Are Lightroom 4 Images Still HDR Photography?

Great discussion. The whole HDR label thing sort of drive me nuts. There are a bunch of different ways to increase dynamic range, or achieve the “look” of HDR. What really matters is the end result.

I think the more interesting question is what is gained or lost by processing only in LR4. When to bracket and combine exposures and when not to. I think that the reason many single shots look just as good processed only in LR4 is because they didn’t have a super wide dynamic range to begin with. Those shots with a very wide dynamic range will still benefit from multiple exposures. Plus I think a lot of shots can benefit from multiple exposures, even if most, but not all, of the shot is in a narrow dynamic range.

Let’s use your shot, Chris, as an example. It is indoors in what appears to be a well lit building. It seems like most of this scene does not have a huge dynamic range so one shot may be enough.

At the same time, there are definitely very bright and shadowy areas in the shot that might have been brought out more with multiple exposures. For instance, the upper center of the shot is very bright. An underexposed shot may have captured the details of the first floor that you can see trough the circle. Or the 2nd floor door to the outside which is a bit blown out so you can’t see the trim. Or the lights in the fixtures, which are a bit blown out so their shape is lost a bit.

On the shadow side, the doors on the lower left and right are shadowed and some detail is lost. And if you look the shot at 100%, you can see noise in walls and other places. We know that Photomatix kicks out noise when tonemapping. LR4 also generates noise when the highlights/shadow sliders are pushed to the edge.

These are nitpicky things, the shot is still great. But there are small areas in the photo where multiple exposure may have given additional processing options. And not all of them need to be taken. You might decide to keep the upper center area bright, since that helps draw the eye up into the shot.

While LR4 is amazing and does a great job on single exposures, I’m not giving up on multiple exposures yet. Particularly with my camera, which has 1-3 EV less dynamic range than higher end cameras.

What would be interesting is to process the same shot differently to test out the the pros/cons of LR4 only. Compare one exposure processed in LR4 vs. multiple exposures combined either with an HDR program like Photomatix or combined by hand using masks.

Chris,

I love your HDR work whether it’s done in Photomatix or LR, I don’t think it matters. What does matter to me is that it doesn’t look fake and there isn’t ghosting. I love HDR, but need a lot more practice. Sometimes I think when I use Photomatix my photo loses the “real” photo look and tends to get too saturated and too “fake” at times. I only have LR3, but would love to find out how you process in LR4 to make your photos look so great!