Official blog of Photojitsu.nl: Blog 4: HDR and selective colour

Blog 4: HDR en selective colour.

So here it is. My first blog post in English.

I get a lot of questions about my photographs. The most questions are about my HDR/Selective colour photos. In this blog post, I will explain how you make them.

HDR

HDR is an abbreviation for High Dynamic Range. It basically consists of at least three photo’s (five or seven is more common) that are placed on top of each other. The first photo is underexposed, the second photo has a normal exposure and the last one is overexposed (photo 1, 2 and 3 respectively).

These three photos are then processed using special software (Photoshop has a build in HDR script, see the photoshop manual on the website). The light parts of the photo are taken from the underexposed photo because they hold the most detail. The dark parts of the photo (i.e. the shadows) are taken from the overexposed photo, again because they hold the most details. The rest of the photo is taken from the normal exposed photo. The result is photo 4.

Photo 4: High Dynamic Range photo.

Selective colour:

Now that we have our HDR photo, it is time to add the selective colour. Selective colour is the term that is used to describe two types of photos. The first is a photo/film in which only 1 colour is present (remember Schindlers List or more recently Sin City). It can also be used to describe a photo or a film in which certain parts are in colour, like in this photograph.

Using photoshop, we apply a black and white layer to the HDR photo.

Right, lets have a look at our photoshop screen (photo 5).

Press that little round icon, and select black and white. Ignore all the sliders that pop up.

Now just go to your brush, make sure the frontcolour is set to Black and use the brush to “paint” the parts of the photo that you want to have in colour (photo 6).