There are times you’ll see photographs that are simply stunning in their brilliance. There’s just something extra about them, and perhaps you can’t quite put your finger on what it is, but you know they are amazingly clear and detailed. There’s a good chance you are actually looking at an HDR photograph.

What is HDR photgraphy?

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and is a method of processing digital photos after they are taken. Basically, HDR processes and combines multiple photos taken of the same scene, each taken at a different shutter speed. Usually, three photos are taken, one that is bright, one medium, and one that is dark. By combining them into one image using special HDR software such as Photomatix, details and clarity are brought out in both the shadows and the highlights. The result ends up being very close to what our own human eyes perceive when…

Planning some Christmas holiday blog posts or seasonal ads? Grab a few free Christmas Photoshop brushes and whip up some beautiful Christmas-themed ads and images. Below are eight fantastic Christmas brush sets that should cover most of your holiday-themed needs.

There are plenty of stock photo sites that offer images at reasonable prices, so today I thought we’d look at a quick comparison between 4 of the most popular ones on the Internet today. It’s next to impossible to do a perfect comparison but the following information should be enough to at least see the basic differences between each. In this comparison, we’ll look at quantity, quality and price. Quantity and price are fairly easy to compare, but quality is definitely subjective, so that will strictly be based upon my own subjective evaluation, which may differ significantly from yours or someone else’s.

Price Comparison between iStockphoto, Fotolia, Dreamstime, and StockXchng

• iStockphoto is the most expensive, ranging in price from $1.50/credit to $1.63/credit for packages of credits between 6 and 50, with a 1000 credit package costing $1.25/credit.
• Fotolia is the next most expensive, ranging in price from $1.17/credit to $1.20/credit for…
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