Learn How to Produce Stunning HDR Images
Welcome to the educational section. In this section, you can access a variety of resources that help you improve your photography skills. All of the material that you find here is free. Note however, that it took me a lot of time and effort to create this for you. The only thing I am asking in return is the following:
If you use these techniques in your own work, and you find that they help you improve, please tell other people simply by mentioning where you got it from and by providing a link back to this page. Thanks!
The HDR Cookbook
The HDR Cookbook is a collection of recipes for better post-processing of HDR images. Many people think that an HDR image is finished when it drops out of the HDR software. Nothing could be further from the truth! Actually, this is where the real work only starts. Find out how you can improve your images in post processing.
Before-and-After Comparisons
The Before-and-After section contains the largest collection of HDR Before-and-After comparisons on the web. Each comparison chart presents the source images, the tone-mapped image and the final result in a concise way. Discover what you can potentially make of your source images with the right techniques.
Making-of Videos
A video says more than a 1000 images! While the Before-and-After comparisons do a good job of showing what is possible, actually seeing how it is done can reveal so much more information. Watch the making-of time-lapse videos that show the post-processing process. Watch them full-screen in HD and pause at arbitrary positions to see exactly which parameters have been used to produce an effect.
Pics to Play With
When you are done viewing the Before-and-After comparisons and watching the Making-of videos, you will surely want to practice the techniques you have seen. But if you use your own source images, there is no objective way of verifying your progress because every set of source images is a bit different. Maybe you also find it difficult to produce the source images in the first place. But that is no problem. You can simply go to the Pics-to-play-with section and download some of my source images. Use them to create HDRs and practice the newly acquired knowledge as you wish and compare the results with others.
HDR Cookbook
- 21 HDR Photography Myths Busted (NEW!)
- Introduction
- Requirements
- Contents
- The Secrets of Hand-held HDR Shooting
- General HDR Workflow
- Why you need an artistic workflow
- Creating 32-bit HDRs the Right Way
- Correcting Chromatic Aberration
- Structuring a Project
- Complex Selections
- Using Topaz Adjust to Improve Your Images
- Reducing Halos
- Fixing Uneven Luminance
- Noise Reduction
- The Three Rules of Noise Reduction
- Sharpening
- Creating Clarity in Your Images
- Adding a Vignette Effect
- Adding a Frame
- Restoring Exif Data
- HDR Panoramas
- Taking Interior HDR Vertorama Shots
- Taking HDR Vertorama Shots with a Tripod
- 14 Tips for Quick and Effective Travel Photography
Featured Post
21 HDR Photography Myths Busted

A good way of getting things straight concerning a particular topic (in photography or elsewhere) is to bust some myths. Even though HDR photography has been around for a while, there are still a number of misconceptions out there that get picked up by beginners too easily. These HDR photography myths tend to lead into the wrong directions and ultimately get you frustrated. […]
Featured Post

Download the source exposures of this HDR image and test yor processing skills. The story of this photo This image was shot from a cruise ship in the harbor of Izmir, Turkey. On this day, the weather conditions were changing so quickly that we had blue sky in one minute and pouring rain the next. […]
Featured Post
HDR Pics to play with: Chain Bridge
This 'HDR Pics to play with' archive is containing the source exposures of the HDR image 'Chain Bridge – Budapest, Hungary (HDR)'. Download Below is the ZIP archive with the images. Make sure you read the information in Read This First. […]
Featured Post
HDR Before and After: New Mosque – Istanbul, Turkey (HDR Vertorama)
This is the HDR before and after comparison of "New Mosque - Istanbul, Turkey (HDR Vertorama)". The final image was created from 4x4 TIFF files (series of 4 autobracketed RAW images, +2, 0, -2EV that were converted to TIFFs using Abobe Camera RAW with the Five TIFFs method creating an additional +4EV image). You can see the 12 source images in the left three columns. […]
Featured Post

The story of this photo: I have been exploring macro photography lately. You probably know me for my HDR work, and don't worry, I will keep on creating HDRs. But I was always fascinated with macro photos. […]
Featured Post
HDR Cookbook – The Secrets of Hand-held HDR Shooting
Most HDR tutorials and books implicitly assume that you are using a tripod for your work. A tripod gives you stability, ensures that images are perfectly aligned straight out of the camera, and allows for long shutter speeds without blur. However, there are also a number of disadvantages, and in many situations you are forced to shoot hand-held. […]
Featured Post
HDR Cookbook – Creating HDR Images the Right Way
You start the process of creating a tone-mapped LDR image by merging all your source images into a single 32-bit HDR image. We all know that. Maybe you have done this already very often, and probably you think that there is not much to think about when you do this. […]
Featured Post
HDR Cookbook – Why you need an artistic workflow
Have you ever uploaded an image to your favorite photo sharing site just to come back the next day and discover that there are certain features in it that you don't like? Maybe the sky is too dark, the colors have too much saturation, or the contrast is too low. The reason for this is not necessarily your technical workflow - it may be your artistic workflow that needs improvement. […]
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