After finding myself hooked on to HDRi (high dynamic range imaging), I found myself grabbing my tripod along every time I go, praying that squatting on the ground with my miniature tripod (it’s really small!) will not invite stares from passerbys. I’ve publicly embarrassed myself outside a shopping mall by squatting near the floor squinting my eyes to look at my camera’s LCD, and here it is:
It’s actually merged from 2 individual HDR images using Autostitch (the two thumbnails are included in the HDR above), and that totals up to 14 images taken with me squatting miserably on the pavement 
post-processing includes using Photshop’s inbuilt functions like Lens Distortion to remove the obvious distortion of cylindrical mapping and bumping up the contrast a little, followed by colour adjustment (it was a little blue at first).
And after reading several online tutorials on creating pseudo HDRs and learning more about the blending options of individual layers, it is indeed very possible to create a HDR from one JPEG image (you can create HDRs from one camera RAW file with HDR programmes, but you can’t do it with JPEGs). Here are two that I’ve created, made from photos I’ve taken during a recent trip to The Curve, Damansara, Malaysia.
The one below is one of my favourite so far 
Tag replies! I’ve finally decided that I should not be procrastinating on the replies.
momo: Being at home totally rocks! And well you’re having your first year in college, good luck!
smashp0p: Hmmm it depends on when was your last visit. Dentists would love to check your teeth every 6 months 
kenny4eva: At the time you’ve posted the tag, I’ve finally got that irritating little rascal cleaned inside out and filled. It’s now doing fine! I guess I should love my teeth more!
LogicYuan: Well unless the wisdom tooth has broken up / disintegrated in your gum or is affecting your biting, the dentist wouldn’t recommend you to remove it.
Eric: Thanks for reminding! I guess I’ll be publishing one after Chinese New Year when I have more free time at hand.
thecoffeesnob: Hey I’m really sorry for the inconvenience! I’ve recovered your comment. I guess I’ve accidentally made my Spam Karma 2 to blacklist comments with their URIs as wordpress.com. Whoops. Thanks for telling me anyway!
smashp0p: Thanks!
Eric: Yeap, I’m quite hooked to reading now. Do you read often too?
MRDAKOTA: Haah lol I love the way you speak. The kitten is the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen, I feel like hugging it so badly (but of course of hygenic reason I’ve took every single restraint to stop myself from doing so, since it’s a stray afterall). Yea you definitely look good in your new frame!
PeiHau: I use a Pentax Optio S55, a consumer-grade point-and-shoot camera
-zixian: Nawgh, who says so? Everyone can take perfect photos if they’ve got a few criteria right you don’t need to be experienced or something! Experience only increases the probabiliy of getting a photo right.
MRDAKOTA: Yea, may the astronauts rest in peace…
smashp0p: Harlowwww!
hp84: Harlowww toooo!
9 responses to HDRs & Pseudo-HDRs
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February 4th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Very well done. =) I heard about the single RAW file thingy, but yet to try it out, hehe, very lazy when it comes to shoot in RAW (or in my case, NEF, which is Nikon’s RAW file format), conversion and such, LoL! xD
Maybe after I am done with all the coming events during CNY, hehehehe. =D
Anyway, please kindly put down those tutorials you found here, yea? Or send me an email? I am a bit lazy to dig around the web for it, LoL. Thanks buddy. =)
Check out ingSiang’s last blog post: Desmond Farewell BBQ Party @ My House : Group Photos
February 4th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
ingSiang: Thanks. I heard that the camera RAW file is quite cumbersome and most importantly, gigantic, so many photographers still prefer to shoot in JPEG mode. I’ve only bookmarked one tutorial, it’s over HERE. I didn’t exactly follow the steps - I just learnt that by dodging and burning parts of the photo you can artificially increase the dynamic range of it and thus, having a pseudo-HDR effect.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:51 am
autostitch is a seriously cool feature.
Check out letti’s last blog post: Superbowl Fare
February 5th, 2008 at 11:55 am
hey terry…i like the The Street Photo…next time try at night ok and if u can, drop by the Thean Hou temple during CNY too…they have put up hundreds if not thousands of lanterns
ohyeah… Gong Hei Fatt Choi soon as well…see you soon!!!
February 5th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
AHHH!!! I loooove the street picture! And Malaysia has built waaaay too many malls since I left 3 years ago. >.<
Check out Ivy’s last blog post: Roiworld Fashion Games
February 5th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Yes, it’s very difficult to preview NEF/RAW files too, LoL, but it’s amazingly handy when you pp, if you have all the time you need for it. =p I always forgot to shoot the important shots in RAW tho, blehz. xD
Check out ingSiang’s last blog post: Desmond Farewell BBQ Party @ My House : Group Photos
February 8th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I like “The Street” too. Really great photo
Check out vkeong’s last blog post: Happy Chinese New Year 08
February 8th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
hey teddy, sorry i havent been commenting at your site in a while. i havent really updated my site as well. i know i was trying really hard to keep it open but i think i may be closing Eternal Rest after all. you can still find me at LJ xp
February 10th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
letti: Yeap it is definitely an awesome panorama stitching programme. Most importantly, it’s free, although it only allows you to stithc JPEGs and not TIFFs. You can download it over here.
med: Thanks for your compliments
ah wells I hope I will have the time next weekend to pay the temple a visit! I used to go there quite frequently last time. I’ve got blog friends who’ve went there to take awesome photos. Thanks for the suggestion too.
Ivy: Thank you. For some reason local developers seem to be more than happy to built new malls and expand current ones into gigantic compounds. Midvalley has got into Phase 2, called The Gardens, One Utama at Damansara nearly doubled its area by contructing a brand new wing across the road a few years ago. And now we have The Curve, Pavilion in the downtown area. Woah, that’s surely too much!
ingSiang: RAW photos are defintiely harder to preview because of their larger size, but the format makes post processing way easier than JPEGs because it doesn’t use a lossy compression algorithm, unlike JPEG.
vkeong: Thank you!
Rei: Hey it’s okay, you’re really busy lately and it’s not fair to expect comments in return of comments
the blogosphere shouldn’t work like that. I’m sorry to hear that you might be closing your blog, but at least you still have a LJ around 