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80 Examples of Stunning HDR Photography

on Sep 19th 2009 with 63 comments
This entry is part 2 of 10 in the HDR Photography Session
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After hearing a large number of requests for HDR photo inspiration, we’ve decided to put together a selection of some stunning examples. What follows is a collection of beautiful HDR pictures in a variety of different styles and settings – both by professional and amateur photographers. It’s worth a look for some great inspiration.

1. What is a HDR Photo?

HDR is “high-dynamic-range photography”, achieved by capturing multiple standard photographs at different exposures and then using software to merge them together. HDR images can be taken with any camera that allows over (or under) exposure of a photo. For example, even a few mobile phones are capable of doing this nowadays!

2. How to Shoot HDR Photos

Peter Tellone has already written a HDR tutorial which has been released here on Phototuts+. It will walk you through the process step-by-step.

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3. Zoopahphly

I stumbled across this Flickr account and was amazed at him only being a beginner – having only owned an SLR recently! If this is his first HDR I would love to see his work in the future!

Flickr

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4. Colin Smith

Colin Smith is a best-selling author, trainer, and award-winning new-media designer who has caused a stir in the design community with his stunning photo realistic illustrations composed entirely in Photoshop. He is the maker of the popular photoshop site, photoshopcafe.com which boasts over an amazing three million viewers.

View Colin’s Website

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5. Matej Toman

As well as being a website designer Matej Toman (also known as Mat3jko) is a fantastic photographer with many HDR images. Matej mostly shoots quad bikes and motorbikes which is something different from the normal landscapes.

Website

Deviant Art

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6. Exxx2005

Here are just a few of the hundreds of HDRs Exxx2005 as produced! Make sure you check out his deviant art account, he is a machine producing over 100 HDR photos all at a very high quality.

Deviant Art

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7. Lance Craig

Another web developer with a serious love of HDR images. The thing I love about the photos is that each one is so different from the last, from taking pictures of frogs to a panoramic sunset!

Portfolio

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8. Andreas Reinhold

"I have two passions: Photography and air cooled Volkswagen. Combining these two is a great way for me to fill up my batteries and stay satisfied."

Flickr

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9. Photopavel

A Russian photographer with a few spectacular HDR images.

Flickr

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10. HDR Japan

"HDR Japan features the best of Japan HDR okinawa pictures and Pseudo HDR tonemapped photography. Members can upload and contribute images to the HDR Photo gallery. Images that are not HDR or Pseudo HDR in styling (tonemapped) will be removed from the picture gallery."

This website features a range of different photographers each with their own styles and is well worth a look….and submitting your own pictures if you are in or go out to Japan.

Website

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11. Adam Selwood

Adam Selwood is yet another System Admin / Web Developer but seems to be amazing with a camera. His Flickr account boasts over 70 amazing HDR shots from many different locations.

Flickr

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12. Jeffry SG

Jeffry also always seems to be traveling with photos from locations such as New York, Tokyo, Chicago and Toronto. Jeffry also has a large collection of HDR photos ranging past the 50 mark.

Flickr

New York Website

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13. Random HDRs

Here are a few HDRs by random photographers, simply click the photos to find out more information.

 

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Thanks For Reading!

I hope you’ve enjoyed these examples of HDR photography and feel inspired to give it a go yourself. If you have any suggestions or ideas for more roundup articles, please post them below or contact me via my website.

 
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Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I am a freelance graphics designer from Ipswich in the UK. You might know me as Peewee1002, I run a popular Photoshop tutorial site here: http://PSDtutorials.co.uk. Feel free to get in touch via twitter, I love a good chat with other photographers and designers! You can also find me on Photodune by the name peewee1002.  

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  • http://viewpointsociety.blogspot.com Aaron

    Woah….This is awesome!

    But I don’t get it. HDR needs several photos with different exposures right? So how is that possible with moving objects?

    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/justinscheetz/ Justin Scheetz

      My “BS” meter went off on a few of these as well, and those that are obviously moving objects (cars, dirt, water) are not true HDRs.

      But they look awesome anyway!

      • Markus Nielsen

        How can i create these “fake” HDR photos, with only a single photo?

        Do you know it? :)

        • http://www.myspace.com/greezeone L1

          I read this in my RSS reader.. and was thinking the exact same thing…

          Its probably edited on photoshop.

