2015 CHALLENGE WEEK 40: ROOM WITH A VIEW - HDR - The 2022 Trevor Carpenter Photo Challenge

Filling in for Trevor I’ll focus on his Architectural theme for the PhotoChallenge. This week I was thinking of a little technique that is often used for real estate photography and portraying rooms in a catalog.

Kabania – Cabanitas – Totoche – Interieur / Inside – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

HDR is often used to portray the inside of a room with the outdoor view from the windows on one well exposed image. A minimum of two images is necessary, although three works better. One with the room well exposed and one with the windows well exposed. Once blended in HDR, you will have a well balanced image of the interior and the exterior view. The above HDR image is in a 360 degree photosphere which is great for online virtual tours. If you don’t use HDR with at least two images and rely on your camera’s automatic settings, you’ll have an image resembling the one above. The result, blown out details in the window and most probably an underexposed interior.

Nothing can be more inviting than being able to show an ocean view from inside the room. In this case the view sells the room.

Same goes for this living room view above. The view is as much part of the decor as the leather couch and the wood log interior. The final image was created from 11 images incrementally exposed. To make the look real, we usually use what is referred to as a PHOTO REALISTIC HDR rendition. HDR often results in a cartoonish look. That’s not what we’re looking for. We want it to look as natural as possible. You’ll have to pay attention to color saturation and hue when blending your images.

To complete this challenge you will have to:

Capture at least two images with different exposures to create one well balanced image of an interior with it’s view clearly visible. The image can be a standard flat two dimensional image or a 360 degree photosphere. (Refer to our photosphere challenge)
Blend the two or more exposures to create one image that has a photo realistic look.

Your image has to document the room as well as the view. Make sure the room elements such as decor and walls are present in your image. We want more than just a window frame with a view. We want to feel the hidden charms behind the room in question.

Both Lightroom and Photoshop now include HDR functions. HDR blending options are now available in most photo editing software including mobile phone apps. They are often now part of your camera settings and can be programmed and blended in your camera or phone. Therefore the tools to complete this challenge are now readily available for mainstream photography as well as mobile phone photographers.

Your best friend in this case will be a tripod to stabilize your camera or phone. Each image as to match exactly in order to be well blended to one HDR image.

The rules are pretty simple:

Post one original photograph (Your Image) shot each week per theme posted on this blog to Google+, Facebook, or Flickr (or all three)
Tag the photo #photochallenge.org or #photochallenge2015.
The shot should be a new shot you took for the current weekly theme, not something from your back catalog or someone else’s image.
The posted image should be a photograph, not a video. Don’t leave home without your camera. Participating in the 2015 Photo Challenge is fun and easy.