HDR Workshop

HDR Sample

Digital Panoramas utilizing Stitching software have been evolving over the past several years. When utilizing film the photographer was always limited to about 5 f/stops when using negative film and less when using transparencies. Now, with the advent of High Dynamic Range software, the limited range of film has been expanded to allow digital panoramas to be presented in more detail than ever before.

Goals and Accomplishments

In this workshop you will combine several skills necessary to create digital panoramas including, but not limited to: 

  1. Composition 
  2. Stitching 
  3. Metering 
  4. HDR Capture 
  5. Digital Processing 
  6. Panoramic Display.

Attendees will receive a background in dynamic range in photography and how High Dynamic Range can be utilized to expand the range of your image as well as expand the hours of the day when panoramas can be taken.

Likewise, you will learn the best ways to meter exposures for HDR image capture, shoot digital panoramas by exposing individual HDR images, and to process the combined individual HDR images into subsets of your final panoramic image before these subsets are stitched into the final panorama. Critical to all HDR Panoramas is the ability to decide how you envision your final pan in order to know how to manipulate the processing to give you your final image. In the workshop we will also demonstrate how to size your final image for proper display for web, monitor, or print.

Requirements

To fully participate in the workshop you will need the following:

  1. Digital camera (preferably a DSLR)
  2. Tripod.
  3. Panoramic Adapter. 
  4. Laptop.
  5. Software: Photoshop up to CS5 or Photomatix Pro (or your preferred HDR Software). 
  6. Card reader.

To partially participate you can take notes and ask questions and all attendees will receive a folder containing the material that will be presented during the workshop.

Workshop Workflow

The workflow we will follow for the workshop will roughly be as follows:

HDR Capturing

    1. Brief introduction to High Dynamic Range and why it can help your photography
    2. Adjusting your camera for capturing HDR images
    3. How to meter images for HDR photography using hand-held and in-camera meters
    4. HDR panoramic image capturing (outside, hands-on image capturing using your own equipment)

HDR Processing

    1. Downloading HDR images
    2. Processing HDR images with PhotoShop
    3. Processing HDR images with Photomatix Pro
    4. Stitching HDR images into a panorama with Auto Pano Pro

HDR Post Processing

    1. Noise Reduction
    2. Tweaking the final image
    3. Adjusting Image size for Print, Monitor and Web output

Discussion – Questions and Answers

We hope to have enough time left over to engage in a Question and Answer session to make sure every Workshop attendee fully understands HDR imaging and how it relates to digital panorama creation. Here we can also examine other methods of creating and processing HDR images using software that other attendees may be familiar with and can give their experiences with HDR.

Instructor Bios:

Bryan  & Dawn Snow are the owners/photographers of SnowPro Photography. Bryan is a gifted panoramist and Dawn is a talented portraitist. Dawn holds the Certified Professional Photographer designation given by the Professional Photographic Certification Commission in recognition of her talent, style & her high level of technical expertise. An award winning editorial and corporate photographer, she has a print called Snowy Canyon permanently displayed with the Professional Photographers of America Print Loan Collection.

They are both currently serving on the Board of Directors for the International Association of Panoramic Photographers.

Dr. Glenn M. Cope, a professional photographer for over 30 years, is a CPP and holds the Photographic Craftsman degree from the PPA. He is an Approved Photographic Instructor, an Educational Associate of the American Society of Photographers (ASP), and is a Fellow of the Professional Photographers of Oklahoma (PPO).

Cope and his wife, Barbara, own and operate Creative Photography, in Tonkawa, Oklahoma. He is a full-time instructor at Northern Oklahoma College in photography and digital imaging. Having taught photography for the past 25 years, Cope calls upon his experiences as a studio owner in Memphis TN and Tonkawa OK, and as a freelance photographer. Outside of Oklahoma, he has led tours and taught workshops in England, Cancun, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming.

Cope serves on the Professional Photographic Certification Commission (PPCC) as the Chair. He is a liaison for certification serving Oklahoma in this capacity for 15 years. He is an elected PPA Council Member and has served PPA on various committees, action teams, and volunteer positions. He serves on PPO board and has served as Secretary, Second Vice President, First Vice President, and President. He is also on the IAPP board.

Cope holds the B.A., M.A., and M.Th. from Harding University; a Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary; and the Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America.