Gadgetory

HDR photography isn't new but now that almost anyone can use it more and more of these gorgeous photos are popping up online they usually have a surreal look to them with high contrast saturated colors and a lifted effect these photos look like a lot of effort but they're actually pretty easy to achieve I'm Sharon Vaknin frisina and today I'll show you how to take stunning HDR photos on your iPhone or Android first the basics HDR or high dynamic range photos are simply the product of three different photos combined one photo is taken out a dark exposure another add irregular exposure and the third is taken at a high exposure capturing the most light when these three photos are combined you create a photo that looks much closer to what the human eye sees the difference is absolutely amazing blame the monkey calm has a bunch of examples of before-and-after HDR photos here's one of the mountains in meteora greece before and after as you can see the difference in clarity and depth is huge so now how can you do this let me show you on the iPhone it's simple because HDR is built into the camera on the iPhone 4 and 4s launch the camera tap options and turn HDR on now you can set up your shot focus and hit the shutter button when you do it's crucial you hold your phone steady because your iPhone is actually taking 3 photos in a row so if you move you could end up with a blurry photo my favorite way to keep it steady is to use my iPhone headphones as a shutter release just plug them in set up your shot and click the volume up control to activate the shutter your iPhone will save the HDR photo to your photo album along with the same photo at a regular exposure so as you can see the HDR version just pops more than the regular photo now if you want to be able to tweak the HDR effect after you take a picture or you have an older iPhone without the HDR option you'll need an app called Pro HDR it's 2 bucks and comes highly recommended by our CNET reviewers to use it launch the app and set up your shot then hold really still and tap the screen the app will analyze the shot capture a few photos and combine the images to create your HDR photo now you can use the settings below to tweak things like brightness contrast and saturation to exaggerate or tone down that HDR effect when you're done hit save and you'll find your photo in your album if you've got an Android phone there's no built-in HDR option like the iPhone but Pro HDR is available in the Play Store for 2 bucks and works the same way just remember to set the focus first and hold really still while the app captures the photos to get the best HDR results you can experiment with different settings and shot composition nighttime shots can be more dramatic than daytime and landscapes tend to work better than portraits at least in my opinion and if you're feeling extra fancy try combining an HDR photo with an Instagram filter for a really unique effect now I want you to take some awesome HDR photos and send them to me on Twitter for more tips like this subscribe to my Facebook page and how to see Netcom for a/c net I'm Sharon Vaknin you