hdr

New Inspiring HDR by Trey Ratcliff

GisMullr — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 10:45:32 +0000

As you may already know, Trey Ratcliff is a good friend of ours and is also the guy behind the amazing "HDR wonderland" Stuck in Customs. Trey is always publishing new and inspiring HDR at his website, and this is why we love to check out his news to keep you guys super up to date about what he is up to.

So here is a selection with the latest photos from @TreyRatcliff... Enjoy. ;)

Check out the downloadable version of Trey Ratcliff's HDR Video Tutorial to learn more about this amazing technique.

Want to read more about Trey Ratcliff? Try this:

About the author

Someone with a bachelor degree in Foreign Trade that really likes technology, design, photography and creativity. A person ‘digging’ a new way as a ‘geek apprentice’, blogger 'wanna be' and a communication lover! Current location: Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil
Twitter user: gismullr

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Beautiful HDR Photos by Kyle Merriman

abduzeedo — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:51:17 +0000

Kyle Merriman is a photographer based in Taiwan, where he's been for the past 5 years, and he specializes in HDR photos. To promote his work Kyle started a site called BrandKnewMe, it started out as a project to keep family and friends in touch with his life half around the world.

This site started as a platform for blogs, photos, and the videos to show to his family and friends what it’s like to be living in Taiwan. "Twelve hour time differences don’t make for easy communication so this allowed those back home to experience it as best they could" - says Kyle Merriman.

For more information about Kyle visit his Web site at: http://www.brandknewme.com/ or follow him on Twitter BrandKnewMe

Below you can see some of his photos.

HDR

I’ve always been fascinated with music, design, photography and gadgets in general. Obsessed with wanting to learn as much as I could, and get my content easily to as many people as I could I started to dip into web design and photography more and more. Then, after purchasing my first Mac, it all began to really motivate me. A DSLR camera only added more fuel to the fire.

Photography content came to the fore on the site so I felt something more akin to a portfolio rather than a standard blog of random thoughts would work best.

Regular

About the author

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. You can get in follow us via Twitter at @abduzeedo

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Top 10 HDR Mistakes and How to Fix Them eBook Giveaway Result

GisMullr — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:54:09 +0000

We announced the Top 10 HDR Mistakes and How to Fix Them eBook Giveaway earlier this week and today we are announcing the lucky winners. Top 10 HDR Mistakes and How to Fix Them is the book where Trey Ratcliff shows some of his own mistakes from the past and teach us how to avoid them! For sure a must have for HDR lovers!

And the lucky readers who got the eBook are:

Tiago Schmidt

zangetsuBankai

Dan G.B.

We will get in touch with you!!

Thanks for all the comments guys... and stay tuned, we will have further giveaways! :)

Some sample Pages

Make sure you stop buy stuckincustoms.com to check out further details about the eBook!

Latest from Trey

About the author

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Top 10 HDR Mistakes and How to Fix Them eBook Giveaway

GisMullr — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:38:52 +0000

I'm pretty sure you are already familiar with Trey Ratcliff, the owner of the number #1 Travel Photography Blog on the internet, stuckincustoms.com. He is simply THE GUY when we talk about HDR photography... and for sure, to get where he is now, he had to learn a lot and develop techniques to constantly improve his work. A prove of that is the eBook he just released: Top 10 HDR Mistakes and How to Fix Them, where he shows some of his own mistakes from the past and teach us how to avoid them!

So if you want to learn details about how to fix HDR mistakes... you better learn from the best! :) And this is exactly why we will giveaway 3 Top 10 HDR Mistakes and How to Fix Them eBooks to our readers. To participate just leave a comment telling us the importance about learning with our own mistakes... and good luck.

We will announce the winners Friday - July, 30th.

Some sample Pages

Make sure you stop buy stuckincustoms.com to check out further details about the eBook!

Latest from Trey

About the author

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Video of the Week - Japan: Heartbeats of Time by Trey Ratcliff

guest — Fri, 21 May 2010 10:20:38 +0000

I spend a lot of time thinking about the way memory and sight work together. I don't think we remember in "pictures" or long videos... but something in between. Perhaps we also sense, at times, more than 30 fps, and unexpected parts of the brain fire when we are presented with certain objects and forms.

If you want to know more about how I made this, see my "Stuck In Motion" page.

