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RSSCan you really do HDR on the iPhone? Pro HDR mini review Part 2
Mar 02
Photography, Technology, iPhone HDR, iPhone, iphoneography, Photography, Reviews No Comments
This is the second of a two part post about the Pro HDR app for the iPhone. In this post I include some examples of what the app can do, and talk about why I like it and bought it.
In the first part of this two-parter I talked about how the Pro HDR iPhone app by eyeappsllc looks and works. In this second part I wanted to include a few examples and show what the app could do with the photos fed into it.
Now, no-one is suggesting that the iPhone camera is going to replace your fancy DSLR-camera-produced and desktop-software-processed HDR images.
However, there are some amazing apps doing great stuff with the relatively low-res images produced by the iPhone. And if you are careful in the first place, it is possible to do some HDR-looking things with those images.
I am obviously not a Pro photographer, but I do enjoy taking photos, have done so for the last 20 years, and own a selection of film and a couple of digital cameras, so I have played with this stuff a bit before. I have even spent some time playing with the desktop versions of HDR software. But what I really see this app offering the iPhoneographer is a bit like the technique I used to use in Photoshop of taking two photos, one exposed for the highlights, one for the shadows, and then blend them together (I am not sure what the technical term is but I know what I mean). It is sort of HDR, but not exactly what your proper photographer and HDR proponent would consider it to be, probably.
So below I have included a few examples of a quick test I did the other day with this app, it is not exhaustive by any stretch, but hopefully you will see what the app can do.
For each I have included 1) the shot exposed for the higlights, 2) the shot exposed for the shadows, and 3) the final ‘blended’ version of the photo, usually with a bit of saturation added:
Test Shot 1 – Exposed for Highlights
Test Shot 1 – Exposed for Shadows
Test Shot 1 – Final blended ‘HDR’
Although the final result has a strange colour cast in the sky, this was brought over from the original shot and exaggerated by the saturation boost I gave the HDR image. The results of the blend are actually quite impressive, especially when you consider that I went for a fairly extreme contrast between the highlights and shadows in the two shots. There is virtually no detail in the shadows on the first shot and a completely blown out sky on the second shot, so really, not bad at all, in my opinion.
Here is another example. This set of photos includes a large contrast between sky and shadow area again. In testing this app I wanted to push its limits and see what can be done on the iPhone. As you will see from the ‘Shadows’ photo, the sky completely blows out on the iPhone quite readily, so this app is really useful for working around that.
Test Shot 2 – Exposed for Highlights
Test Shot 2 – Exposed for Shadows
Test Shot 2 – Final blended ‘HDR’
Obviously, I was less careful with this one, and the blending around the ‘join’ between the two shots demonstrates the blooming effect that is sometimes seen with HDR photos that have a lot of contrast between the highlight and shadow areas of the originals. Still, it is a better result than either of the images on their own, and does a great job of creating a more impressive version of the scene, and would definitely be a lot better if I had taken more care with the originals.
Roundup
So what is the final verdict? Well, if you are interested in this area of photography with the iPhone and you want to gain some at least half-decent results, and at best, some HDR-like photos that can really improve the images made with the iPhone, I would definitely recommend the Pro HDR app. At just £1.19 ($1.99), it is a great price considering the results you can get and the reasonable level of control you have over the final image.
With carefully selected originals and some subtle tweaking of the controls in the app, impressive results can be achieved, and I get the feeling that the longer you spend with this app and the more picture combinations you process with it, the better the results will be and the more you will want to use this app.
Let me know what you think in the comments.