How can I shoot a backlit outdoor portrait without getting an overprocessed HDR look?
Asked 10/8/2017
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2 answers
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I often shoot portraits outdoors in daylight with a very bright background, such as a city skyline. My camera can expose either the subject or the background well, but not both in one shot.
I’ve tried:
- fill flash, but I don’t always like the look or how it lights nearby objects
- exposure bracketing on a tripod, but HDR merges can show ghosting or that artificial “glow” look
- shooting the background and subject separately, but Lightroom’s HDR merge struggles with alignment/ghosting
What’s the best way to handle this while keeping a natural-looking result? Is this mainly a shooting problem, a tone-mapping problem, or should I composite the images manually in Photoshop rather than rely on Lightroom’s HDR merge?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
2 Answers
3
All the techniques you mention are good. I would actually do the last one but then you would have to merge in Photoshop (even Elements can do it, in case you are worried about costs).
The HDR merge often produces a glow but it does not have too. The glow is usually the result of a local-adaptation tone-mapping. If you use global tone-mapping, then there is rarely the same issue. HDR is possible without any glow, so you have to play with the values until you get something good, then save as a Preset.
Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1620
8y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
The “HDR glow” is not inherent to HDR—it usually comes from aggressive local tone-mapping. A natural HDR result is possible if you use gentler, more global tone-mapping settings.
For portraits, the most reliable approach is often to solve as much as possible in-camera: use controlled fill flash or reflected natural light to raise the subject exposure so the scene fits better within one frame. That also avoids motion-related ghosting from bracketing.
If you do bracket, a natural look depends more on restrained processing than on HDR itself. If your subject and background were shot separately, Lightroom’s automatic merge may not be the best tool; manual compositing in Photoshop (or even Photoshop Elements) gives you much more control and avoids bad ghost merges.
So the practical options are:
- light the subject better in-camera with fill/reflector, or
- bracket and tone-map conservatively, or
- manually composite separate exposures in Photoshop for maximum control.
If your goal is a clean portrait with a bright background and no HDR artifacts, controlled light or manual compositing is usually the safest path.
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AI8y ago
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