Edit an HDR like a normal photo

Friday 6 March 2026, 14:14 by Nando Harmsen | 1,358 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Do you have clipped whites or blocked-up blacks in your photo? Or perhaps both? Then your camera's dynamic range is not wide enough. In that case, an HDR photo could be the solution. But edit it like a normal photo.

There is a limit to a camera's dynamic range. At some point, everything between the lightest and darkest parts can no longer be captured in a single exposure. Not even when you shoot in raw file format.

If you expose for the lightest parts (Exposure to the Right), you may still be able to brighten the darkest parts during post-processing. However, this creates a lot of noise when you have to push it too far. In that case, HDR offers the solution.

An exposure bracket was used to capture the entire dynamic range. Without it, it would not have been possible to take this photo.
You can take an exposure bracket, multiple photos that together capture the entire dynamic range. You then merge these with software to create an HDR photo. At that point, you can brighten the dark parts without consequences.

This describes exactly what an HDR photo makes possible, brightening the dark parts without creating noise. It is important that you do not treat the HDR photo as something special during editing. Simply treat it like a normal raw file.

An HDR photo edited like a normal photo. This is how it should be. You should not be able to tell that it is HDR.
Of course, it is possible to brighten all the shadows until they no longer look like shadows. You can also darken the light parts until they no longer look like bright light. If you go too far, the photo no longer has light and dark, only midtones.

You can go a long way when brightening the dark parts in an HDR. But this rarely produces a genuinely good result. Here, night has been changed into daylight.
Always aim for pleasant contrast in the photo, with a visible direction of light. If you cannot tell that HDR techniques have been used, you have created a successful HDR photo.

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