Below the video, I have placed some of my favorite works from Japan. If you want to find out more about how I made these, see my free HDR Tutorial.

I've been working on this video for the past while. I hope you enjoy it.

Japan - Heartbeats of Time from Trey Ratcliff on Vimeo.

About the Author

Trey Ratcliff, who is also known online as “Stuck in Customs”, discusses his photographic journey, influences, and of course his specialty High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. Trey’s insights to photography are not only thought provoking, but inspiring whether you’re a fan of HDR photography or not.

Giveaway: A World in HDR - The Winners

GisMullr — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:01:45 +0000

Last week we announced here a really cool giveaway: Giveaway: A World in HDR - A Great book by Trey Ratcliff, and today we are proud to reveal the 3 lucky winners that will take this incredible book home to 'go deep' into the HDR world!

Once again we would like to thank Trey for the support with this giveaway and for his excitement, passion and enthusiasm throughout HDR! It's really nice to have someone spreading the word and opening some 'secrets' of this technique. And in case you want to see further HDR by Trey head over to his incredible stuckincustoms.com!!

We also would like to thank you guys for all the comments and opinions about HDR! It's always amazing to count with your support in our site. And ok, enough said, I know you are all very curious to get to know the winners, so... the 3 lucky winners are:

Gabriela
KDG
heybird

We will get in touch with you to inform you what to do. :)

Thanks to all of you again.

Some images from the book:

A Snowy Night at the Kiev Opera House

Farewell India

The Open Road

Notre Dame of Lyon

The Airy Doom of the Duomo

Masts and Shafts

A Small Carousel in France

The Fallout Bunker

Fourth on Lake Austin

Check out more about Trey here at Abduzeedo:

Trey Ratcliff's Wonderful HDR Images

Trey Ratcliff's Wonderful HDR Images #2

A World in HDR by Trey Ratcliff

About the author

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Giveaway: A World in HDR - A Great book by Trey Ratcliff

GisMullr — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:04:29 +0000

I'm pretty sure all of you guys read our post A World in HDR - A Great book by Trey Ratcliff and got simply amazed with the images and tiny portions of the book's content we showed here! And I'm also convinced that if you are a HDR lover, you are probably dreaming about this book... if you are a HDR curious you must be even more curious about it... if you had no clue about the existence of HDR (which I doubt) now you do want to know everything about it... and ok, maybe you don't even like HDR, but I bet that deep inside you do wanna read the book...

Once again I repeat that this book is really amazing. The images, the content, Trey's excitement and passion, everything is so catching that you want to read the whole book in a single shot to get your camera and start picturing your world in HDR. :)

So based in all that and with a great support from Trey Ratcliff we are having this giveaway where 3 of our readers will be gifted with a copy of A World in HDR!

All you have to do is leave a comment saying what do you like most about HDR photos and next Thursday - not tomorrow, but Feb, 18th - we will announce the lucky winners. So get ready and shout out what do you like most about HDR!! Good luck guys. ;)

A Snowy Night at the Kiev Opera House

Farewell India

The Airy Doom of the Duomo

Masts and Shafts

A Small Carousel in France

The Fallout Bunker

Fourth on Lake Austin

Check out more about Trey here at Abduzeedo:

Trey Ratcliff's Wonderful HDR Images

Trey Ratcliff's Wonderful HDR Images #2

About the author

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Reader Tutorial: Easy HDR Technique by Cristian Iancu

guest — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:46:44 +0000

Big shout out to Trey Ratcliff for clearing things up for me with HDR’s--he has a great tutorial and I will always be a fan of his amazing work--to Nicalai, for taking this wonderful picture and, last but not least, to Abduzeedo for making this public.

We start from this original picture, that my good friend Nicalai took on a night in Milano. First, we want to add some cool night tint to this. So, we lower the Temperature a bit, let’s say -32 and play with the other sliders as you see fit.

Original Image

Don’t worry about the settings, you can’t do much wrong. We’ll return to Lightroom later and correct everything that doesn’t look right. Always remember the great J key, that can show you when you are losing details in high- lights and shadows.

Step 1

First of all, we start into Lightroom. I am a big fan of it. The Lightroom 3 beta is free on Adobe, so you might want to download that. It’s a great, great tool that makes your job easier.