          The Quad bike does look amazing though

        • http://peewee1002.co.uk peewee1002
          Author

          Hey as I wrote this artilce I knew they were not try HDR images but I thought they were too good to miss.

          Here are a few tutorials about making a HDR using 1 JPG or RAW file.

          http://garmahis.com/tutorials/how-to-make-hdr-photo-from-one-jpg/

          http://www.online-photoshoptutorials.com/2007/05/how-to-make-hdr-image-using-one-picture.html

          • Mat

            That isn’t HDR. That’s “tone mapping” which is a completely different effect.

        • http://www.stevendavisphoto.com Steven Davis Photography

          u take it in raw, then create the 2-3 exposures buy saving out the various exposure levels. it’s not as good as using 2-3 TRUELY separate shots, but the only way u can do HDR with movement.

          • http://viewpointsociety.blogspot.com Aaron

            oooo, I forgot about that! haha, I feel so dumb now

          • http://davewilsonphotography.com Dave Wilson

            Better than that, you just import your single RAW into Photomatix (or your tone mapper of choice) and process it as you would a multi-exposure HDR. Your RAW has 3 or 4 stops of dynamic range that get thrown away when you save it as JPG and this process allows you to play with that chunk of information. Most of the time, this works at least as well as spending extra time building multiple JPGs from the RAW then importing those (why throw information away then reconstitute it?).

            This can be a fun technique when you want to generate HDR-like results of things that move (like people, frogs, etc).

        • http://www.mygreenlabel.com James Green

          to get an effect like a HDR image from one image you really need a raw image. Open it in Photoshop Raw. Increase the fill light to max, increase the recovery to max, increase the blacks to pretty much max, increase clarity and vibrance to max, drop saturation until it looks right. Then tweak the exposure and brightness sliders. Open the image, use an unsharp mask to sharpen the image up and hey presto!

    • palsen

      haha! i just wanted to ask the same: “how do you shoot HDR-images of racing cars?” … impossible … but already resolved … thanks! :)

    • http://www.artworkmonger.net flavius

      you can create a HDR photo from one single file if you shoot RAW. and from that RAW file, save 3 different JPGs with different exposures.

    • M.Kort

      You can make a HDR out of a single RAW file or multiple.
      You can shoot multiple exposures a said above.
      Or you shoot 1 pic with an overall good exposure and convert it later into 3 TIFF files.
      In ACR or Appenture you set the single RAW file to +1 ev and save, set it to -1ev and save.
      So now you have 3 images and can create a HDR picture.

  • sdecoret

    the selection is most of it fake HDR and done the wrong way in my opinion… a few nice shoots thought… but its easy to find better one on flickr group

  • http://www.stevendavisphoto.com Steven Davis Photography

    how do u make a gallery post about HDR and totally ignore trey ratcliffe, the most popular HDR photographer out there???

    http://www.stuckincustoms.com/

    some of the ones you posted also have some serious halo’ing.

    • http://www.ruigato.com ruigato

      i was about to say exactly the same thing. ratcliffe should be added to the post.

  • http://hazystudio.com Patrick

    The Frog and first quad look like there 3d and half of these are not true hdrs but pseudo meaning it was 1 raw image and then saved as jpegs at different intervals other wise it would be impossible to catch a moving object without large amounts of ghosting not saying there is anything wrong with pseudo just differentiating the 2 types.

  • Dave

    Shame on you for showcasing really bad “HDR”. Some of these are fake HDRs that look more like photo illustrations and cartoons.

  • http://jhaygamba.com Jhay Gwapo

    Nice set of HDR’s!!

    Use Lightroom or Camera Raw to set an image (must be RAW but JPG will do too) into 3-7 different exposures. Then use an HDR software to create your fake HDR. Then open it up in Photoshop for final retouching. By the way, I use Photomatix Pro to create my HDR images.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcwighton/ Jacob

    I only really like HDR when it is very subtle, eg. lacking dirty-looking clouds and weird glowing things.

    These examples are still great to look at though, but I agree you seem to have missed out http://www.stuckincustoms.com. Trey uses it very well, not looking incredibly fake, while still managing to get a lot of detail in there.

    Other than that great post!

