35 Fantastic HDR Pictures
Applied carefully, High Dynamic Range-technique (HDR) can create incredibly beautiful pictures which blur our sense of the difference between reality and illusion. In graphics HDR imaging is a set of techniques that allow a far greater dynamic range of exposures than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to the deepest shadows. This is usually achieved by modifying photos with image processing software for tone-mapping. And the results can be really incredible; in fact, many artists and designers come up with some pretty fancy results.
This post covers 35 extremely beautiful and perfectly executed HDR-pictures. Some of them might look surreal, too colorful, even magic or fake, but they are not — keep in mind that they’ve all been developed out of usual photos, and not a single image is an illustration.
Please notice:
- the selection isn’t supposed to be complete which is why we encourage you to post links to further excellent HDR images in the comments to this post;
- there is no ranking, all pictures have been selected due to their outstanding quality and excellent execution;
- you can explore further works of the designers and photographers we’ve featured below by browsing through their sets on Flickr;
- all screenshots are clickable and lead to the pages from which they’ve been taken;
- you might want to take a look at the article (Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers we’ve published earlier.
Fantastic HDR Pictures
Sources and Further Resources
- New York City in HDR
- 20 Beautiful HDR Pictures
- HDRCreme.com
A growing collection of HDR-photos. - HDR Tutorial Round-Up
- Flickr: The Biggest Building in HDR
- HDR Japan
- HDR Video Tutorial
- High Dynamic Range Workshop
- HDR Flickr Pools: *atrium09 Flickr Set,
The HDR No Holds Barred Pool,
Best Of HDR Pictures Pool,
The Pure HDR Pool, The Biggest Building in HDR Pool, Quality HDR Pool, Stuckincostoms’ HDR Setse.
Dogguie
March 24th, 2008 4:48 amwuoooooww!!!!
Excelentes imágenes!
Tricia
March 24th, 2008 6:47 pmGreat pictures! i’ll be looking for some from Africa. T
sueper
March 25th, 2008 2:50 pmTruly horrible, Most of them wouldn’t look out of place on a cheap holiday gift
eg: tea tray, biscuit tin lid.
STEPHEN KIRKPATRICK
March 27th, 2008 7:55 amGARBAGE!
ChronosXun
March 27th, 2008 8:01 amNot my style. Too artificial.
The colors are very dark vivid.
Mark
March 27th, 2008 1:29 pmOwww! My eyes!
Two or three of these aren’t bad but, overall, yuck! It’s the black velvet Elvis painting of photography.
Julie
March 28th, 2008 10:34 amFantastic pictures. Lots of inspiration to us budding photographers. I hope to see more again soon.
langford
March 28th, 2008 6:00 pmmost are over done with the light smoothing. the key to a good HDR is to make people not know if it is infact an HDR. cool images though.
boogy
March 31st, 2008 3:13 amif developed “out of usual photos”: looks magic (+time factor :)) but it seemed, I’ve got a digital photo… translates some of used effects (here on sky, there on water); sure, it wasn’t very easy to take it…
Aicall Bee-ess
March 31st, 2008 6:55 amattribution?
Way to rip off the photographers, blogspam.
Maquetes Eletronincas Perspectiva 3d Fortaleza Portugal
March 31st, 2008 9:02 amVery nice ! i love the pictures!
hubba bubba
March 31st, 2008 9:24 amHorrible tastless kitch. Algorithmic street market art :)
Mike
March 31st, 2008 11:44 pmTo me, HDR is the photographic equivalent of eighties synths imitating saxophones. People can tell it’s supposed to sound like a sax, but sure as hell doesn’t. Not only that, it’s just plain ugly, and most people agree. The people that are making those images are not photographers, but fiddlers who like to push technological limits beyond the boundaries of taste. Sadly, I think HDR will slowly take hold…the last few National Geographics I’ve received have had a few strangely HDR-ish images Subtle, but still having that rubbery shadows appearance. The biggest laugh is when HDR-philes claim it is more able to accurately imitate what the human eye sees. Well, maybe on acid….
BEHOLDER
April 2nd, 2008 8:07 pmso much negativity i should think everyone has 10 times better in every room of their home which they did them selves . As for me i think them all to be interesting pieces of art . Personally i dislike the MonaLisa……….
