Foto Tech

The latest incarnation of Adobe’s Creative Suite, CS5, has been shipped, and is available for purchase.  A main point of interest for us at Foto Tech is the new HDR Pro feature of Photoshop CS5.  HDR Pro is an new tool that allows the user to create HDR (High Dynamic Range) images within photoshop itself.  Having not tested it personally, it seems to have potential, though tests show that HDR Pro may not be as refined as existing HDR software.  Nevertheless, HDR Pro will make a welcome addition to the feature set of Photoshop CS5.

With the new software release comes a new batch of resources to help you learn how to use it.  These include a number of  books, as well as online resources, such as the video tutorials from Lynda.com and Adobe TV.

HDR and Photoshop

HDR (High  Dynamic  Range Imaging) can be daunting to start with, but once you start you’ll never stop.  There are very few times when I don’t shoot an exposure bracket  so that I have HDR options; even handheld.  I don’t always merge the images into a 32bit file, but I usually combine bracketed exposures in some manner to expand and manipulate dynamic range.

Digital Imaging author and trainer, Colin Smith, has a number of tutorial videos out that are a good place to start your HDR training.  He did the tutorial videos for Photomatix, which is a must have application for HDR.  Colin’s PhotoshopCAFE website has lots of other useful digital imaging videos.