Islam The Way is a website by Mr. Ahmed Ismail. He has written many articles on Islam and published a few books.

Launched: March 2010
Visit: http://www.islamtheway.org/

A little about POEvents…

POEVENTS is event planning & Management Company based in Riyadh – Saudi Arabia, we are a mid-sized organization which allows us to give each client the attention he deserves. Regardless number of the projects we are working to deliver to our clients, each client will have a single point of contact to ensure the smoothest, most effective production process.

Launch Date: 20 March 2011

Visit website: http://www.poevents.com/

Level: Beginner

This tutorial explains how to create an HDR effect on any normal pic captured with a normal camera. The lightning conditions and weather also matter while taking a pic, so bear in mind that this works for optimum pics taken in a suitable environment.

Let’s get started. I’m going to use a pic I took a few days ago at the corniche.

Step 1: Open the image in Photoshop by dragging and dropping or using File > Open.

Step 2: Duplicate the layer by right-clicking on the background layer and selecting “duplicate layer” (Or you can use shortcut: Ctrl + J. I have no idea why duplicating a layer has a shortcut with the letter “J”. Maybe the Spanish word is Jãplicato?)

Step 3: Bring up the Levels from the menu by selecting Image > Adjustments > Levels (Shortcut: Ctrl + L). Now click on the “Auto” buttons. This automatically adjusts the color ranges which were unevenly disturbed while taking the pic (due to weather conditions, lightning, etc.)

Step 4: Jãplicate this layer too by pressing Ctrl + J, then go to Image > Adjustments > Equalize. This will equally distribute the high and low value colors in the image. So the darkest pixel will become black and the lightest will become white. Yeah, sadly racism exists everywhere. *sigh*

Step 5: It’s already looking like some sort of a bad HDR image, but we’re not done yet. Set this layer’s blending mode to “Soft light”.

Now it looks so messed up but we can fix that. Decrease this layer’s opacity to around 60%. This value depends on the image and is different with every image. Usually, it varies between 30% – 70%. But you can play around till you feel it looks kinda HDR-ish. Now press and hold Ctrl and click on the layer beneath it to select both the layers. Right-click them and select “Merge Layers” because we don’t like leaving too many layers around.

Step 6: Now comes the part where you actually edit the image to make parts of it stand out even more. Notice that usually the sky or the clouds in most outdoor pics turn out very bright. For fixing that, first you gotta duplicate this latest merged layer by pressing Ctrl + J and open up the Levels by pressing Ctrl + L (or open them up like in step 3). Now start moving the middle slider to the right, till the value under it becomes around 0.60. This value changes with every pic and sometimes this step is not even necessary. For outdoor pics involving the sky, use this step with the slider somewhere between 0.70 and 0.50.

Now, we will create a layer mask for the layer. No, this will not give the image “Layer powers”, this isn’t a super hero mask. It’s some mask thingy which helps us with some stuff.. blah blah. Anyway, follow these steps:

1. Click on that add layer mask icon and you should see a white box formed next to the image
thumbnail. Click on it to select it.
2. Press D to make the background and foreground colors default, which are white and black (or
just change the foreground color to black).
3. Select the Brush Tool by pressing B or clicking on the brush icon.
4. In the brush properties above, change the gradient brush size to something high, like around 300 (depends on your image size). Change the hardness to 0%.

Check screenshot for details.

Now you’re ready to use the super-powered brush. Start brushing the area under the horizon. Don’t touch the clouds/sky with your brush. You’ll see that it’s erasing the area of the image and showing the layer underneath it.

It’s better to use this technique than an eraser because we can always fine tune our mask anytime later when we need but cannot undo an eraser stroke later on.

Just keep brushing that area till the entire part is complete. Use a smaller brush size for the minute details at the horizon, near the trees. Don’t make it obvious that it’s edited. It should blend properly. Remember not to touch the sky with the brush.

Once you’re done, select that layer by clicking it, then hold Ctrl and select the layer under it too, then right-click them and select “Merge Layers” because they always wanna stick together forever and ever. There, now the clouds stand out more in the pic!

Step 7: Now we’re gonna add an effect which is used in many HD images and adds a slight touch to the overall image. I can’t explain this step in words, just check the screenshot. Don’t worry, it’s easy. All you have to do is follow the steps in the screenshot. Start by pressing the fx icon and select “Gradient Overlay”. Now go to step 2, 3, 4 and so on. Change the values by referring to the screenshot. Follow the numbered steps in order. I was never good at Math, but I knowthat 4 comes after 5. I mean, before. I think. Ah well..

Step 8: What, you want more steps? You’re done! You’ve just created an HDRish image, kinda.

Here’s the final result, comparing the original pic and the edited one.

Extra Step: To make the colors pop out, I usually increase the saturation of the image after the above steps. Just go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation or use the shortcut Ctrl + U. Increase the value of saturation by +15 and click OK.

Also, if you are editing the pic to upload it online, then usually the pic must be resized. Go to Image > Image Size (Shortcut: Alt + Ctrl + I). I prefer resizing by percentage rather than pixels so select that from the drop down and choose an appropriate size for web, like 25% or 30%. Then go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen to sharpen the final image before saving it. Use 100% amount and a radius of 1 pixel. You can increase this to 150% and 2 pixels, but it’ll be overkill, and it depends on the image you’re editing.

After the above step, you’re done completely and can now go to File > Save As and save it as a JPEG file, ready to be uploaded and show everyone around.

Conclusion: This tutorial cannot be generalized for ALL pictures, but it works on MOST of them anyway. The values used for opacity, levels and brush size may vary, but it’s up to you to adjust the image till it looks perfect. This can also be used for portrait shots, but there are a few extra steps required for fixing faces, so this is more suited for landscape pictures. Bottom line is, you don’t need an expensive camera to create super awesome ultra-high powered wow-y images, all you need is any normal digital camera, (or Nokia N82), a computer with Photoshop installed in it and some Doritos.

(Update #1: Now that I own a DSLR camera, using this tutorial and a few extra steps produces brilliant results. I recommend everyone to use the above settings for editing pics.)

(Update #2: This tutorial is rendered partially useless by a new feature in Adobe Photoshop CS5 called “HDR Toning”, which basically combines all the above steps into a single step. However, it works better for a few outdoor pics only and this tutorial still stands for most pics.)

Some info about the above pic: I used Nokia N82 for taking this pic at Al-Khobar Corniche, KSA. For editing it, I used Adobe Photoshop CS4, But CS5, CS3 and CS2 also work. Operating system: Windows 7 Ultimate (although I don’t see how that’s relevant in anyway). I didn’t exactly eat Doritos while making this tutorial, but I did take a few sips of hot chocolate from Dolci and Salatini.

I hope this tutorial was useful! Do consider sharing this article using the social links below with your friends!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email me: flopjoke@gmail.com
(and no questions about my weird email address please. It was a high school mistake.)

©2009 AKstudios™