Lamin Barrow
April 4th, 2008 3:50 pmWOW… this list looks pretty exciting.
leila matin
April 5th, 2008 12:50 amvery very beautiful …
Ansel Adams
April 5th, 2008 4:44 pmGood old AA was the first HDR photographer. He captured a greater range, using a development technique called ‘pulling’ to reduce the contrast of the negative in order to preserve a greater range of information on his negatives. This was developed into what was called the Zone technique. Since his time, film curves have gotten less steep (indicating a greater range of a workable negative).
All photographers when starting out with this technique inevitably make prints that are too flat or too contrasty. It is very difficult to change the dynamic range of the eye into a photograph and then to produce an (apparently) accurate dynamic range from the photo. Masters of this technique, Ansel Adams and Minor White, among a many others, produce images that vary in dynamic range greatly from what the eye sees, or what a straight print would produce, but do not appear unnatural.
That is to say, it is not ‘better’ or ‘worse’ to effect the dynamic range of a photography. However, it does reflect a mastery of the technique when this technique does not impact the viewing of the image. It is also to say that HDR simply means “high dynamic range,” where “high” can only be assumed to be used relatively. Considering the history of photography has included with it a steady increase of the dynamic range of its medium, the extension of “HDR” is constantly shifting. “True HDR” is either meaningless or requires a certain context to be defined. The same can and should be said of “True Photography.” Have any of you ever shot without a light meter? Perhaps THAT is true photography, since this how it began.
Further, we should remember (or learn for the first time) Kant. He (basically) told us that a beautiful painting is not, should not be beautiful simply because we like painting, or this painter, or this kind of painting. A photograph is not, should not, be beautiful simply because it uses HDR. It is beautiful because it excites our imagination and our understanding, puts them endlessly into play and raises our minds awareness of itself and humanity. Or something like that.
Vahid
April 8th, 2008 11:20 pmBOoooooooooooobm!!!!! It ‘s like dream.
Crescencio "Krébus" Leite
April 10th, 2008 5:12 amWhat so many wonderful pictures! Congratulations!
Krébus, from Brazil.
Theo Jacobs
April 13th, 2008 12:16 amThese are mostly awful and totally unrealistic. HDR can be a great technique, but the tone-mapping software still has many shortcomings and requires quite a bit of postprocessing to give good results. The results straight out of the tone-mapping software is mostly oversaturated and ‘muddy’ and quite a few times suffers from halos.
ebi
April 16th, 2008 9:37 pmvery nice
Mo
April 17th, 2008 3:07 amI’m not an expert on HDR technology but if the intention is to capture the intensity of the moment then HDR has achieved its purpose. Besides, I think most experts find ways to discredit rather than enjoy a profound work of art.
roya
April 18th, 2008 1:38 amare very nice picture but please to make other picture to this form help us
thank you:)
woodlice
April 21st, 2008 1:26 pmi dont see the point in this, watever hapened to appreciating an original untampered photo???
Sherbear
April 24th, 2008 9:39 amOkay, first of all, all you haters need to get over yourselves. This is clearly an amature attempt to create HDR imagery, but you don’t need to shoot the photos down horrificly as if you know everything you are talking about .You are pathetically trying to prove your significant superiority. While some of these may seem to provide a cartoon halo kind of look, it was a good attempt, but would not be classified as HDR. HDR is simply molding a series of differently lighted images of the same frame together to create light and focus throughout the entire photograph- Period dot!
I may not know too much about HDR myself because this is only my second year in a photography as a profession, but i know that art itself is an entirely wide open subject. Anything can be depicted as art, it just depends on the consumer. Such as when rap took its claim to fame…many of us decided “it was simply nothing in comparrison to the performing arts” and others decided “this is totally rad dog!” Either way 50 cent is still a millionare and haters are still stuck bickering with nothing close to comparrison.
While many of you may say these images are herendous and a horrid attempt at HDR, i beg to differ…they may not replucate true HDR images but i see them as good valid attempts, and there is simply nothing quixotic about that! I mean god what do all of you assholes want, an effing cookie??
