Highlight and shadow detail in photographs - understanding dynamic range
Dynamic Range to HDR
Maintaining the quality when printing your photos
At Mynuphoto we aim to preserve every ounce of quality in your photo that we can.
This starts with the photo we receive from you and we assess the detail in both the highlights and the shadow areas
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range is the difference or range between the darkest and lightest tones in an image. In ideal terms (as in most human vision) we would like to think of this as an absolute black and a pure white, but cameras cannot record this latitude in the same manner as humans do, photography therefore has a mechanical way of measuring this which we call the dynamic range that a camera is capable of achieving.
To put this simply a camera cannot display highlight detail and shadow detail at the same time. If we expose for the highlights and decide that the white areas are the important part of the image (i.e. a wedding dress or detail in the clouds) then the shadow detail (tonal separation in the dark areas) will suffer and if we expose for the shadow detail or dark areas then the highlight areas will suffer.
In photography we measure the tonal changes from black to white in 'stops' which is a unit of measurement we use everywhere in photography. A stop is really the doubling of light or brightness; so that 2 stops is exactly twice the amount of light as 1 stop, 3 stops is exactly twice the amount of brightness as 2 stops etc.
Humans with good vision see a much greater range than can be recorded by a camera. This is largely due to the way we focus and the way our vision can adjust according to the light available in the area. As an example of this; if you are outside on a bright sunny day and look at the clouds, you will see detail in the clouds or highlight areas. If we then look to a dark area, a group of trees or an area of deep shade, we can see details in the blacks or shadow areas as well.
In most cameras at the moment our photos are displayed back to us showing around 7 stops of the tonal separation or detail, and then compressing the remaining tones to either the black end or white end of the scale. This means in viewing our photos we are not able to see the expected detail in in both the shadow areas and highlight areas at the same time.
High Dynamic Range (HDR)
High dynamic range (HDR) involves expanding this dynamic range; allowing us to see more of the detail (compressed tonal separation) in both the highlights and shadow areas of the photo at the same time.
Mynuphoto Website
If you choose “balance my image before printing” at step 2 of the upload wizard, this is one of the features we look at in your photo. We use only the most sophisticated techniques for this process, designed to recover as much highlight and shadow detail as possible before we print your photos.
Once you have received your prints you will also receive the balanced version of your photo back into your user account. This is available for you to download for future prints, or you could then resize it for use on social media.
We hope you enjoyed this article and please see our articles on ‘Features of Mynuphoto’ and ‘Understanding photo file formats’ to receive maximum benefit from this HDR feature.
For more info visit our website: www.mynuphoto.com