Creating HDR Imagery with Adobe Photoshop

I am currently working on a project in which I need to create photographical HDR imagery for an Adobe After Effects animation. After practicing through various tutorials, I decided to combine some of the tutorials that I learned into a process that worked best for the desired outcome. I wanted to share this process with you in case you wanted to easily create HDR imagery within Adobe Photoshop. You can also create these same effects in After Effects if desired. The reasoning behind creating these effects in Adobe Photoshop rather than Adobe After Effects is that it will save render time. I have created some simple screenshots below for reference to the process that I utilized within Adobe Photoshop.

Here are the steps I used:

1. Seen below is the creation of your raw image. Within the layers palette seen here is a foreground image of corn and a sky in the background. One layer is called “corn raw” and the other is called “background.” I will only be referencing the “corn raw” layer in order to create the HDR effect.





2. Next, duplicate the raw layer and put a Color Dodge layer mode on that layer. You will need to also pull down the opacity to about 30-40%. It will depend upon the value of the image.





3. You will then create a selection of the dark values from the raw image layer. You can use the Color Range shadow selection to easily select those values.






4. Next, create a layer mask of the selected, shadow areas. Then turn that layer mode to Linear Burn. (I found it helpful to name the layers according to which layer mode I was using to create the HDR image.)






5. Next, duplicate the raw image and repeat the process from steps 3 and 4. Except this time, select the Color Range midtone values and make the layer mode Overlay. Make sure the Opacity is set to 100 for your layer.






6. Once again, duplicate the raw image and repeat the process from steps 3 and 4. Except this time, select the Color Range highlight and make the layer mode Overlay. Pull down the opacity to about 30-40%. It will depend upon the value of the image as to how much opacity you create.





7. The final output in seen in the foreground corn below. You might need to create some curve, saturation adjustments and modify the selected areas depending upon your image. Overall, it is a quick, simple and easy way to create beautiful images for your projects.