HDRI Tutorial Masterclass: 18 Free Lessons from the Pros

Need a place to get started? Just want to learn the basics of how to capture and edit an HDR image? Well look no further, here are our favorite tutorials on the internet for how to create an HDRI image.

There is a lot of advice out there on HDRI photography. We try to only take the best tips and present them in the most useful and beautiful way possible. Our HDRI tips cover everything from shooting locations, to techniques, to post processing and everything in between.

http://hdrguide.com/

GIMP - a powerful image editing app thats FREE

Open-source image-editor that's powerful but technical, so it requires some effort

Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

What you get with GIMP is an extremely powerful program that does anything you'd expect from a powerful image editing app without costing a penny. Need to sharpen up those photos from your vacation? Perhaps you need to crop out the ex from your Facebook profile pic and turn it into black-and-white? GIMP can do all that and even more.What GIMP doesn't offer, however, is a particularly intuitive interface and it's handy to have a guide at hand in order to get the best out of it. It does help that the editing options on the left hand side are represented by icons and a description comes up when you hover over each one, giving even more information on the chosen tool. There are even more options to be had in the file menus above the image and if there's a free photo editor out there that offers more tools than GIMP we've yet to find it.

http://www.gimp.org/

F stop - depth of field.

When it comes to depth of field, the most important tool you have is the f-stop, or aperture setting. The size of the aperture controls how much light enters the camera. In turn, the aperture affects how much of the image appears sharp. A higher number, like f/8 or f/16, means the camera will use a smaller aperture opening and, therefore, deliver a broader depth of field, with more of the image appearing in focus. A lower number, like f/2, gives you a larger aperture opening and a shallower depth of field, softening the background.

In order to manually adjust f-stops to affect depth of field, your digital camera needs to have an aperture priority or manual exposure mode. In aperture priority mode, you choose the aperture and the camera chooses the shutter speed [ in manual mode, you choose both ]. Keep in mind that, unlike DSLRs with a full range of aperture settings, some compact cameras have a limited range of f-stops, often topping out at f/8 or, at the higher end, f/16. No worries, both are sufficient to give you increased depth of field.

Assuming you want an increased depth of field, with more of the image appearing sharp, set your camera on aperture priority and stop down the aperture [ set the aperture to a higher number ]. At the same time, be sure to check the shutter speed the camera has chosen. If it’s too slow to hand hold, either use a tripod to steady the camera or open up the aperture until the shutter speed is faster.

by Theano Nikitas  Photo.net