I just finished a real estate project and an Inn project that had some difficult lighting. Due to time constraints and weather, a few of the photo shoots had to be in less than desirable, high-contrast outside light. Not possessing movie-studio lighting equipment, I had to make a choice: sacrifice details in either the highlights or shadows, producing less than professional results, or blend multiple exposures in either Photoshop or and HDR program.
I have gotten pretty good at Photoshop, but I don’t like it’s compositing results when blending different exposures. And, HDR (short for high dynamic range) programs usually produce cool and surrealistic looks that might be fun for posters, but are useless for my purposes—capturing an accurate and honest picture of the property.
I have tried many HDR programs in the past with mixed results are best. But a week ago, I tried out HDR Darkroom Pro 2, and was immediately blown away by its results. It captures the image just as the human eye sees it–with all the glorious detail in dark and light areas without introducing other-worldly tones and colors. It has quickly become my go-to program for tough lighting situations.
Here are a few examples of what I was able to do.