Step 2

Now export it into Photoshop. Here, don’t forget to make it 8 bits / Channel, so you can save it as a jpeg. Save this image, with your Lightroom adjustments.

Step 3

Overexpose and underexpose the image by 2 points and save each version with a different name, so now you have 3 images with different exposures [+2,0,-2]

Step 4

Now open Photomatix, hit Generate HDR, browse and select your 3 photos. Specify exposure manually, if Photomatix does not auto-detect it. I use these settings, but you probably shouldn’t worry about this.

Step 5

Click OK and now you will see a crappy image. This is because your monitor cannot display HDR. Don’t worry about it, it’s alright. Hit the Tone Mapping button on the bottom.

Now, for the settings, you should keep Strength at 100%, the Color Saturation at 40-60 [I keep it at 50 for this specific image], just try not to over-saturate the image. You can add saturation at any time later. For the Light Smoothing, it should be 4 or 5, any less will give you a very surrealistic image that is not very cool. Play with Luminosity as you see fit.

Be careful about the histogram you see there, so you have it inside the frame, if it bleeds out, you’re losing light. Shout out to Trey Ratcliff for teaching me that. For the other settings, Tone, Color, Micro and S/H, play with them as your eye sees fit. There should be no right and wrong as you try not to overdo things. I usually play only with the white and black point and leave the rest on default. Hit Process and save the HDR.

Step 6

Now comes the part when you have to work a little, that part where the difference is made between all those fake HDRs generated by plugins and the real thing. Bring all 4 images into Photoshop and align them on top of each other, with the HDR on top. I usually have my -2 layer under my HDR, my +2 and then my 0 in the end. I don’t think this makes a huge difference though.

Step 7

Add a mask on the top layer, using that button below the Layers panel. With a 10-50 black soft brush, start painting on the layer mask, so that the -2 shines through. For this picture, paint the ground and the buildings, so you add a little more depth to the shadows. Also, if those street lights are too strong for your taste, paint on them, too. When done, just merge the 2 layers, CTRL+E, and add a mask to the new layer, that has the +2 layer beneath it. In the same way you did above, bring some highlights in now, Don’t worry about mistaking, since you are painting on a mask and you can always add back by using a white brush. If you don’t like merging the layers, create a duplicate and hide it, before merging it, just so you work non-destructively at any time. I hope this makes sense.

Continue until you flatten the whole image. Now you should use a software like Noiseware Professional or the old fashioned G. Blur, cause HDR’s tend to create tons of noise.

In the end, bring your picture into Lightroom again for final adjustments (maybe some exposure or tint).

Conclusion

If you’re still not satisfied completely, bring it again into Photoshop and do some dodging and burning with a soft low opacity brush. Or create a new layer above, set it to overlay, 30% opacity, and paint with a soft white brush for highlights and black for shadows.

Let your creativity run wild now!

Other Examples

About the Author

My name is Cristian Lancu, I am 26 and I am a designer and photographer from Bucharest, Romania. I will teach you how to create a wonderful HDR from a single photo. You can check http://behance.net/kdoggdracul for my portfolio and also http://kdoggdracul.blogspot.com, which is my personal blog.

A World in HDR - A Great book by Trey Ratcliff

GisMullr — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:00:47 +0000

As you probably already know, Trey Ratcliff - the guy behind StuckInCustoms.com, the #1 travel photography blog in the world - released in December a great book called A World in HDR, which I had the pleasure of reading. The book presents the art of HDR mastered by Trey Ratcliff, and it presents it with a very nice sense of humor and passion that it makes you really excited to try it out if you are a beginner, or to improve your skills if you are already a pro.

Trey's excitement, passion, talent and humor are a extremely evolving reading, getting our interest throughout the whole book. His adventures, trips partners (the urban legend Yuri), tricks and 'sunsets fixation' are able to evolve readers off all kinds, those interested in photography, HDR lovers (and also the 'haters'), art lovers, general readers and those curious people that like stunning images.

The book explains the world of HDR... it gives us an insight about it, what it is, what is the concept about it and how is it that he does it. By the course of the book you will appreciate the whole range of colors so much that you will think why is it that you are not doing your own HDR to share with your lovely ones. You will get so excited about colors, light and tripods that you will finish the book and will run out of your house to try your fist experiment... and as in my case, you will see that is needs more than reading to get to do it right, but at least will will take the first step.

