Do HDR Toning?

Go under the File menu, under Automate, and choose Merge to HDR Pro. Click on the Browse button and find the bracketed images you want to combine into a single HDR image, click Open, and then click OK. This brings up the Merge to HDR Pro dialog (seen above left). From the Preset pop-up menu in the top right, choose Scott5 (that’s a preset I created that Adobe included in Merge to HDR Pro. Yes, I was totally psyched that they asked). This applies an HDR grunge effect to your image, but it’s kind of harsh. So, to smooth that harshness, turn on the Edge Smoothness checkbox, then click OK, and it renders your HDR image. Now, this is a bit too “over the top” for most folks, so we’re going to take the intensity down a bit. Open the original normal exposure image from your set of bracketed images, press Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A) to select the entire image, and then copy-and-paste this normal exposure image on top of your HDR image (it will appear on its own separate layer). Click on the Eye icon to the left of the top layer’s thumbnail a few times to turn it off/on to make sure it’s aligned perfectly with the layer below it. If the alignment is off at all, Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the Background layer to select both layers, then go under the Edit menu and choose Auto-Align Layers. When the dialog appears, make sure Auto is selected, and click OK to have Photoshop automatically align these layers (again, you only have to do this if the layers didn’t align perfectly in the first place). The final step is to lower the Opacity of this top layer (usually to around 50%) to add back in some of original realistic look to the HDR grunge effect, which finishes it off.