Why didn’t anyone tell me…

I, like countless others before me, have found a need for the occasional HDR photo. Mine was showing off a particular piece of furniture with a lit lamp on top. But, I, having no desire to drop $100 for dedicated HDR software, was in a pinch. There are countless faking efforts, but then I remembered I have PTGui Pro, which recently added HDR compositing. So here’s how I learned to do HDR for flat photos, not that it’s difficult.

1. Create a new PTGui project.
2. Add your bracketed shots.
3. Turn on Advanced.
4. Skip everything until the HDR step.
5. Go to the Panorama Editor window and use the “Fit to picture” thing that clips off as much black as it can.
6. In the HDR tab, set it up the way you want. I like my contrast at about 20% for this shot.
7. Skip to the Preview/Output steps as you normally would.

This just saved me buying an additional piece of software, and I’m honestly quite pleased with the result. Thanks guys!