The New York Times has an article on HDR photography. They sort of miss the point by repeatidly comparing the effect to paintings. HDR is very different an an artistic achievement in its own right.

H.D.R. is one of many digital darkroom techniques catching the fancy of amateur photographers. With the rising popularity of digital single-lens reflex cameras and more powerful personal computers has come a growing interest in visual experiments.

At the same time, software makers like Adobe are increasingly automating many of those processes, including H.D.R. While they may not always be straightforward, tricky digital techniques no longer require months of experience or hours of study.

Although H.D.R. photos are often compared to paintings, they are an attempt by software makers to allow photography to more accurately mimic human vision.

Dynamic range measures how great a difference between light and dark can be captured by a digital camera or film. Relative to the human eye, all photography has a limited dynamic range, and digital photography suffers even more than film.

So while it is interesting that the NYT is writing about HDR it is a shame that they are fixated on comparisons to paintings. I’ve done quite a few posts on HDR previously, including a HowTo:

HowTo and Link roundup
HDR Tokyo
HDR New York

Link

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