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Single-Exposure HDR with Photomatix – View of Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau from Mannlichen

In a previous post I showed how you can make an HDR image from 3 exposures - which is considered the "proper" way to do it. However, I also mentioned that this is possible using only one exposure. This is done using the RAW file created by the camera (you usually need to enable a setting to make it do that). The reason for this is that a RAW file stores much much more colour information (hence the larger size, usually 3x that of the JPG for the same photo). A JPG can only store a limited amount of colour information (24 bits is around 16 million colours). Now, if you don't intend on doing anything with the image, then keeping only the JPG file is just fine - since computer monitors can't display more colours than that anyways. However, with good cameras, the light sensor is actually a lot more sensitive and captures more detailed colour information than that which can be described by a JPG file (ie. 16 bits per channel rather than 8). Using the additional colour information available in a RAW file, it is possible to recreate conditions necessary to make an HDR image.

To my knowledge, Photoshop cannot do this, but Photomatix can. You just 'drag-and-drop' the RAW file (extensions vary, btw. My dad's Nikon makes them .NEF, Canon I think does .CRW) into Photomatix, and it informs you that it has converted your RAW file into a pseudo-HDR image, and that using more exposures is recommended. Following that you take the same steps as you would have if you had been making a multiple-exposure HDR. Click "Tone Mapping", and adjust stuff until you like it. Here is the result from one of mine:

You can see that the original image is slightly overexposed. The sky and mountains are too light and appear sort of hazy and faded. In the HDR one however you can see that the colours are more saturated and the mountains and sky are more detailed and visible.

Here's how it turned out with 2 exposures:

Maybe it's just my opinion, but I like the first result much more (using one exposure only). The multiple-exposure one seems kind of.. flat, and too yellow.

Anyway, since I'm posting this, I might as well talk about the .. place this was taken, in general, cause it was really awesome there and it was probably my favourite day in Switzerland. Here's a map:

The yellow circle is Mannlichen, where the above photos were taken from. The blue circle is Kleine Scheidegg, the town (if you can call it that) to which we walked from Mannlichen. This whole region has a privately-operated railway network (Jungfraubahnen), which one can use to get around between the places worth seeing. Of course, the major tourist attraction here is Jungfraujoch (the blue circle on the above map), which is the highest train station in Europe at 3471m. A round-trip ticket from Interlaken to Jungfraujoch and back costs about $160 per person (discounts if you have a Eurail Pass or a Swiss Pass). It's expensive, but worth it.

Something else I noticed when I was looking through the photos is you can see Mannlichen (where these were taken from) on another photo taken from Jungfraujoch.

Anyway, that's everything for now.

[Edit]: I also changed the background on this site to that image cause I was getting bored of the old one.