What is HDR It seems like every time we go to capture an image we have to choose between the highlights and the shadows. Traditionally with film you would expose for the shadows and then develop for the highlights. With Digital we must expose for the highlights and bring up the shadows. The problem is images are limited by the extreme ends and they don't match what we had seen at the time of capture. This is where High Dynamic Range (HDR) comes in. HDR is a technique to create an image with details from the deep shadows through the bright highlights. True HDR is a set of multiple captures of the same scene at different exposures and using software to composite elements from each image and overlaying separate elements to create one photograph containing highly detailed information from 0-255 in all shadows and all highlights as long as that information was available from any of the original images. There are many HDR-like photos being made from singular RAW files where the highlights are brought down, the shadows are pushed up, and the whites and blacks move similar directions. I find those types of "HDR" images are not true to the form of the multi photo HDR's. I have two images here one is from a single RAW file (the fake HDR-like edit) and then another made up from 11 RAW images at varying exposures. Can you tell which HDR is which?

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