High Dynamic Range Photography (HDR) with Barry Beckham

Barry Beckham took to digital photography in the early days when it was still considered a black art by many. He saw the potential of digital photography and the improvements it would bring and began using Photoshop back in the days when it was version 3. Barry has gone on to produce tutorials for many of the UK photography magazines as well as authoring a book for Photoshop Elements.

However, his main passion is creating high quality images using Photoshop and he has become quite an expert in the practical use of this software. He is now producing videos exclusively for ePhotozine.tv using Photoshop and PicturesToExe audio visual software.

Barry is also well know in audio visual circles for his stunning AV shows, many of which can be downloaded from his web site. Barry has lectured all around the UK where his practical skills are constantly in demand.

There seems little doubt that HDR photography is the biggest thing in photography during 2008 and it’s likely to evolve quite a bit in the next few years.

The HDR process has two stages. First creating the 32 bit image and then the tone mapping, which really brings out the quality of the image.

We can shoot a bracketed range of images in harsh lighting conditions making sure he hold detail in the highlights and the shadows. However, HDR is not the reserve of just high contrast situations. Even in dull overcast light it works superbly and at times it really transforms an image.

There used to be a lot of WOW value in digital photography and manipulation, but we have all got used to these techniques and now we take them for granted.