20 Amazing Images That Could Be HDR – But are definitely Not.
All of these images appear to be shot using the HDR tecnique, but aren’t. I promise. In most cases they have been taken with a single shot and relyied upon the elements to give the amazing effects you will see on each.
I am not asking for people to cast a critical eye over these images, just to illustrate that using different tecniques the HDR effect can be recreated.
From Wikipedia: “High Dynamic Range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of luminances between light and dark areas of a scene than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows”.
Sunflower
Photographer Comment : “It’s not been HDR’d or Ortoned, enhanced in Photoshop or anything, it was just a great day in the field of Sunflowers”.
Photographer : Downwind.
While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph
Photographer Comment : “The tallest of the stones marks the entrance to a burial cairn where human remains have been discovered. An excavation campaign in 1980 and 1981 showed that the burial chamber was a late addition to the site, and that it had been modified a number of times.
This is not an HDR photo”.
Photographer : antsplan.
Not going anywhere …
Photographer Comment : “This is not an HDR. I repeat: This is not an HDR. This is a f/7.1, 1/125 s single exposure in Raw. The RAW was processed in Digital Photo Professional (White balace, luminance, saturation etc. were adjusted). Then imported into photomatix and Tone mapped. That tiff was taken to PS and unsharp mask, soft light layer 3% Gaussian blur at 49%, soft light layer at 15% unsaturated and inverted, burn layer at 7%, Curves, Levels, Brightness/Contrast and Hue/Saturation and very modest dodging to the clouds”.
Photographer : asmundur.
NOT AN HDR!!
Photographer Comment : “I love HDR, but please, this is not HDR..”.
Photographer : Wenspics.
– DO NOT – Drink This Water
Photographer Comment : “Someone must have or else there would not have been a sign there… ya think?
(not hdr not hdr not hdr not hdr)
Photographer : deeva.
Bird Rock
Photographer Comment : “I’ve been planning this shot for about two years. Back then, I noticed how the layered slabs of rock, the sloping hills, and the horizon all seemed to point to Bird Rock in the distance, but the conditions were never good for the element of atmosphere. Finally a storm came through just before sunset and I was able to make the image I had hoped for.
A single exposure. No HDR!
Photographer : Patrick Smith.
Steam Locomotive
Photographer : terretta.
Little bridge
Photographer Comment : “Alsace – France (not hdr)”.
Photographer : Jim.Pix.
Ocean Colors
Photographer Comment : “Natural Sun Light NOT HDR”.
Photographer : Paulo Brandão.
Dragonfly
Photographer Comment : “I personally like the sharpness and lighting. Tried to make it better with HDR. But it did not work well..”.
Photographer : CheeYeong.
Heywood Building
Photographer Comment : “This is not an HDR, this is from one JPEG (I forgot I wasn’t shooting RAW) using Paint Shop Pro XI’s Clarity twice at 18 and 15, then using Lightroom’s Clarify at 26. It wasn’t really a good day for shooting since it was so cloudy and dark, but those clouds turned out awesome after the processing”.
Photographer : jciv.
Rhuddlan Castle
Photographer Comment : “Not HDR this time, my filter system aint wide enough (yet more money to be spent) for the 10-22mm so I couldn’t use a ND grad filter, that would have made things a lot easier for me. Instead I had to shoot RAW (I usually do anyway) and expose to get the histogram as far to the right as possible without losing highlight detail”.
Photographer : Mr Messy.
Long way home
Photographer Comment : “I worked with alot of masks here, as the sky were quite ordinary in the first place, just greyed out. Added a color burn layer on top if it and adjusted the hue. Lightened up the foreground too.
Not some hdr or anything”.
Photographer : Doktor Dumbom.
Charbonneau Park
Photographer Comment : “Rest assured that this is NOT an hdr image. Wenspics magical technique creates results much like that of an HDR however, can be done with a single exposure, and eliminates the “halo” effect you most often find in hdr imagery”.
Photographer : Jonathan Michaels.
Hurry! (the silence of time)
Photographer Comment : “Here is a first full daylight long exposure. 12mm, f/19, 15 sec exposure. Single frame, no HDR, no tone mapping. Used a ND400 filter”.
Photographer : _Beat.
ValpoCrome !
Photographer Comment : “No HDR only funny experiment”.
Photographer : Vaplopando.
Il Caffè del mattino (doppio)
Photographer Comment : “No HDR… solo aumento della nitidezza, della messa a fuoco dall’alto e raffredamento del colore”.
Photographer : LeonDegrelle.
Subway
Photographer Comment : “NO HDR, no cloning/mirroring. Only Photoshop with various filters to give that cold/high-tech look. Inside an empty Mass Rapid Transit train, Singapore”.
Photographer : DanielKHC.
Lake Tekapo
Photographer Comment : “Cold and dark, windy and the storm is coming, defentely not the typical Lake Tekapo weather! NO PS WORKS HERE! NOT HDR!
Photographer : anthonyko.
Sunset Honda
Photographer : anthonyko.
