Let's talk about Fake HDR

There's plenty of HDR articles out there and we all know by now that HDR is a pretty cool thing to try, but most of us use that technique in places where it isn't really necessary and this is what I want to talk about.

If there's no really high range involved in the image you're trying to capture, then one exposure is more than enough to pull out shadows and highlights and create that fantasy looking (or more natural if that's what pleases you ;) ) image of your subject.

If you shoot raw, there're a lot if things you can pull out of the image for a more dramatic or detailed look, so I went out and captured a few shots of local architecture and see if it'll look more interesting when I use this technique with them:

These were the default RAW settings (and the original image):



This is what I've done to them (moved some sliders around):



Exposure went lower; fill, recovery and blacks - way up higher, and I moved them around randomly to see - just what kind of effects can I achieve with them - it's very interesting!

Again, this is not an HDR, because there's no High range involved (neither it's needed, as you can see - the light was pretty low range - overcast, no harsh shadows...)

This is more of an MDR - medium dynamic range - or even an LDR :). And you can easily create such images without tone mapping or long processing from different photos.

So, this may not be much, but with your imagination, it can help you convert some pretty boring looking stuff to get more intriguing results:



And this is what you can (and probably should) do in the Split Toning tab:



In other words - here we adjust color for highlights and shadows. You can make an image look like it was taken in some other star planetary system or more natural, like here on Earth: shadows are cooler and highlights are warmer :)