Yeah, you\'ve been fogged by the \"photographer\'s folly\". HDR is a file format with extended range. Imagine a single staircase that stretches from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor. In 8-bit (bpp) there are 16,777,216 steps (256^3), in 16-bit (bpp) there are 65,536^3 steps but the staircase (intensity value range) still only stretches from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor. With HDR you have 32-bit (or the much more rare \"16-bit half\") but you\'re actually extending the range beyond the 2nd floor - way beyond. As our monitors can not display all of this range in a single image you\'re usually presented with an exposure slider or an interactive mouse-over that allows you to view a segment of the full range as an exposure level. This should look just like a normal photo and not have the various tonal ranges remapped into a single image. The \"photographer\'s folly\" comes from misunderstanding this and confusing HDR with two techniques called \"tone mapping\" and \"exposure blending\" where such often require the construction of an interim HDR image (HDRI).
Here\'s a tone mapped 8bpp image (jpg) followed by a normal jpg (the middle exposure of 3), followed by what a real HDR looks like displayed on a typical monitor (notice the exposure slider that appears in the HDR window and also how the HDR at that exposure looks just like the middle exposure JPG):
The other mistake commonly made is the belief that one NEEDS multiple exposures in order to achieve this tone-mapping effect. Multiple exposures can be beneficial if there is too much clipping going no or if the tonal range you\'re trying to compress is too great, but it\'s usually not necessary if you exposed the image correctly in the first place. Here\'s tone-mapping achieved from a single camera jpeg taken with a Minolta A2 that shows some of the intensity ranges we normally think are not available from a jpg - let alone a 12 , 14, or 15 bit camera RAW file:
Yeah, you\'ve been fogged by the \"photographer\'s folly\". HDR is a file format with extended range. Imagine a single staircase that stretches from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor. In 8-bit (bpp) there are 16,777,216 steps (256^3), in 16-bit (bpp) there are 65,536^3 steps but the staircase (intensity value range) still only stretches from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor. With HDR you have 32-bit (or the much more rare \"16-bit half\") but you\'re actually extending the range beyond the 2nd floor - way beyond. As our monitors can not display all of this range in a single image you\'re usually presented with an exposure slider or an interactive mouse-over that allows you to view a segment of the full range as an exposure level. This should look just like a normal photo and not have the various tonal ranges remapped into a single image. The \"photographer\'s folly\" comes from misunderstanding this and confusing HDR with two techniques called \"tone mapping\" and \"exposure blending\" where such often require the construction of an interim HDR image (HDRI).
Here\'s a tone mapped 8bpp image (jpg) followed by a normal jpg (the middle exposure of 3), followed by what a real HDR looks like displayed on a typical monitor (notice the exposure slider that appears in the HDR window and also how the HDR at that exposure looks just like the middle exposure JPG):
The other mistake commonly made is the belief that one NEEDS multiple exposures in order to achieve this tone-mapping effect. Multiple exposures can be beneficial if there is too much clipping going no but it\'s usually not necessary if you exposed the image correctly in the first place. Here\'s tone-mapping achieved from a single camera jpeg taken with a Minolta A2 that shows some of the intensity ranges we normally think are not available from a jpg - let alone a 12 , 14, or 15 bit camera RAW file:
HDR is a file format with extended range. Imagine a single staircase that stretches from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor. In 8-bit (bpp) there are 16,777,216 steps (256^3), in 16-bit (bpp) there are 65,536^3 steps but the staircase (intensity value range) still only stretches from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor. With HDR you have 32-bit (or the much more rare \"16-bit half\") but you\'re actually extending the range beyond the 2nd floor - way beyond. As our monitors can not display all of this range in a single image you\'re usually presented with an exposure slider or an interactive mouse-over that allows you to view a segment of the full range as an exposure level. This should look just like a normal photo and not have the various tonal ranges remapped into a single image. The \"photographer\'s folly\" comes from misunderstanding this and confusing 