So all and all, haters go home and get to work, until you come back with something for everyone to critique YOU on, shut the hell up and let people find their nitch.
Ruby
April 25th, 2008 9:26 pmI kind of wish we see the world in this way…all bright and colorful.
Alex
April 26th, 2008 9:38 amNneeeh… I can call fantastic just six pictures… Rest of this set is very ugly — I don’t like such “HDR” at all.
Lerentina
April 29th, 2008 6:19 amit’s……fantastic, gorgeous, amazing….. no words…. only emotiouns….
Tyler
May 4th, 2008 2:06 pmNature is plain lame in comparison. I don’t ever have to go outside anymore for fear of being unimpressed. Who needs nature when it can be glorified on a computer screen!
HAIL HDR!
aaarobe
May 7th, 2008 4:19 amlol… the 6th to last one, orange sunset… check out those Chem trails in the sky!! Government at work trying to kill us.
Raghu
May 9th, 2008 12:00 amWhy could not the pictures with the birds flying be genuine HDR attempts? Rather than taking multiple shots and merge them for HDR, we could also have just one RAW file, and come up with such HDR images, right?
Lincoln
May 15th, 2008 6:00 pmSure, it will probably take hold. Why, well when photographs first came around people felt that it was taking away from the paintings that people had been making for thousands of years. Did photographs take hold? You be they did because they are desirable. This is the same thing, sounds like someone doesn’t want to give up their rotery dial phone.
Jama
May 23rd, 2008 6:33 amlooks so unreal. feels like too much flavor in a meal.
just fake.
swanee
May 26th, 2008 3:36 pmwow just leaned about HDR looks cool but also now know that photogs are winy pussy’s
ChainSmirker
June 1st, 2008 7:24 amFake
Alex
June 5th, 2008 2:23 amGood!
Faheem
June 7th, 2008 12:24 amVery Good Images
Tankxxxxxxxxxx
photoshop_cop
June 7th, 2008 5:28 pmphotoshopped!
austin
June 12th, 2008 11:37 amuh, photography is a form of art and these pics are about taking fascinating photos and making them even more fascinating with the hdr. your a jack ass.
arielle
June 14th, 2008 12:27 amwhy does everyone care so much about if they’re classified as “Real” HDR pictures or not??
stop being all snooty and pretentious because you know something about photography. no one is impressed and we all think you’re douchebags.
Cameron
June 16th, 2008 3:17 pmYou should really look into each of these pictures, because some of them are heavily photoshopped… like the picture of Paris with a MASSIVE Nebula over it? Not HDR.
Mayank
June 17th, 2008 5:20 amThese enchanting images have a dreamlike quality that remind me of scenes from movies enhanced by uber digital wizardry. Looks like Hollywood’s been using Photoshop.
Nicolargo
June 17th, 2008 6:57 amThanks for this fantastics photos.
Here is a compilation of 13 HDR photos for your desktop:
http://blog.nicolargo.com/2008/06/compilation-de-13-fonds-decran-hdr.html
Funny Photos
June 18th, 2008 4:32 amEither way, they are stunning photographs. Not one I wasn’t impressed with.
Kanziyi
June 18th, 2008 9:45 pmlike, W-O-W.
Super coooooooooooooooooool:D
Tyler Derden
June 20th, 2008 6:15 amNice, although HDR images like these can sometimes not appear “realistic.” A photographer should strive for realisim. Just my opinion. HDR tools can make realistic photos, very vibrant, and nice. It is only when it is taken to an extreme that it creates “false” looking photos.
AlecMac
June 24th, 2008 5:26 amBeing an HDR expert (I found out about it yesterday and have produced all of 2 images) I’d say that often less is more.
On too many images I’m seeing a good interesting shot but a ridiculas sky that looks like it was cut from another image. It’s got all the subtlety and class of Ali G’s jewelry.
I think I’m going to use HDR a lot, but to create images that look ‘full’ rather than something that looks like it’s was done on a ‘puter.
