Under The Weather - Madrid Photos

So it's been a few days since I've uploaded or even taken any pictures (my stomach is punishing me for a bit of excess I partook in on Friday night) and thought I might as well take some pictures from my balcony and play around with some of the various photo manipulation techniques I've seen out there that I've been wanting to try for some time now.

So I offer on to thee, The Royal Palace in glorious HDR!


What is this witchcraft, you say? How can the the photo be so evenly exposed from darkest corner to brightest cloud? Why is it so beautiful and natural yet so horribly fake looking at the same time?

HDR.

"HDR" stands for High Dynamic Range, it is basically a "melding," if you will, of multiple images taken of the same scene at different exposure settings. In this case I combined three exposures of the same scene (typically the more exposure levels the better) at three different exposure levels. One at the normal or "correct" exposure setting for the scene as well as one overexposed capture (too bright in general, but the darker portions of the scene are exposed properly) and one underexposed capture (too dark in general, but the highlights, clouds, sky, etc. are exposed properly). With the right software you basically get "the best of all worlds" from the various exposures you've supplied the software with and in the end achieve an image that is actually closer to how our human eye perceives the world (or so I've read :P), which makes for some awesome imagery!

- Justin