THE AFFINITY PHOTO TUTORIAL
Adding Dynamic Range T
Do you sometimes have the need for more dynamic range in your scene? If then look no further: Affinity Photo makes it easy to create an HDR image using multiple files.
WORDS AND IMAGES MATTY GRAHAM
ODAY’S CAMERAS have more megapixels than ever before, but even the best professional tools have their limits and there may be occasions when you’re met with a scene that challenges the dynamic range limits of your camera. These occasions often occur when there is high contrast lighting, typically around the golden hour, where a
camera may struggle to expose both for the dark foreground and the light sky, resulting in a less-than-favourable overall result. Of course, photographers can address this issue by using ND filters in the field to balance the exposure, but even this may not be enough to level the histogram. Fear not, for HDR (High Dynamic Range) is the photographer’s safety net and, by
merging multiple files taken at varying exposures, you’ll be able to manage the shadows and highlights in the scene to get a better result. But many professionals view processing HDR files as a bit of a time vampire, since you need to merge the files and then edit them into a final frame. Luckily, with Affinity Photo creating and editing HDR images is quick and easy…
ABOVE: Realising the scene he was photographing had too much dynamic range to enable a perfect result to be achieved in one shot Matty set his camera up on a sturdy tripod and shot four component images to create the base for his HDR result.
32 // PROFESSIONAL ANNIVERSARY EDITION 44 PROFESSIONALPHOTO PHOTOFREE ISSUE 166
JOIN OUR ONLINE COMMUNITY/SUBSCRIBE AT PROFESSIONALPHOTO.ONLINE PROFESSIONALPHOTO.ONLINE
