HDR Tutorial

Original

HDR effect with Photomatix

For this short tutorial I will use Photomatix but you can use whatever software you like. The RAW file used will be available and I think it would be great if more readers shared their results here. To do that just leave a comment with the final image and a comment explaining how you did it.

Step01
I'm not an expert and I'm always searching for the best ways to improve my photo and HDR skills.

1 way to do it is by Auto-Exposure Bracketing (AEB). If your camera offers AEB, select the Continuous Shooting mode, make sure the camera is set to Aperture Priority, and select an exposure increment of +/-2. The camera will automatically vary the shutter speed each time the shutter button is pressed, taking several exposures spaced by two f-stops.

You may have to change the exposures manually if your camera does not bracket in steps greater than 1, or if it can only take 3 auto-bracketed frames when the dynamic range of the scene requires 5 or more.

Anyway, As I had only one RAW file, I created 3 different images with different exposures: -3, 0,+3. You can do that in Photoshop, or any other tool. Save all the images in JPEG.

Step02
Now in Photomatix, go to Process>Generate HDR. Select the 3 images and press OK.

Step03
Change the Specify E.V spacing to 3 and press OK. Another dialog box will open, just press OK again. It asks you if you want Photomatix to align the images and other options, but as we are working with 3 different files from the same image that wont be a problem.
Step 4
Here is where the magic works, the Tone Mapping. Actually this is the part where you adjust the settings to create the HDR. To be honest, there's no fixed adjustment for a particular kind of picture. It all depends on how well is the lighting or how u want the HDR effect to be and etc etc.

It takes some 'trail and error' to get that particular kind of HDR fx that u want, but here's my setting for this picture anyway.

Conclusion

After 30 minutes playing with the values I got a nice result. Maybe you can get a much better than mine, if so, share with us the values you use and the final image in a comment.

Professional Retouching Tutorial

In this tutorial I will complete a professional photographic retouching from start to finish. Before watching please note that there is a lot of information in this video to absorb, so watch and re-watch areas that you find more advanced. This is a 40 minute video, I'd recommend pausing it at regular intervals before continuing so that you fully understand all the processes. Some of the areas covered in this video are:

– Colour Correction
– Reshaping Features (Figure, Eyes, Lips, Cheeks, etc)
– Adjusting tonal values
– Grading the image
– Simulating a Realistic Depth of Field Simulation
– Selective Enhancement of areas

There are a lot of sub-techniques and sub-processes that go into each of the above, so if you've got a question leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer.

Sparkling Hotties Tuts

I’ve seen some very nice images mixing photos with light effects and sparks. If you go to flickr in those Photoshop and Graphic Design groups you will see images with this effect. There’s a designer, I think he's Brazilian, who has some amazing designs using this style, his name is Leandro Demetrius and it’s really worth checking him out.

Anyway, here's a tutorial using that same kinda fx for u guys from Abduzeedo. There are tons of tuts on his website. Click here

Live trace tutorial

A video demonstration how to use Adobe Illustrator to turn pixel based images in scalable vectors by using Live Trace.In this tutorial we will look at a fast and easy, yet highly optional and precise way of tracing your photos or sketches in Illustrator. The possibilities are endless! This feature is not available in earlyer than CS2 versions of Adobe Illustrator.

Vectoring a Photo

This is a step-by-step guide on creating your own vector portraits using Photoshop. Site also features a gallery so you can upload a vector that you finished after reading the tutorial. I really hope that this tutorial could help those who want to kick start with vectoring photos. It sure helped me :D

View the tutorial : www.vectorportraits.com

Speed Illustration

Process as Drawing - 12 from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

To be honest, it's not really a tutorial. I dunno about u guys, I couldn't get any of it. It's just too damn fast!!! What a SHOW OFF!!! sheshhhhh

Anyway, just enjoy the vid! :D