  • http://samlinkphotography.com sam
  • http://www.hanswatson.com Hans

    I have to echo the sentiment that you can’t mention HDR without listing Trey http://www.stuckincustoms.com. He is the master of the art. He is one of the few HDR shooters that really understands the benefits and drawbacks of the medium. He has a good eye for knowing what will look best in hdr and he also does a good job of melding hdr and non-hdr elements in a single image. Many of the images in this article look like they just took a snapshot and ran it through photomatix.

  • matt

    Sadly as many commenters have already mentioned, there’s a minority of images here that are truly strong….. the majority are overcooked and are very poor of examples of a good hdr exposure. Shame.. really.

  • http://bingorabbit.com bingorabbit

    EXCELLENT Collection! Really thanks a lot for this great inspiration!

  • http://www.jasonmbosch.com Jason

    I don’t understand why it matters if some of them are fake HDR photos. And if you have seen the tuts on http://www.stuckincustoms.com, you will know that you can produce a true HDR with moving objects and using layer mask or even the eraser tool.

    And now for some dirty self promotion–this is my favorite HDR that I have done: http://www.flickr.com/photos/floboskifilms/3492736398/sizes/o/in/set-72157621859891101/

  • http://www.behance.net/insalaco vincenzo

    yes ok .. but when u use too much “fake” effect .. u can call it hdr or whatever you want.. but it looks ugly. no question about that.

    now i’m lot interest on dri images

  • http://photoblog.flanisoft.at/ Daniel

    Great stuff, stunning and extraordinary photos!

    I’m glad to see that one of my pics (Lancater Tube Station -> http://photoblog.flanisoft.at/index.php?showimage=57 ) made it into that selection.

    • http://photoblog.flanisoft.at/ Daniel

      LancaSter Tube Station (London) of course…

  • http://flickr.com/photos/lorenzhs deepleap

    For most of the above pictures there is only one possible caption:

    WHY HDR TOTALLY RUINS PICTURES

    and none other! I’m not that much a fan of HDR, you see^^

  • http://www.jakedillard.com Jake

    AMAZINGGGGGGGGG, Abduzeedo has a collection of HDR’s also, It’s called “HDR World” and the photographer is Trey Ratcliff, check it out!

  • Anders

    For a “Stunning HDR” blog post from Photo tut, I was expecting more.
    As other have mentioned, many (most?) of these are weak HDR and the kind that are a bad showcase for the style. HDR works, when it’s done with finesse and not over the top. There is a growing movement away from HDR now, because so many are doing it poorly.

    But that said, there are some nice images here.

    • sdecoret

      i totally agree

  • http://www.dsaportfolio.com.br/ Diego SA

    Really awesome! Some great photos here! They almost look like 3D works.

  • http://www.zeemidesign.com zeemiDesign

    I’m really not too big of a fan of HDR photography, but there are some good ones in here. I actually only like HDR-shots that don’t look to artificial and “HDR”-like. You could say I dislike about 85-90% of all HDR-shots and only a few exceptional ones can really fascinate me.
    I played and experimented around with HDR for a while, but got online satisfying results with black and white HDRs…

  • David

    HDR is used to create an image closer to what the eye sees when the film/sensor is not capable of doing so on it’s own.

    Unfortunately the examples here are the “wikiality” definition of what HDR is. That is, they are the popular, lowest common denominator, yet not technically correct Photomatix to 600% kind of HDR. Unless you are on some weird acid trip, there is no way most of these are what your eye sees.

    This post will propagate the myth that overdone photos like these represent what HDR is but for a much better and realistic list of HDR photos, check out http://www.lightstalking.com/hdr .

  • Mick

    Eh, this could be reduced from 80 down to like, maybe 10, and would been a better article. Thanks for the effort tho.

  • http://www.freethoughtphoto.com Kathleen Bjoran

    Dynamic range in photography lighting is the smallest ratio possible between the darkest light (shadows) to the brightest (highlights). I teach my students dynamic range in photography and Photoshop. They also learn how to make that shift that creates high dynamic range in Photoshop. We use to have reciprocity failure in the old film days (I still play with this on my 4 x 5) and see the similarities in color effects in HDR. It is quite simple to create even greater dynamic range to the point where the term HDR comes in to play. HDR is not a photographic technique just as selective coloring isn’t. It must be done in post-processing and requires an artist’s eye.

