You transfer your pictures from your camera onto your computer. You take a look at them and some of them just don’t look the way you thought they would — underexposed, a little out of focus, dull… Fortunately, Lightroom is here for you.
Adobe Lightroom is a great tool to make, or rather fake, the HDR look using only one picture. Not only is it extremely simple to do, but it only requires fiddling with the basic sliders.
Let’s get started!
(I am assuming that you already know how to import pictures into Lightroom and get into the Develop module. See you there! A complete guide for Lightroom for beginners is coming soon… patience.)
First of all, I like to start with the Highlights and the Shadows. The sliders can be found under the Basic tab. For the HDR look, I bring down the Highlights slider to -100 and set the Shadows slider to +100. This will bring back details in the picture (and dynamic range). It might look washed out for now, but don’t worry, we will take care of that in just a second!
*Do not abuse this HDR technique. It may be a quick fix but nothing remedies crappy technique. Sincerely. *