I work with B&W photo processing. I really hope you enjoyed and (maybe) learned some things. Feel free to share this tutorial, next tutorials quality depends of your feedbacks... Don't hesitate!
First thing you have to know (and you will quickly notice) is that I'm a French photographer trying to speak Shakespear's language to allow most people to read this blog. This being said, forgive me by advance for my english mistakes, and let's go! :-)
If you're here, you must have the same interest than I for beautiful black and white photos. I practice myself this kind of rendering since some times.
At the beginning, I thought like most newbies that a simple click on the "black and white" button of my favorite picture software would bring me an amazing result... Don't laugh, you did it too! Of course it didn't take too much time before I realize there was a "little" (understand a huge) difference between my results and those of experienced photographers. I was sure of only one thing, it was my love for black and white photography and the ability for this technic to highlight the essential of a photograph.
Next step is pretty logical, I broke my piggy-bank, bought a good post-processing software (Lightroom in my case), and started to train myself.
What I want here isn't to write another boring and unaccessible tuto for image processing (including all the things... that we don't need). I just want to share my methods and ideas about it. Of course, feel free to give me your feedback (or even questions) about what will be done on that blog.
