Assembling from Adobe Bridge

Using Photoshop to create a high dynamic range image requires, of course, that you identify the individual images that you want to use to assemble the final result. One of the easiest ways to get started with that process is to take advantage of Adobe Bridge, which is included with Photoshop. You can navigate to a folder that contains the frames you want to assemble into a composite high dynamic range image. In this case, I have several exposures captured in a wine shop, and I want to assemble all three of these into a single final result.

So, I'll go ahead and choose the first image by simply clicking on its Thumbnail, and then hold the Shift key and click on the last image in the sequence. And that will select all of the images in that sequence. Here just three images, so I click on the first image and shift-click on the third image and all three of those photos then are selected. In this case, I think the color temperature is a little bit off, especially in the center photo you can see that the color is a bit too yellow, I think. So, I'd also like to apply some basic adjustments to these images before I send them into Photoshop. Keep in mind that when I send these images to Photoshop in order to create an HDR image.

The images will be processed based on the current raw conversion settings. In this case, I've not applied any adjustments, so I want to adjust the image first using Adobe Camera Raw. And I can do that effectively right within Bridge. I'll go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences, on Macintosh this would be Bridge Preferences from the menu, and that will bring up the Preferences dialog. On the General Page, I'll make sure to turn on the double-click Edits Camera Raw setting in Bridge check-box. And what that means is that when I double-click on a photo, instead of just opening in Photoshop it will open with Adobe Camera Raw directly in Bridge, so that I can fine tune the appearance of the photo. I have that check box turned on, and so I'll go ahead and click OK. And now with all three images selected, I'll go ahead and double-click on the Thumbnail of one of those images.

And all three will be opened in Adobe Camera Raw. I'll go ahead and click on the second image, because I want to use that one as the basis of my adjustments. And then I'll click the Select All button at the top of the filmstrip in Adobe Camera Raw. And then I'll come over to the Adjustment controls, and in the basic section I'll adjust the Color Temperature shifting it down a little bit toward blue. And I think also shifting the tint a little bit more toward green, it seems a little bit too magenta in this case. And I also think I'm going to reduce the vibrance of the image, and in fact maybe also take down the saturation just to tone down those colors a little bit. I can always boost them a little bit more during the HDR process. But in this case, I'd like to start with something a little bit more muted. I'm pretty happy with that adjustment, I'll tinker with the color temperature just a little bit more.

Maybe get rid of some more of that yellow from the photo, and that will do just fine. So, I will go ahead and click the Done button. Noticed that I am not going to open the images, I am simply going to save the settings. So, I'll click Done, and I am right back in Bridge and the adjustments have been applied to those three images. So, now I am ready to actually assemble the HDR based on these raw caterers. So, I'll go to the tools menu and then choose Photoshop, followed by Merge to HDR Pro. And when I choose that command, Photoshop will launch, if it's not already open, and the images will be processed and assembled into a basic HDR.

And the HDR Pro dialog will appear allowing me to fine tune the overall adjustments for the image to create the final result. And so you can see we have the merged HDR Pro dialog now. We can fine tune all of the settings for our HDR image, and then simply click OK. In this case I'll just leave the default settings for processing the image, and that will cause Photoshop to process with HDR Pro and create my final HDR image. So, you can see the process is very, very simple using Bridge to identify which images you want to assemble. And then sending those over to Photoshop with instructions to create an HDR image.