It’s the same when image processing software became popular, there’d be loads of nastily applied filters smacking you in the face.
djatoyz
June 25th, 2008 5:47 pmhuiiiii
very very beautiful
amazing
Lisa
June 27th, 2008 1:07 pmIn response to John’s comment:
You might want to look at a photo of San Francisco, the grass and houses you refer to are the Presidio (and I assure you that it’s REALLY there). You can’t see the “city” because downtown SF is further to the left. I’ll give you that the effect looks fake (although, presumably that is exactly what was intended), but at least get your facts straight before criticizing.
Dibya Pradana
July 7th, 2008 3:56 amyup, i also discover HDR technique about 1,5yr ago after browsing flickr.. shooting HDR since..
another beautiful HDR pictures AYOFOTO.COM HDR Photo Challenge
vampir knight
July 14th, 2008 11:21 pmi like this picture >>>>>>>>
wenderfulllll !!!!!!!!!!!!
Stefano
July 31st, 2008 11:37 ammost of them are really bad pictures, and HDR can’t save them…
HDR can help sometimes, but most of these tonemappings are too bad to mention
Ron Anderson
August 6th, 2008 7:40 amIf you can see easily that a photo is HDR, then the photographer has done a damn lousy job. The object should be to increase the toneality range just enough to open up the shadows ever so slightly and to minimize any blowing out of sunlit clouds. Even if you manage to accomplish this, the problem still is how do you print a picture that obviously has greater dynamic range than the paper can handle. The bad choice becomes that you compress the linear relationship of whites, greys and black, and you lose the natural look of the original scene. This is why HDR looks gimmicky and crappy.
Mike
August 17th, 2008 9:16 amWould it have killed you to have provided attribution?
As for the comments about “real” HDR – what part of High Dynamic Range don’t you understand? It’s about compressing the dynamic range we perceive into the dynamic range of the display element – CRT, paper, projected slide. It’s not about using a particular piece of software. Dodging, burning, graded papers, toning, hot developers, compensating developers, contrast masks… all old techniques that legitimately provide HDR results.
bob
August 17th, 2008 9:53 amridiculous ,
the colors are all muddled, shadows are inconsistent, focus is not right on anything that moves. If this is the best HDR has, I think its worse than normal photography’s worst .
The restriction of contrast on photography is one of the things that makes the pictures dramatic and interesting. This is just too retarded.
jones
August 17th, 2008 10:46 amthis HDR stuff is really a matter of taste. personally, i just don’t like it at all. the photos are too contrasty and fake looking to me. what happened to composition and the use of light in making a good photo? if you review these 35 photos, there are perhaps 5 that show decent composition. take away the “special effects” and what do you really have left? this is about using computer software above all else.
just my 2 cents, so flame away
alex Draht
August 17th, 2008 11:11 amSome of the photos were really easy to tell that they were HDRD! And thats not cool! They have to be HDRD enough but not the point that you can easily tell and like wtf?
naxat
August 17th, 2008 1:26 pmEr…nice shots but can someone explain how you can include flying birds in HDR?
Jack
August 17th, 2008 1:56 pmJust far too cartoonish. Frankly these would probably would have been good photos without any HDR or Photoshopping.
vicky
August 17th, 2008 3:16 pmflying birds in HDR:
professional style cameras have something called “auto-bracketing”
this means that the photographer can take ONE snapshot, and the camera takes a photo with normal exposure, and then two other photo’s at different exposures (over and under,exposed)
aspire
August 17th, 2008 5:03 pmUnfortunately half of these aren’t even real HDR.
You can’t have a moving subject in a true HDR picture. So any of the pictures with birds in them are all just simulated.
Don
August 17th, 2008 5:03 pmThese are nice examples of how computers have muffled creativity somewhat… I’d suggest 3 maybe 4 are fine images.
Call me lazy but I enjoy using GND filters then PS, less work and more time to click shutters and not mice.
An example using a 2 stop GND and some PS selecting and layering for the highlights and shadows. My photo on Flickr
Alex W.
August 17th, 2008 5:52 pmI agree. Those are some nice ones of Singapore.
Yuck
August 18th, 2008 4:20 amThere are a couple of nice looking pictures but, most of them SUCK! It’s just further proof that HDR is an abomination.
