How to Create HDR Photos
Abduzeedo has posted a great tutorial on creating HDR photographs. If you haven’t heard of HDR already, you’re missing out on some amazing photos - you can see some nice ones in the Flickr HDR pool. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and is basically a combination of 3 photos taken at 3 different exposures. Tonal Mapping is the next process done in software like Photoshop or Photomatix - it gives the photo that “surreal” effect that the best HDR photos have.
If you’ve got a Digital SLR camera, you’ve most likely got a feature called “Auto-bracketing”. If not, you’ll have to take the 3 different exposures manually - a tripod is recommended.