HDR

Some of our photos actually do have this "stunning" look. Those are High-Dynamic Range photos, HDR. The process to take these photos is quite simple.

What you need:

• your camera set to bracketing
• a tripod
• some time
• (optional) look on the histogram!

What to do:

• Take a normal shot of the scene on your tripod.
• Look on the histogram and check for high peaks near the left or right edge of it.
• Adjust exposure so that in one shot the left side of the histogram is pretty empty and
• add another shot with the right side of the histogram being nearly empty.
• (You could also use a standard bracketing instead for your photo, e.g. +/- 2EV)
• Take all 3 photos and process them through Luminance HDR (open source) or Photomatix Pro (commercial).
• Afterwards proceed with your normal post-production.

You will probably need some trials to get your HDR photos going. It's something new you need to try and to learn. With time you will get awesome photos which can be anywhere from realistic to hyper-realistic to surreal.