VividRayz
August 18th, 2008 6:55 amSome more great HDR’s…
http://flickr.com/photos/gbenz/sets/72157606644651050/
sek_tordust
August 18th, 2008 4:40 pmSome nice shots here too:
http://picasaweb.google.com/CSGPhotography/PentaxK200DHDR
Nikita Kondraskov
August 18th, 2008 7:00 pmThe photo with the hawk is wonderful. The contrast of the for within this picture is surely to be admired.
Sean Davies
August 19th, 2008 9:57 amYears ago 35mm film was scoffed at, then people said digital will never catch on! then PS will never catch on, it is not proper photography!! The camera is a tool of expression, as long as there was a photograph at the beginning, and the person who took it is happy, who cares. People there has never been an image that every one has liked, so please people chill
Lawren
August 22nd, 2008 10:00 pmI agree with Dave, if you do HDR do it on a manual SLR camera. These pictures can be absolutely stunning but if all the work is done on Photoshop, then there is little to no artistic work in it. Take the time to take three or four shots of the same scene and compose it yourself. You’ll get so much more out of it.
Ignatz Horowitz
August 25th, 2008 6:50 amOh, my. Listen to all the “experts”. Some are way over-processed, sure. Some are nice. But as me dear ol’ mum used to say, “If you can’t say anything nice, STFU and get over yourself.”
Expert = someone who thinks they know it ll, and makes sure everyone else knows it
So go back to shooting your off-kilter half-faces and calling it art. No…one…cares.
Thanh
August 25th, 2008 12:32 pmHello,
What do you think about this : The Beauty and the lake
This is a HDR made with one raw.
No expert
August 28th, 2008 6:00 amUnfortunately half of these aren’t even real HDR.
You can’t have a moving subject in a true HDR picture. So any of the pictures with birds in them are all just simulated.
Well HDR is altering the three photos to create the affect you see , by simply deleting two of the ‘moving subjects’ and keeping only one you can create a static subject. It may be a slight cheat but hey its digital at it best !!!
Deeptext
August 29th, 2008 8:53 amOf all web sites, this should be enabled for Piclens. You need it!
pace
September 1st, 2008 8:36 pmHDR is fine when used properly
rack
September 9th, 2008 6:31 amHDR is great.
HDR is fake.
These look amazing.
These look like crap.
Can I learn this.
No. Go away.
HDR isn’t photography.
HDR is photography.
Photoshop sucks.
I love Photoshop.
There. Done. It’s all been said over and over and over in this thread.
Weeee!
abbas
September 10th, 2008 11:24 pmAMAZING POST !!! ALL GR8 PICTURES
John G
September 14th, 2008 2:01 pmThese are good. Sure, in my opinion, most of them are not real “photographs” (whatever that is), but that’s my opinion anyway. However… they are great anyway and have a very stunning effect to the eye (a good one, I must say).
I like them. Keep it up! People should stop thinking that anything that comes through a camera needs to be lifelike. This is just different, and beautiful.
Jimmy
September 15th, 2008 5:55 amNice collection, great inspirational shots!
beni
September 18th, 2008 5:15 amwoooow! amazing!! love it!
Λl℮Roda®
September 20th, 2008 8:28 amThe most important thing is what the photographer wants you to see, feel and react when you look at a HDR scenery. Just now I realized thru Flickr Stats that one of my pictures was blogged here (From Above, the 12º pic), and I’m pretty impressed by the huge amount of visits I’m receiving everyday, thanks to this awesome site.
I think that criticisms are a part of the job, since a lot of people refuse to digest the idea that even a picture post processed extensively stills a photography, or at least, art at a wider view. But I’m not a huge fan of HDR applied automatically.
It has to have a meaning, a message, like most of the pictures stated here!
Thanks for all your visits, folks!
lking
September 22nd, 2008 9:58 pmrealy nice
i’ll make like that, one day
Ferdy
September 27th, 2008 11:37 amReally like these.. thanks
zero
September 29th, 2008 6:09 amoh,my god.i am chinese and i have never seen such beautiful pictures.they are true~i am so lucky.thanks.my friend who told this web to me
Wagner Lemos
October 12th, 2008 5:48 pmBelíssimas imagens!!!
Prerna
October 15th, 2008 8:02 pmThese pictures are very very nice i have never seen these pictures.Extreamely Beautiful.
