Merge photos into an HDR image online for free

How is an HDR photo made?

HDR (high dynamic range) photography is a technique for capturing more brightness levels than a single exposure can hold. A camera sensor has a fixed dynamic range (typically 12–14 stops), but many real-world scenes exceed that: a sunlit exterior seen through a dark doorway, a landscape at golden hour. The solution is to take several frames at different exposures and merge them into one image that draws highlight detail from the darkest frame and shadow detail from the brightest.

In our online HDR editor you're able to merge your exposures and adjust the look, even choose how "compressed" or physically accurate you want your final HDR image:

Why doesn't a single exposure capture the whole scene?

A camera picks one exposure for the entire frame. Expose for the highlights and the shadows go dark; expose for the shadows and the highlights clip. Once a pixel clips to pure black or pure white, that information is gone. No post-processing can recover what the sensor didn't record. Shooting a bracketed set of three to five frames, each at a different stop, gives the merge enough data to cover both ends of the tonal range.

How to merge photos into HDR

1. Drop your bracketed exposures into the upload area above. RAW files (CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG) give the cleanest result, but JPEG sets work too.
2. Click Merge and wait for the frames to be aligned and combined.
3. The built-in editor opens with the merged file. Adjust the tone mapping to taste, then export.