I made here a selection of some of my favorite images from the book and also some of my favorite quotes from Trey. I really recommend this book either you are a photographer wannabe (like me), a pro or a photography lover. The images and reading will surely conquer you... Enjoy! :)

I saw the light. Now I want to tell you about it.

A Snowy Night at the Kiev Opera House

Ultimately, I believe we are traversing the most exciting period in the history of photography. The use of emerging visualization tools combined with your creative spirit can make something that is singularly beautiful and uniquely yours.

Farewell India

Road shots are always fun, and although I hate to offer this advice because it is dangerous, it is often best to be in the exact center of the road.

The Open Road

Don't worry about getting caught. Churches are much more lenient that they were during the Inquisition.

Notre Dame of Lyon

You must check out Trey's step by step of how to enter into cathedrals with tripods... it's really cool.

The Airy Doom of the Duomo

Wake up early when you are in a new place. I don't like waking up early, and those who say they do might just be lying. But the light is usually so good that you can't sleep through it.

Masts and Shafts

This is my favorite image of all! I just loved this place, the light, the boats, the water...everything.

A Small Carousel in France

If you want to take an HDR photo, it is fundamentally important that you capture as much light as possible when you are on the scene with your camera.

The Fallout Bunker

I encourage you not to stay indoors during a storm, unless there is lightning of course, in which case you should probably stay inside. Otherwise, forget what your mom told you about rain.

Fourth on Lake Austin

The Tutorials & Some Further Tips

At chapter 5 you will find tutorials that will guide you through the process of producing a HDR using the Stuck in Customs Style. The tut is easy to follow (even for a beginner like me) and you won't find those difficult terms or commands that you don't have a clue about it. But the important thing about this is that Trey also gives a perspective of the whole process, camera, tripod, taking the photo and so on. So if you are really just starting this, you will have now a good background of info to do it. And at chapter 6 he gives us some good advices about software and tools.

I will show you the results of my first HDR attempts to show that if I could manage to achieve this (without having good photoshop skills), you can certainly do better!! I certainly need to go wild on the lights x contrast next time. By the way, my mom said the images look great for a beginner. =)

First Attempt

Second Attempt

Single Raw

Check out more about Trey here at Abduzeedo:

Trey Ratcliff's Wonderful HDR Images

Trey Ratcliff's Wonderful HDR Images #2

A World in HDR by Trey Ratcliff

A HDR Experiment by Fabio:

HDR Experiments and RAWs for download

About the author

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Awesome Architecture in HDR

fabiano — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:49:50 +0000

Yesterday I was browsing through Flickr and I came across some Architecture groups with images that simply amazed me, most of them were beautiful photos of buildings in HDR. I'm a big fan of HDR because it sorts of increase the level of details and textures with that very unique lighting.

I've chosen only 30 photos from these groups, they're all sorts of projects. But I highly recommend that you visit the groups on Flickr to appreciate all the beauty of these architecture projects in HDR: flickr.com/groups/hdrarchitecture.

About the author

I'm from Brazil, co-founder of Zee with Fabio. Nowadays I like to play with Fireworks, Photoshop and improve my skills in CSS. If you wanna request some posts, please feel free to contact me or follow on Twitter.

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A World in HDR by Trey Ratcliff

paul0v2 — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:04:17 +0000

Owner of the number #1 Travel Photography Blog on the internet, Trey Ratcliff also know as Stuck in Customs travels the world taking the most stunning hdr photos one has ever seen, and also shares all his photo travel experiences on his personal blog.

His work has been featured on national television a couple times and it has been nominated for numerous awards. Represented by Getty, Trey lives the life a lot of photographers dreamed about. With a non-stoppable traveling schedule his collection of hdr photos is an enormous font of inspiration.

The post-processing work used to transform his photos into hdr is what make his work very unique and famous. Here you can see a great collection of over 30 photos of The World in HDR.

For more visit StuckinCustoms.com

Also check out the HDR Tutorial Created by Trey that has helped thousands of people to learn how to use this effect like him.

The Book

A World in HDR by Trey Ratcliff

Inside the Book

The rich cover and interiors have been designed by the great French designer Fabien Barral, who also did the graphic design for the website. We have spared no expense in bringing you the highest quality book! More photos of the interior and other tidbits will be revealed in the next few months as we get closer to release.

