I often travel in Ukraine (by train, car, bicycle). And often I meet quite beautiful places. You can see about them on my site. Last weekend I was lucky to find the ancient Tereshchenko palace in the Zhytomyr region.

I love to photograph, but this palace did not want to share its mystical atmosphere with my camera. So I had to resort to a little trick called hdr-photography.


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One of the most unpleasant limitations of the camera in comparison with the human eye is a very narrow dynamic range. Especially with digital cameras. The HDR technique helps overcome this limitation.

We photograph

To obtain an HDR image, we need to name several identical frames with different exposures. I usually do 3 shots with auto bracketing (with a difference of + -2).

Create HDR-image

A regular jpeg snapshot contains only 8 bits per channel. Often this is not enough for an objective reflection of reality. But 3 of our pictures, in fact, contain all the necessary shades.

Now we need their 3 frames to create one 32-bit image combining information from 3 frames. To do this, we can use Photoshop (file → automate → merge to hdr) or photomatics:

Ton mapping

We now have a 32-bit image that contains complete information about the subject. But the trouble is that this image can not be normally displayed on a regular monitor:



Therefore, now we need to narrow the dynamic range back to 8 bits per channel, but do this without losing overexposed or underdone parts of the frame.

For this there are many techniques and programs. The standard is considered the program Photomatics (correct if I am mistaken). The essence of the method lies in the fact that the photograph is divided into dark and light areas, and for them a different exposure is established. The process looks like this:

Post processing

Now our hdr-image is ready. A couple of strokes remain:

First, we correct perspective distortions:


Secondly, noise is strongly manifested in hdr images, so we apply noise reduction:


I overdid it a bit with noise cancellation, so the photo looked more like a picture. But the main thing - the result is much better conveys the real atmosphere of the palace than ordinary photography, and this is important.

By the way, I am an opponent of hdr-photos as an end in themselves, and I advise you to use it if and only if it is justified.

PS: I think it would be interesting for everyone to look at your hdr-pictures, share it in kamentah, if you have something to show ;-)