First of all what is HDR?

High dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.  That’s Wikipedia’s definition on HDR; in fewer and simpler words you have to make three or more pictures of the same subject using different exposures and using a rendering software such as Adobe’s Photoshop you “mix” all the images into a new one for a great visual effect.

Without a good camera you can’t really make good HDR images and that’s why more and more people search for ways to make fake HDR images from only one picture made with a regular camera.

Method no.1

open the image in Adobe Photoshop

duplicate the layer

go to image/Adjustments/ and desaturate the layer (make it black and white)

go to image/Adjustments/invert  (make the layer negative)

apply a gaussian blur filter to the layer (play a bit with the value)

then set the layer to Overlay  and you’re done.

That’s the easiest way to fake and HDR image.

Method no.2

open you image in Photoshop

this step is very important:

go to image/adjustments/shadow/highlight and use the following values:

shadows amount:50%, tonal width 45%,radius 44px;

High-light amount 67%, tonal width 65%, radius 46px;

The values may vary but it’s only a fine tunning

Duplicate this layer and set it to Color Dodge, this will give you strong collors and make the light colors pure white.

Duplicate the layer again, make it linear burn, select black as the foreground color

go to Select/Color Range and set the Fuzziness at about 100

click the mask button from the bottom of the layers window

To correct the noise just select the mask and apply a gaussian filter.

Now you have to duplicate the last layer and make it Overlay, then select the mask and pres Ctrl+i to invert

now all you need to do is play with the opacity for every layer until the image si just right. i can’t give you any values because every image is different….