HDR for Real Estate Photography

HDR has many applications beyond landscape photography. I recently put my Photomatix skills to use on some real estate photos and was quite pleased with the results!

A single RAW image can only do so much

You might be asking why you should go through the trouble of HDR for real estate photography – the answer is that most interiors show best with lots of light, meaning curtains open. This leads to a lot of bright and dark areas that your camera simply cannot capture in one frame. Check out this “normal” exposure, straight out of the camera:

Single Median Exposure

Notice that the details are blown out in the window and there are many dark shadow areas. Certainly, if you are shooting RAW you can bring out a few of the highlight/shadow details in Lightroom; however, there is no detail in much of the window. A single RAW frame can only go so far.

Creating Natural Results with Photomatix Pro

I captured eleven frames of this scene to make sure I had detail in all highlight and shadow areas. Instead of using the typical Tone Mapping process, I opted for Exposure Fusion. The folks over at HDRSoft have put together some great settings specifically for real estate photography/interiors!

For interiors, check out the Fusion/Interior setting. Most often I went with the method defaults and then made my final adjustments in Lightroom. Easy peasy!

For exteriors, I like the results I got from the Fusion/Natural setting. Again, I made minimal adjustments in Photomatix before returning to Lightroom for final adjustments.

Let’s Compare, shall we?

The Tone Mapping default is much better than the single exposure, but a bit “crunchy” with unnatural colors and shading.

By switching to Exposure Fusion (Fusion/Natural – default setting) the result is better – more even lighting, but we lost some detail in the window

With Exposure Fusion (Fusion/Interior) we get the best result! Natural looking lighting, color, and detail.

The final image after few final adjustments in Lightroom for contrast/sharpening.

Photomatix Pro is a very powerful program that goes beyond the crunchy, stereotypical HDR! If you haven’t tired it in awhile, I encourage you to take a few multi-exposure shots and play! Make sure you check out the Exposure Fusion settings. If you were burned out on the overdone look of tone mapped images, you might become re-enamored with HDR! Don’t forget to enter “angandrieux” at checkout for an additional 15% off your Photomatix purchase!