In case you're not in tune to the photographic realm these days, HDR has taken center stage as the technique of the future. HDR, if you've got time to say it in the proper long winded fashion, High Dynamic Range photography is the process of smushing several differently exposed images together and using the combined tonalities to create one amazing image. Or an image so amazingly fake people wonder if you drew the picture in the dark with a felt pen on the back of a cat while it cleaned its ears.
At this time HDR requires specially designed software expressly made to combine those tonalities and present the user with a myriad of output possibilities, all generally more impressive than the three or more images you fed the software. Also at this time the effort to properly utilize the software and further refine the output image to even more amazing levels with a tool like Photoshop takes far more time than the average user is willing to spend. This, of course, will all change as photography businesses everywhere are sniffing the profit to be made by making HDR possible with nothing more than the press of a shutter button. Then HDR will be mainstream. At first its inclusion will command an extra $50 for that model camera; But within two months it'll be another standard feature like a lens or the Program setting. What will make it special at that point will thankfully be the same thing that made it special before it took the expressway to mainstream: the photographer.
Knowing what to point the camera at, how to compose an exceptional image, understanding the parameters at play and how to adjust them, still requires a talented individual behind the viewfinder. So while HDR is certain to go mainstream and be just a shutter press away, the likes of the image above will still be produced by a select few with the know how, and more importantly, the investment of time to output and refine the results of the technique of the future. Even when it's the mainstream of now.
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