Besides new and extended descriptions with various tips, the book will also feature 10 unpublished photos that will remain exclusive to the book.

Because I like to teach by example, the book will feature over 100 photos that I consider to be some excellent examples of "HDR done right". Whenever possible, I include tips and tricks and discuss the conditions of the shot. Often times, I also talk freely about various subjects that are related and help describe more about the way I think about these things. There are many thoughts and questions around human nature, the arts, science, religion, and more. This style has sprung up from the wonderful congenial and conversational style that has helped make this community so fun and exciting. I thank you all for your involvement, your passion, and your feedback. I appreciate it very much.

Pre-Order Available

About the author

Hi there! I'm Paulo Canabarro, 26 year old web designer - paulocanabarro.com I'm from Brazil currently living and working out of Providence RI, USA. I'm truly passionate about design of all kinds, finding and sharing inspiration here has become part of my life. If you like to know more about me or get in touch visit my website paulocanabarro.com Stock me at Twitter and Dribbble

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Incredible New Portfolio of Dave Hill

paul0v2 — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:01:54 +0000

Who doesn't know Dave Hill, the guy with the awesome hdr looking photos. Well, I think that was more when he first started getting recognized for his style and as time goes by Dave Hill is showing that he is just improving even more bringing very creative concepts and scenarios to his photos that already are full of style. So when creativity meets skills you get a great portfolio like the one you about to see.

Dave Hill recently released a new website with a few extra pieces you may not seen, it also has a behind the scenes section where you can see the photo shots and clear out some doubts about how his work is done, it also has a blog and a display of his personal work.

davehillphoto.com

Girl on Adventure

Behind the Scenes Video

Modern Warfare

Cowboy

Arches National Park, UT

Misc

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Trey Ratcliff's Wonderful HDR Images #2

GisMullr — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:16:18 +0000

A while ago we featured a post about Trey Ratcliff's Wonderful HDR Images. Since our readers really liked the first post and Trey has a lot of incredible new photos at his website, Stuck in Customs, I decided to make a "sequence" of it. I have to say that his work continuous to amaze me... so here is a new selection of Trey Ratcliff's work that I'm pretty sure you will like!!

I liked so much this whole HDR universe that I even tried Trey's HDR tutorial, but as for the result I got, I really need a lot of reading and practicing around the subject to try it again. Another great thing that I just read on Trey's blog is that he announced a book,A World in HDR, which has pieces of his work with extended descriptions, more information about the photos and also some tutorials to help you with your HDR creations.

Thanks again for Trey and all his kindness!! So now, go ahead and enjoy the images! ;)

About the author

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Amazing HDR Photos of New York City

Sanid — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:43:41 +0000

Following our series of HDR images of famous city we have an incredible set of photos from New York City, the city that never sleeps. The photos are from sites like Flickr and DeviantArt and we hope you enjoy it. You can check out the other posts of: Berlin, Rome, and Paris. Also let us know if you have nice HDR photos from your town.

delobbo on Deviantart

greycamera on Deviantart

AtomicoX on Deviantart

Luthienmisery29 on Deviantart

xOtakuGaijinx on Deviantart

sp1te on Deviantart

Calzinger on Deviantart

martinasdf on Deviantart

digitaltog on Deviantart

rHytHm123 on Deviantart

DennisChunga on Deviantart

HulioJules on Deviantart

Goodfoot42 on Deviantart

martinasdf on Deviantart

delobbo on Deviantart

PaSidor on Deviantart

kcebertxela on Deviantart

bsq2phat on Deviantart

rHytHm123 on Deviantart

fergusonphotography on Flickr

vanstermonster on Flickr

alanmillington on Flickr

ignaciovicent on Flickr

csmuncy on Flickr

ggreene on Flickr

yukonblizzard on Flickr

About the author

My name is Sanid, I'm a 17 years old student and Design-freak from Berlin.
Feel free to contact,would be really happy:
Site: http://www.ikab-mag.com
Twitter : @ikab
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/ikab1

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Beautiful HDR Photos of Paris

abduzeedo — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:54:11 +0000

Following our series of cities in HDR we present you the beautiful Paris. Paris is awesome in any type of photo, so imagine in HDR. If you're an HDR lover like us you will really enjoy this selection.

Also, if you have nice HDR photos from your town let us know, our idea is have as many cities as possible.