{"id":10521,"date":"2015-09-01T12:04:35","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T19:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/photoshopcafe.com\/?p=10521"},"modified":"2018-03-04T13:50:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T21:50:19","slug":"hdr-photography-merge-to-hdr-in-acr-camera-raw-photoshop-cc-tutorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/photoshopcafe.com\/HDR-photography-camera-raw-ACR","title":{"rendered":"HDR Photography, Merge to HDR in Adobe Camera Raw Tutorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

New in Photoshop CC 2015 release is the ability to merge bracketed photos together in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw). \u00a0In the past, we have merged our photos in Photoshop using Merge to HDR. Lightroom 6\/CC gave us the ability to merge HDR photos together <\/a>directly from within Lightroom.\u00a0A lot of people didn’t realize that we can now to the same thing in Camera Raw.<\/p>\n

If you are new to\u00a0High Dynamic Range Photography, AKA HDR Photography, see the very popular, detailed tutorial I have written on it here<\/a>: Colin Smith’s HDR Tutorial.<\/a><\/p>\n

I am a huge fan of HDR and have been for quite a while now (about 10 years). If you haven’t looked at it before, or it’s been a while, there really has been an evolution in this technology.<\/p>\n

The limitation of megapixels<\/h2>\n

While a lot of people are still chasing megapixels, the real innovation is in dynamic range. Megapixels give you a larger image, but that doesn’t means it’s better, just larger. If you need to print larger, or crop in tighter than your camera allows, you need more megapixels. \u00a0mp is just pixel dimensions, nothing more.<\/p>\n

The advantage of dynamic range<\/h2>\n

When you want your photographs to encompass more of what you see, that is called dynamic range. Dynamic range is the amount of details that can be captured in the shadows and in the highlights at the same time. A small dynamic range will allow perfect capture of shadow, but lose all the detail in highlights, or vice versa. A photograph that is said to have a wider dynamic range is able to capture more of the shadows and highlights at the same time.<\/p>\n

HDR explanation for beginners<\/h2>\n

Cameras are getting better and RAW has opened up the ability to capture a much wider dynamic range than was possible in the past. The camera still falls short of being able to capture all the detail that you can see. To get around this we “bracket” our photos. This means shooting the same thing but with different settings to capture the darkest shadow detail and the brightest highlight detail on separate photos. Most cameras can be set up to shoot this automatically by using AEB (Auto Exposure Bracket) mode. Hold down the shutter button and allow the camera to capture all the frames. Typically\u00a03 shots. -2EV, 0 and +2EV<\/a>. You can do a minimum of 2 and much more, usually never more than 7 or 9 are ever needed.<\/p>\n

At this point the photos are merged together. In the past, I\u00a0would use Photoshop Merge to HDR or Photomatix (still great options). Now we can use Lightroom for HDR Photography or Camera Raw to do the actual merging.<\/p>\n

Here is a video that I have put together (from the Photoshop CC for Digital Photographers training<\/a>). This will show you step-by-step how to do HDR in ACR. Don’t forget to read the additional information and resources on this page after watching.<\/p>\n

HDR in ACR Video<\/h2>\n

(see a sneaky tip at the end in converting to true 32 bit files)<\/h4>\n