Thanks for all this
h4run
October 16th, 2008 5:04 amwonderfull pictures..
Marguerite
October 23rd, 2008 7:23 amReminds me of SURRATIONAL IMAGES. Somewhat like Scott Mutter’s stuff. (I’M A PILGRIM ON THE EDGE. ON THE EDGE OF MY PERCEPTION. WE ARE TRAVELERS AT THE EDGE. WE ARE ALWAYS AT THE EDGE OF OUR PERCEPTIONS)
Those pixs would make great posters with a caption.
Rewolve44
October 26th, 2008 3:34 pmVery fantastic HDR-Photo, it’s great.
best regards,
Rewolve44
Mike
October 27th, 2008 1:08 pmHaving looked at all of the images and laboring thru all of the comments I can only come to one conclusion – one could apply the same parameter to HDR – F.D.R. & BLT “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”.
WoW-Sky
October 28th, 2008 3:45 pmVery nice pics mind blowing ^_^
RDH
October 28th, 2008 6:37 pmagree with jai.
abuse of photoshop filters, . we dont live in video games, look out the window. seems like hdr is a good tool that is quickly going to get a very bad name.
rdh
Otto
November 1st, 2008 4:12 pmSomething is desparately wrong – how does one put it in words – some anologies are best.
Wedding cake photography,
Coffee with ten times too much sugar and cream,
Overeating, overindulgence,
So much too much it’s sickening.
Hamish
November 4th, 2008 8:24 amhttp://www.positivenegatives.co.za/presentations/portfolio/index.html
goto Pools. The 1st 13 are ALL HDR photographs, taken with a Canon 5D on a tripod, bracketed for 9 stops of exposure, then 5-8 of the photographs used that would add detail to the images. I get paid to shoot in expensive homes in Cape Town, I have to make the places look like a million dollars and most of these places cost well into many million dollars. There is no tone mapping and these look pretty realistic.
Adam
November 8th, 2008 7:04 pmSomebody please tell me how this is abuse of photoshop, when photoshop has an automatic hdr program to do all the work for you…HDR began back in the 1930′s long before photoshop was created, and the whole point of photoshop is to open up the doors of our imaginations…Quantum Physics will tell us that reality goes beyond what we humans can concieve, and that we can only see what we believe…HDR shows us that there is more going on in the world then we believe, it opens up doors there were closed before…Plus they are just amazing to look at…but like always, to each there own…
Mario Fernandez
November 9th, 2008 9:16 pmWow! great colors in every pictures! HDR is the best technique. I love it.
mikeyg
November 13th, 2008 1:02 amSo obviously some people like this stuff, some don’t. But why are all the people who don’t like it so angry at it? The person who made these pictures is proud of them, and some people appreciate them. Why do arrogant pricks think that if something is easy enough for anyone to do that nobody should do it? I like some of these pics alot, especially the first two. They are visually stimulating. As a matter of fact, I am gonna go out and get photoshop and apply this damn filter to every picture on my hard drive. Maybe I’ll post my top 35.
Ajoy Prabhu
November 13th, 2008 11:41 amI prefer to use HDR very subtly such that the viewer simply sees an image and does not think about the technical aspects– dynamic range, tonality, saturation, etc. and just enjoys the image per se.
KentD
November 17th, 2008 9:25 amAjoy, I agree. Good HRD is subtle, and most viewers should not be able to guess that they are. The idea is to make a picture that mimics the way we see in real life, but our eyes build an image in our minds, while constantly adjusting to brightness as we scan the scene. These mostly look fake and un-natural. I have done a few HDR pics by manually masking parts of the image. Automatic filters always leave a halo around parts of the image with contrast, either PhotoShop’s Highlight and Shadow adjustment, or some program that combines multiple shots. They don’t understand the image. Only you know that clouds should be brighter than trees.
rafael camargo
November 18th, 2008 8:40 amhello..
i’d like to know how can a people make a HDR picture with a bird flying….
Anyone can help me?
Thanks a lot!
John Bradford
November 22nd, 2008 6:24 pmhdr pushes the photo to new limits but these are far beyond the most hdr photos.
re birds in the photo. if just one photo has the moving object this may work..anycase it’s given me an idea