1
To get started with HDR Merge you need a sequence of
photos of the same scene, with varying of the exposure
between shots: some under-exposed, some over-exposed and
one of the “correct” exposure. It’s best to use a tripod to make
sure that the shots are properly aligned. You get the best
results if you use three or more shots.3
Staying in the Library module, with the candidate shots
highlighted, go to the menus at the top of the screen
and click on Photo. Move down to Photo Merge (about half-
way down the list) and a fly-out sub-menu will appear. Select
HDR or alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+H to go
straight to the HDR Merge preview.2 Import the images for HDR merging into your Lightroom
library and then highlight them all by holding down CTRL
(CMD on a Mac) and clicking on each of them. Alternatively,
click on the first one, hold down SHIFT and click on the last
one. You should see all of your selected images highlighted, as
shown above.4 Building the preview should only take a few seconds
and then the HDR Merge Preview panel will appear.
The default window size is rather small but it can be resized
by dragging the sides or corners to expand the view. Note
however, that the preview image size is limited, it is just a
preview of the final image after all.Enhance with HDR
Photo Merge
HDR images are created by merging two or more images with different
exposures, taking the shadows from over-exposed shots and the highlights
from under-exposed ones and combining them to make one image. It’s
useful for expanding dynamic range in difficult lighting situations.
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GOING DEEPER: ADVANCED IMAGE EDITING
BDM’s Made Easy Series | Volume 22