  • Jonathan

    The night building shots, racing photos and people photos are inspiring.

  • http://nordland.elev.no Jyrg1
  • http://www.matejtoman.com matej toman

    thank you so much! :-)

  • Patrick

    Some pictures are really awesome. But there are many pictures, which are really bad examples for HDR, too plastic.

  • ML

    Cartoonish, overprocessed examples of what “HDR” should NOT be like.

  • Dunc

    I love the fact that you can be a subtle or over the top as you want with HDR (real, or “fake”)! Some of these images really suit the way over the top, cartoony look in my opinion…

  • Twinelens

    Guys please…
    HDR is not tonal mapping.
    You cant do A HDR of a Car, or anything moving, simply because you cant take even 2 images and merge them without losing everything that moves in perspective.

    HDR can mean that you don’t even see that its mapped but have an immense tonal range. Don’t mix this up please, because one is for the style and one is for for the content.

  • http://www.thegoodlight.com paul sherar

    these are great, thanks for posting. i’ve been involved a bit in HDR myself. i recently shot a band and did some tone mapping on the images they came out great. (www.thegoodlight.com/archives/471)

  • http://www.osanchezdg.blogspot.com Oscar sán

    wow! excellent HDR photography…. Some great examples of hdr here!

  • http://stefangustafsson.com/ Stefan Gustafsson

    My favorite HDR photographer is Artie.
    You can check out his pictures here, they’re sick:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/artiephotography/

    I also fool around with HDR, these are mine:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan-gustafsson/sets/72157616859942190/

  • http://www.sicanstudios.com Alex C.

    Lovely collection of HDR!
    I didn’t know tutsplus had opened a Photo section.

    I’ll come and visit more often now! :)

  • http://link Settor28

    Both of these examples illustrate how librarians are not just adding new software but tweaking it to improve the experience for their users. ,

  • leomonkeyguru

    I’ve found some nice works @ http://www.anothereality.net :)

  • http://www.AndreReboucas.com André Rebouças

    Awesome!! I’ll do to!

  • http://skl.me Stephen Lang

    I love the subtlety of Colin Smiths work, I prefer HDR thats not over-saturated. Heres a few of my own:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenlang/tags/hdr

  • Terminator

    Can someone please explain to me how most of these photos are anywhere being near amazing? They are horrible! Are people that blind that they can’t see the monstrous defects in these? Halos. Fake and unnatural colors. Distortions all over. I’m sorry, but they are not only bad, they are disgusting to look at.

  • Sam

    Composition is very average, HDR is crap, over saturated…are all these paintings or a photos. Get back to basics, drop HDR and get out and shoot real photos, long live Velvia.

  • http://thephotophile.blogspot.com Lanthus

    For me a successful HDR needs to look as if it is not an HDR, otherwise it just looks unnatural and faked. There are only a handful here that are even half decent. Sorry.

  • fkinnoob

    maybe they used the 10 fps from 1d M4 and exposure bracketing xD or atleast 8 fps from 7D

  • Katty

    is it possible that this technique could ever be adapted for video purposes as well?

    I like this gallery: http://www.usernetsite.com/advertisement/dave-hill-is-one-of-the-cult-photographers-of-the-hdr-photography.php

  • Romanywg

    I really like HDR when done properly but don’t see one here at all that I personally would call good HDR.
    They all give HDR a bad name.

  • Zamda

    Really? Come on. Half of these are crap. People think “Oooh tonemapping I’m cool as” and then make the resulting photo look like something I would definitely not stick on my wall. Most of the composition of these photos are really average – the only thing that makes them stand out at all is the aggressive tonemapping.

    HDR should be used to enhance, slightly, an already decent photo – these border on photomanipulations.

  • sam

    amazing!! x

  • http://pic.MichAdel.net Michael Chien

    You can see my HDR photos in http://pic.michadel.net/HDR

  • Raheel

    Yesterday one of my HDR images turned out to look really bad and I was disappointed. But now I am feeling much better that there can be worse situations.

    Sorry to say, many of HDRs in this collection are ‘stunningly’ pathetic!

    • joe faria

      pathetic!! what kind of criticism is that? be less obtuse, big guy!