I had so much fun writing this post about exploring Snapseed, I had to do it again! This time, we’re focusing on a very specific look.
HDR, short for High Dynamic Range, shows fascinating detail and clarity in images. They don’t look quite natural, but I think that’s part of the appeal. It’s like they show the world the way we wish we saw it, with intense colors and incredible detail. Usually, they're made by combining (at least) three separate images, including one that was underexposed (to capture details in highlights), “correctly exposed” (to capture midtones), and overexposed (to capture more details in shadows). You'd want to use a tripod to make sure all 3 images were framed exactly the same to make combining them easier.
Unfortunately, it's hard to precisely control the exposure with a cell phone camera, and most of us don't have a tripod that will work with a phone. Here's the good news! You can fake the HDR “look” with simple editing apps like Snapseed or even Instagram.
Snapseed has a built-in HDR filter, but it's easy to make your own so that it's more customized to your particular image.
First, you’ll launch Snapseed and open your chosen image. Personally, I like this look best on landscape photos, especially sunsets with something detailed in the foreground (like grass, or in this case, rocks).
In the Tools menu, select “Details”. I amped up Structure to +85. See how the edges look sharper?
My image was underexposed, so I used Curves to brighten it just a smidge. In the curves menu, the default editor is RGB (or, all colors). You can change this so you’re only editing one color at a time (red, green, or blue), but you can also change it to a mode labeled “Luminance”. I used one anchor point to drag this up a little bit to add some light. You may or may not need this step, just play around with what looks best to you!
Next, I used Tune to make a whole bunch of edits at once. I wanted more intense colors, so I brought the saturation up a little (be careful not to overdo this one). Ambiance basically balances the light in your image by adding more light to shadows and darkening highlights. I used this and the Shadows/Highlights tools to really bring out the different areas.
At this point, my photo was looking a little blue, particularly in the foreground, so I used White Balance to increase the temperature.
And you’re done! Any of these steps can be tweaked to fit your image or the look you want. You could even add a step at the end to make it black and white for a really dramatic look. Don’t forget to save your steps as a “Look” to use it again in the future! Plus, it’ll still be customizable because when you apply a custom look, you can always go back and edit the individual steps.
In Instagram, we’ll follow a similar process, but some of the tools are named differently.
Again, you’ll open your image and go to the Edit menu instead of filters.
I applied the following edits:
Contrast: +50
Structure: +100
Warmth: +15
Saturation: +30
Highlights: -70
Shadows: +60
Sharpen: +100
Lux: +80
Lux seems to be the same tool as Snapseed’s Luminance. You can get to it from the icon that looks like a little sun at the top of the screen.
And you’re done! It’s hard to get the exact same effect in Instagram since we can’t layer edits, but without a dedicated, built-in HDR filter, I think this is a pretty good substitute.
If you tried this out, I’d love to hear how it went! Happy shooting!
