>>3206940>>3206924>>3206992>>3207192It is to keep overexposed or underexposed area from happening. You take several exposures of the same photo them put them together in a single file. Then you can edit them specifically how you want them to look. They can be fucking retarded like Jason Lanier's work or look perfectly normal where you never knew it was used. The biggest problem is that people push for the artistic use of it instead of just using it for what it was originally intended for. In addition to that, the program or plugin you use to create the HDR can also fuck you over. This usually happens when the person who made the program/script/plugin is someone with the eyes of Jason Lanier instead of being technical, they push for "artistic" methods. Thus, you end up not being able to do what is natural instead.
Some higher cameras and smartphones have built in features for exposure bracketing and outputting HDR automatically. How they do this and how they are programmed will determine the quality. Some are more artistic than others. You need to keep that in mind if you want to use that feature.
The best natural use is to only use a few exposures. Like don't use 10+. Instead only use 2-4.
>>3207097Anytime you edit a photo in any way it becomes graphic design. That's a fact. Most digital camera edit the photo on the fly (auto white balance). I don't think being pedantic about it really matters since the start of the process always begins with an actual photo.
