HDR for Real Estate Photography

HDR for Real Estate Photography is my world. The comparison below is to show you the difference between trying to use just one RAW image to process versus bracketing multiple shots from a tri-pod to later merge to HDR, then tonemap.  Now this is not the most dramatic high dynamic range image I’ve faced, but it is one that realtors and architectural photographers face from time to time.  A property where the sun rises behind it and never hits the front face of the home even at sunset.

The image on top was the final shot delivered to the client.  It was a bracketed series that got merged and tweaked then sent to Photoshop CS3 for final tweaks.  In Photoshop I removed some clutter on the ground and the dead tree sticking in frame at the top left of the shot.

The image just below the top image was the best single image of the bracketed series. I took that one single RAW into LightRoom and jacked highlight recovery all the way up to the max of 100% to try and get back as much sky detail as possible.  I also took the fill light slider all the way up to nearly 50% to attempt to raise shadows as well.  The  challenge when doing this is that it not only flattens the image (reverse contrast per se), but you pull up noise in shadows badly and in some cases you get strange color hue shifts. That bottom image was tweaked as heavily as I could in RAW before then taking it to Photoshop.  In photoshop I then used the Highlight/Shadow filter to try and further tame the highlights and help bring up shadows.

More details after you view the two images below

Some agents would be perfectly happy with the picture below, but my clients would shoot me if I delivered a photo like that. It is not that the lower image is horrible, it is just not showcasing the property as well as it can be shown.  The top image reduces the overblown sky and driveway.  The lower image has your eye drawn to those bright regions which detracts from the home itself (the focal point of the shot).

Just so you know, this was for a builder, not an agent. The builder chose this exact location to shoot from after we tried finding various angles.  The sign which covers a piece of the home he was not willing to pay extra for me to photoshop out… so I tried to aim it to land in between the windows.  Also, this was taken later in the afternoon and as the sun goes down the sun nails that metal roof and windows and reflects towards where I’m standing thereby making that angle impossible later in the day even though a smidge more light gets to the front of the home.  The sun rises behind the property and to the left so this house never has light shining on it from the front.  Hence HDR to the rescue.

I actually took another image the following morning which made for even more dramatic HDR needed.  The ramping in post caused for it to end up being what I consider “over cooked” for my taste.  I gave it to him and to my surprise he LOVED it.  He actually freaked out about how much it looked like an architectural rendering of sorts and gladly took that one as well as the afternoon shot.

That morning shot I overcooked is this one.