What is NDR & ADR Photography?

Recently, Cyrus Khamak of Megashot.net posted an interesting article about HDR photography. To encourage debate he tagged me in the article. As it turned out, we had a number of disagreements on what we thought HDR was. However, as the debate continued it became apparent that we were both coming to a shared understanding – that HDR, as a definition, was lacking.

There are literally 1000s of photographers in the world creating stunningly realistic HDR imagery but who refuse to have their names even remotely associated with HDR. We all know why this is. You simply need to type ‘HDR Photography’ in google images to see why HDR has a bad name.

Then we have a distinctly different camp – those HDRists who create stunningly surreal HDR images. It seems unfair or inaccurate to categorise an entirely realistic HDR image with a beautiful surreal image.

They are impossible to place along side one-another.

For years we’ve used the terms ‘Realistic HDR’ and ‘Surreal HDR’ to try and differentiate between the two. However, this simply doesn’t do justice to realistic HDRs of a naturally surreal scene or any number of other scenarios.

Essentially, NDR was borne out of a need to accurately describe an image in which the balance of light in that image closely resembles that of the original scene. This is completely independent of technique (tone mapping, digitally blending etc.).

This can be, for the first time, a way for the talented HDR photographers who produce magically realistic HDRs to put a label on what they do.

And what of those who create surreal images? We thought ADR (Artistic Dynamic Range) would be rather fitting. The term Artistic is not an implication that this type of HDR is more creative or artistic than NDR, rather, you have have given yourself and the resources available more artistic license in post-processing Ultimately, both are art, both are beautiful, but they do not belong under the same category.

I’m delighted to see that this has not only taken off amazingly, but that we’ll be hosting a huge HDR month in July on MegaShot.net with a great mix of NDR & ADR instructors to help beginners improve their processing techniques.

Thank you to Cyrus Khamac for his awesome enthusiasm in working with me to make this a reality and helping the world of HDR to become noticeably more respectable in the world of photography.