HDR: How Many Images Do You Need? #116

HDR: How Many Images Do You Need? #116

In episode 53, I talked about when and how to bracket an image. Normally, brackets are just three images, but very often I'm shooting five. The question now is, do you really need to use all of these images when you merge them in Lightroom? The answer is no. You only need to use as many images as it takes to accomplish your goal. Let's say your goal is to create an image where the dynamic range shows good detail in the brightest areas to the darkest areas of the scene and you shot a five bracket at one stop. That's five images with a one stop difference in exposure. Among these images, you would have images with good detail in the dark areas and others with good detail in the light areas. From these five images, you only need to choose enough images that will give you as much information as you want. This could mean using only two of the five images that you shot or all five of the images. Here's how you decide. Look at the center image and see if you have good details in the brightest areas of the scene. If not, look at the next darker image. If that has enough information, then you're up to two images, the middle and the one darker. Then, look at the dark areas of that middle image. If there is enough information there, then you can stop. Which means you only need to use those two images for your HDR. That's it. If, on the other hand, there is not enough information in the dark areas, then look at the next brighter image. If there's not enough information in that one, then you'll need to use that one and the next darker image. In this case, you'll be using four out of your five images. That's all you have to do. Use enough images to show all the information you require. But the question remains, why not use all five? Because when Lightroom merges images, the file size of the new image is the size of the number of images you're merging. The larger the image, the more processing power and storage space you're going to need. I hope that was clear and I hope that was helpful.