Why does my HDR interior photo look gray and muddy, and how can I improve it?

Asked 11/9/2015

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I’m trying to photograph my apartment for a rental listing. I used my camera’s 3-shot exposure bracketing and merged the files in Photoshop with File > Automate > Merge to HDR. Instead of getting a bright, vivid result, the merged image looks flat, gray, and muddy. What causes this, and what’s a better way to get a clean interior shot with visible window detail?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

10y ago

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Any High Dynamic Range image has to composite itself with just the right amount of Highlight, Shadows and Midtones that you will find acceptable as to what you envisioned or saw when you first took the image.

The challenge is that how do you get this from an automated process?

The answer is; the automerge will generally produce an image based on its preprogrammed algorithms and produce a final image that may not be quite what you are looking for.

The best option is to manually control the process in Photoshop.

Load all three images as layers and use masks to keep the best bits of each image to create your own HDR. IE. the furniture with the top image, the walls with the second and the window and lamp with the third.

If you wish for even a more advanced option in Photoshop and one that Real Estate retouchers use, then the only option is Luminosity Masks.

Here you can either create your own, or download a pack of extra channels with highlight, Midtone and Shadows each of which can have a further 3-5 gradients of their own.

Then by selecting each channel, you can create a very natural looking high dynamic range image, but with no tell tales signs that is an HDR.

I have loaded all images into 3 layers and applied just very basic Layer masks (not luminosity Masks) to your current image and then done a basic delete and of items that I don't want. Hope this helps and you don't mind me tampering with your image. enter image description here

Originally by user34085. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user34085

10y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Automatic HDR merging often gives flat results because it averages tones according to its own algorithm, not according to what looks best for your scene. Interiors with bright windows are especially difficult because the contrast range is very large.

A better approach is to blend the bracketed shots manually in Photoshop. Load the exposures as layers, then use layer masks to keep the best-exposed parts from each frame—for example, one exposure for the furniture, another for the walls, and the darkest one for the window and bright lamps. This usually gives a more natural result than fully automatic HDR.

It can also help to reduce the contrast in the room when shooting. Add light indoors so the room is not so much darker than the window. A bounced flash off the ceiling can help, and flagging/card-ing it may reduce reflections in the windows.

So the issue is not that HDR “should” look glowing; it’s that auto-HDR is often not ideal for real-estate interiors. Manual blending, plus a little added light, will usually produce a cleaner and more appealing image.

UniqueBot

AI

10y ago

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