Digital Imaging - Pseudo HDR

After creating my HDR (High Dynamic Range) images, we were also told to look at Pseudo HDR, which i guess in a way, is the cheat version of HDR photography. HDR is the technique of using various images to produce one final outcome with 1 underexposed image, one normal exposed image and one over exposed image. Although this is only limited to 3 frames, you are able to use as many frames as you want to get the desired outcome. Comparing this to Pseudo HDR, which is the technique of using just one image or frame and creating HDR within it. So in other words, Pseudo HDR is the easy way of creating a HDR effect..!!

I have already created my HDR images for that specific technique and weekly task, so I thought it was time I tried out just using Pseudo HDR to see the difference in effect on the image and if it worked just as well if I were to use 3 frames, rather than just the 1.


The image below is my original image, taken by using just the natural light, at 400 ISO and F11 and the aperture at 4.2. I shot in RAW to capture the detail within the landscape and environment around it, to give it a clear, crisp image and so I had a lot to work with when creating a Pseudo HDR image. I really like the way this image as come out, it makes a nice image of its own, but lacks colour and contrast aswell as some of the detail that needs to be recovered.

If we compare the original image to the one below, there is a lot of difference. Below is my edited Pseudo HDR image. I have purposely edited this to quite a large extent to show you what Pseudo HDR can do to an image of just one single frame. I popped this image into Photoshop and started to create my HDR image using specific techniques to make it look the way it does. I used specific techniques such as increasing the contrast, brightness and saturation to remove the dullness of the image. I then used levels and  highlight and shadow recovery with increasing the midtones of the image slightly to recover as much detail as possible lost in the original image and really make each part of the image stand out.

I am so pleased with how my final image looks and its amazing what you can do to an image by using just one single frame. This image could pass as a normal HDR image with the merging of many images, rather than the cheat way of Pseudo HDR!