STEP BY STEP / Reveal every detail

1 Start HDR Merge

Take a set of images with different exposures. Import them into Lightroom and Shift-click to select them all. To begin the HDR command, either go to Photo>Photo Merge>HDR, or right-click the images and choose Photomerge, or simply press Cmd/Ctrl+H.

2 Improve the tones

The Auto Align box helps if the alignment between each frame is slightly off. The Auto Tone box brings out detail in shadows and highlights. This is non-destructive, so once you merge the images, you can change the settings with the Develop module’s Basic panel.

3 Fix ghosting movement

Deghost helps to correct movement within the frame by taking the problematic area from a single frame rather than by merging several. Along with four deghosting strengths, there’s also a ‘Show deghost overlay’ option to see the areas being corrected. We used Medium.

4 Merge and enhance

Click Merge and Lightroom creates a new RAW DNG file with the suffix HDR and adds it to your Library. There’s more tonal information than in a normal photo, so take the image into the Develop module and use the tonal tools and the Adjustment Brush to improve it.