HDR images have recently caught my interest. At their best they are stunning, evocative images that appear from a different part of your brain—someplace after you’ve peered into the shadows and squinted through the glare. Or else some place that just dropped acid. Some really cool stuff and some weird misses. I was intrigued.

I check into it and find I have the low rent ingredients to try it myself. My Lumix FZ7 supports exposure bracketing, and it can capture TIF images. Troy clued me into Qtpsfgui “a Qt4 graphical user interface that aims to provide a workflow for HDR imaging” and I’m off to the races.

And here are some of my early results from shots I took along Folsom Street.

This image taught me the use of single image (raw or TIF) HDR images. The 3 exposure image on the left has fun with a vivid, blurred, almost painterly effect, while the single exposure image on the right uses the color depth to see into the late afternoon moment.

Another single exposure image that worked out:

There were plenty of experiments along the way that you won’t see that were part of the fun. Qtpsfgui? Lots of rough edges. Slow. Hog. Endless incomprehensible knobs and levers to frob. The name, qtpsfgui, has about as much elan as the UI. After a while I found a handful of combinations that were useful. The rest? A waste of space as far as I can tell, that would melt away in a decent UI. But hey, the UI can get better. The image processing works (slowly) but the results often need help. I’m sure that’s where Photoshop comes to the rescue.

But I’m having fun with my low-rent HDR rig.