Fine Art Photography: High Dynamic Range: Realism, Superrealism, & Image Optimization for Serious

Make It Yours – See Your Price On Amazon!

Your Sales Price $23.99 - $14.39

A quick rundown of this product’s key features:

Directions for working with two popular photo editing programs: Photomatix and HDR Efex Pro.

Our Top Reviews

Reviewer: Easy Rider
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A step-by-step guide
Review: This book by Tony Sweet is a great primer for anyone just starting to do HDR images.His concise, simple narration style clearly explains step by step all that is needed to do the images in the book.He does not say his way is THE way; he makes it clear that there are other ways of achieving the same effects, and he compares the way Photomatix works, compared to HDR Efex pro (Nik software). He notes how neither program is “better” than the other, that it is mostly a matter of taste, and how he usually uses Photoshop on the images after he has done an HDR of the image, but this step is not always necessary.Tony Sweet is a very good instructor, he is able to, figuratively speaking, let you peek over his shoulder to see how he achieves the effects illustrated in the book.This book is a keeper!

Reviewer: Jess Lantz
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great book “IF THE THING WAS IN COLOR” Now it is!
Review: This is a digital photography book about HDR and tonemapping, and the thing is in Black & white??????????? WHAT GIVES HERE??Other technical kindle books are in color why the heck not this one, I mean it’s about the color stupid! I read my technical books on my Ipad or on the computer not in my kindle. The kindle is for reading not looking at graphics or images. Why doesn’t Amazon post what format the kindle book is able to display?? What a concept!UPDATE: Amazon changed this book to Color! Now the book is relevent!The book is an excellent primer on HDR it just didn’t working being in b&w but being able to see the Color illustrations makes a lot more sense.

Reviewer: J C
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An interesting book, but not as useful as I hoped
Review: This book is beautiful. It has some excellent examples of HDR processing. The pictures are fantastic. It is a great read.All that being said, I was looking for something a bit more practical and useful.The chief disadvantage of the book is that the author focuses on some pretty expensive software. I have Photomax HDR software ($99 and a great deal), Lightroom3, and Photoshop. So I’ve shelled out some money for software. What I was looking for was something which might put me on to additional reasonably priced software, but would not go over the top in terms of additional purchases.The key software used in the book, after Photomax, was LucisPro. Unfortunately this is a $500+ package which I’m not willing to spring for. In addition a lot of use was made of other software (primarily Nik Software) which might add another $200 to your budget.So, in summary, the book is cool and interesting to read. If you’re willing to ante up $700+ in addition to Photomax, Lightroom3, and Photoshop, then it might be the right book for you. But, if you are on more of a budget, then you might let this book pass and go for a book which relates to the software you have available.

Reviewer: UptownFoto
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Images, Little Information
Review: I am just getting into working with HDR and was looking forward to receiving my book to get going. Unfortunately the book was a let down. The preface (all before page 1) covers some default settings for Photomatix and a couple other programs. The rest of the book is filled with amazing images (a lot of them) but very little in the way of instruction or guidance for persons new to the medium. Think this book accidently teaches more about what type of images and composition to use for HDR than actually how to create the imagery.

Reviewer: D/le
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Excellent book with the most how to info of all the HDR books I’ve seen
Review: I’ve bought and read a few HDR books. I’ve looked at a few more in stores. I’ll say this book gives the reader more how to info than any of them. Each photo is presented in a ‘case study’ format that provides all the settings detail in the very beginning. All the contributing photographs are also provided in the beginning for each HDR photo as well. This is NOT merely a book filled with pretty pictures as one reviewer suggested. I have to wonder if that reviewer was actually an author of a competing book. I say this because this book really is a ‘how I did it’ type and that person made a statement that is exactly opposite of the truth.

Reviewer: Timothy J. Oneill
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A good how to read
Review: The author share his expertise using Photomatix, and Nik HDR. The book is a how to use these programs (the two most popular software programs for HDR). The reader gets lots of settings and example phorographs to get a very good starting point to begin using the techniques.

Reviewer: Webster 94
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Art plus
Review: I have beena photographer for over 40 years, which means I have had to adjust to many new ways of bringing forth my perspective on the world. I was attracted to HDR the first time I saw it in magazines and wated to find out how photographers were able to creat these 3-D artist impressions of a great photo to begin with. It took my passion in art/photography to a new level. Great book.

Reviewer: Christopher C. Smith
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Worth far more than the cover price.
Review: This is a great book. Tony Sweet offers both technical instruction and inspiration. But make no mistake, this book is not for the novice. It is important to master the fundamentals of digital photography before attempting to apply the concepts in this book. From Tony’s books, I have gained insight to gear, software, technique and creativity.Thank you Tony!

Reviewer: Ian Wilson
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I’m a great admirer of Tony Sweet’s work, and there are some superb pictures in this book. I had hoped there would be more technical insights into taking images for HDR, for example, along with workflow hints. Instead, it’s simple a bunch of pictures with a small amount of explanatory text and the settings used to achieve the effect (usually Photomatix). The book is advertised as covering Nik’s HDR Efex Pro too, but this is very much the poor cousin; all the examples were clearly taken from a very early beta too, as the interface is rather different to the current version. A “near miss” in my view.

Price effective as of Jun 28, 2025 19:59:42 UTC

As an Amazon Associate Dealors may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.