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(Stock photo by )



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(Stock photo after completing tutorial)



This tutorial is for intermediate/advanced users of Photoshop.

1.) Open the photo you want to "HDR"-up. Perform any tune-ups you normally would to a photo--Auto-Levels, Auto-Color, Shadow/Highlights, etc.


2.) If you are working with an extremely high-quality photo with little to no noise, you may wish to apply the Unsharp Mask filter at this time (Try a 90-7 ratio). This can really help with creating some HDR-type drama, but I found that on already noisy photos, this sometimes made the drama/noise trade-off not worth it.)
3.) Duplicate your image in the Layers palette.

4.) To this layer, do the following things:
Desaturate it.
Equalize it.
Invert it. (Or not...sometimes this makes it better, sometimes it looks better to leave as is.)
Apply a Gaussian blur of 10 to 20 (or more or less...experiment).

5.) Set the blend mode of this layer Overlay. (On some photos you may wish to try the blend mode of Color Burn, which can really make skies pop. Use a layer mask to clean up any areas that look icky.) Again, experiment. I find Overlay gave me a great effect on most photos, but you may find a more intense Color or Linear Burn or a softer Soft Light effect may look better.

6.) Flatten your image. Duplicate your flattened image.

7.) Apply a Gaussian blur of 10-20 (or more or less) to this layer. Set this layer's blend mode to Darken. Lower the opacity of this layer to 40 (or higher or lower...it's your photo--experiment, experiment, experiment.)

8.) Flatten image..

9.) Equalize. If desired, experiment with Fade Equalize blend modes. Overlay is really neat.

10.) Sharpen Edges if desired (especially if you've got a building exterior, etc.)

I find this gives me a pretty neat effect.

Hey...just tried this on people. It works great on them too. Just remember to avoid using most sharpening filters on people.

I hope you enjoyed. Lemme know if you have any questions...and if you do something with this technique PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE show me. I'd love to see my tut in action.