You might also like…
29 Really Creepy and Creative Photoshopped Self Portraits »
20 Amazing Examples of Conformal Photography. How do they do this? »
The Top 30 Photoshop Text Effects Tutorials of 2008 – Which is the Best? »
Subscribe via RSS or Follow us on Twitter
Share This Post
There are 35 Comments › Leave your comment
Leave a Reply
8 Trackbacks
RSS via Email
We are a proud member of the...
27 Jan, 2009
Nice collection, especially the third picture.
27 Jan, 2009
Nice picture here.
27 Jan, 2009
love the shots here, some look like they couldn’t be anything but a HDR but that is just because the dynamic range is so brilliant, great shots.
27 Jan, 2009
Well done, thanks for showing what natural photography can do with out relying on photoshop or HDR.
27 Jan, 2009
Nothing like a great exposure taken with good light.
27 Jan, 2009
I know HDR is the new digital fad and all, but prior to digital we used high dynamic range FILMS (actually, chromes) to get this effect. Check out Velvia 50.
27 Jan, 2009
no wai
27 Jan, 2009
Whats so amazing? – you can use PS to pull detail out of the shadows, and recover part blown highlights…
many of the shots above just display heavy use of PS to bring out all the info captured in the original image.
This is not particularly hard to do, nor in many instances, very atttractive.
27 Jan, 2009
Took this picture this summer and tweaked the hell out of it. Single exposure but a loot of afterwork.
http://static.moyume.com/1/o_1_14009.jpg
27 Jan, 2009
Maybe not HDR but looks like topaz or maybe Lucis art post processing. Nice shots though but a little missleading. Nice try! haha
27 Jan, 2009
“Not HDR, just tonemapped.”
“Not dead, just pining for the Fjords”
27 Jan, 2009
What difference does it make if its HDR. People want to be soooo sure everyone knows it’s not HDR. Then why make it look exactly like one?
27 Jan, 2009
There is no such thing as an 8-bit HDR image. Thus, it should come as no surprise that it’s possible to mimic the effect with other dynamic range compression techniques.
27 Jan, 2009
Wow, that is truly amazing stuff. Well done
RT
http://www.total-privacy.us.tc
27 Jan, 2009
Nice photos, but the few that looked HDR were taken with a filter or manipulated.
27 Jan, 2009
You are dreaming if you say all these pics aren’t HDR. Total rubbish.
27 Jan, 2009
that bathroom shot tries too hard to be an HDR
theres no way she was goin for an ANTI HDR look. she abused lucis art to the max.
27 Jan, 2009
I’m not sure what the point of this post is. If by “not HDR” you mean “not run through the PS HDR function” that may be, but these are almost all photos that have been processed for high dynamic range.
28 Jan, 2009
I’m not quite sure I get the point here, people are proud of mimicking true HDRs with simple manip tweaks, and indignant of people thinking that it is the real deal? HDR gives stunning results without the need for loads of manip, just blending multiple exposures – and often looks far better than their faked counterparts. Admittedly, the shots above are well done examples, but in this case it would have been easier (and probably still more effective) to do a true HDR.
28 Jan, 2009
ok… I’m a photography geek myself and HDR does not describe the process, but the outcome. If you’ve made a picture with a high dynamic range, congratulations, it’s HDR. Reguardless of how it got that way. Very inaccurate title for this post. Cool HDR shots though. Beautiful.
28 Jan, 2009
Nice images. Some of them could be really HDR.
28 Jan, 2009
Il Caffè del mattino (doppio) is awesome.
Thanks,
Stefan
28 Jan, 2009
I appreciate being included in this selection – although my Flickr privacy settings do no allow blogging of my photos.
To daniel: Please do not assume my processing technique. I do not use Lucis and never have. This photo was not even tonemapped, regardless of what people might think or believe.
The point of me noting “NOT HDR” is that the typical overdone tonemapped look can be achieved without going through the usual long drawn out process of bracketing, merging, tonemapping, etc.
Lets all remember that a good HDR image, done right, should not even “look” HDR at all…
28 Jan, 2009
Mad nice pics, I might useu these in photoshop.
31 Jan, 2009
These are fun and inspiring!
5 Feb, 2009
wow… very beautiful
6 Feb, 2009
not HDR? interesting, with which camera were this pictures taken?
I don’t know, maybe photoshop?
20 Feb, 2009
excellent pictures!!! the lake with the boat looks awesome
20 Mar, 2009
Awesome images – oh except for the toilet.That I could have done without
24 Apr, 2009
Great shots… Surprising that such results can be obtained without HDR!
21 May, 2009
it’s VERY VERY SMART snaps i ever seen……
we all like it
wow !!!!!!!!
27 Jun, 2009
Just simply superb.
21 Jul, 2009
Tone Mapping is HDR. no matter what you amateurs say.
10 Dec, 2009
They all look like HDR to me. =/
http://www.vivianthornton.com
19 Jan, 2010
These images have been tone mapped, and/or photo-shoped to hell, tone mapping is closely related to HDR rendering. They look fake…….so what was the point?