A bright and vibrant cityscape

HDR Scape


HDR Scape is a free Lightroom preset that gives urban and street photography a stunning HDR look. It has clear high-contrast tones and crisp textures. It gives images an immersive and modern aesthetic.

Collection: HDR Presets
Best for: Landscapes, Urban Scenes, Outdoor, Travel
Style: Bold Tones, Crips Textures, Vivid

Because of its bold tones and unique color motif, you can use this preset on various types of outdoor images. Although it specializes in urban scenes, you can also try it on landscapes or travel photos that show a lot of detail.

You can also use this creative style as an Instagram filter. It will help set a consistent and professional look across your feed. After all, it is important to establish a signature look when building your online presence.

Optimizes Light and Contrast

A bright and vivid photo of boats docked beside colorful buildings

Bright and Vivid. The begins its processing by adding more light and intensifying contrast. These set the stage for further, finer, adjustments in tone. HDR Scape also applies a sharp radial filter to properly create the definitive HDR look.

The effect in the photo above is clear: compare the outlines, the buildings, the boats’ parts, the blue sky, and the water ripples. Every element, from color to texture, appears more intense. Their ranges are broader, hence more defined. You can learn more about each in the succeeding examples.

Broadens and Defines Tones in the Tone Curve

A bright and vibrant photo of an urban street lined with lush trees

Crisp Tones. One of the most prominent effects in HDR is the visibly crisp tones. These seem to outline edges and emphasize shadows. For this specific effect, simply examine the trees in the After photo above. The edges of the vivid greet leaves look sharply defined; light and dark regions have greater contrast.

To create this look, HDR Scape defines its tonal intensity in the tone curve. It broadens the range by further brightening whites and darkening blacks. It then refines these adjustments using the highlight and shadows sliders. The latter settings see to it that no tone would look harsh, to the point of concealing detail. You can observe the overall bold look in the above photo of a vibrant street.

Boosts Color Intensity

A bright and vivid photo of boats near a coast

Vivid Colors. HDR photos are generally colorful. For this aesthetic, HDR Scape amplifies hues by boosting clarity, vibrance, and saturation. It increases the level of each to draw out as much color as possible. As a result, your photos get intense colors and stunning deep tones.

Compare the colors of the Before and After photos above. The left image looks bright enough but the colors look quite flat. The preset remedies these: the image is brilliant now, with vivid colors and bold tones. Every aspect of the image looks clearly defined.

Lowers Saturation and Luminance Levels

A bright and vibrant urbanscape with skyscrapers and a vivid blue sky

Dark and Cool. The preset subdues orange tones to reduce its intensity as a warm tone. After all, HDR Scape is going for a cool and modern look. To achieve this, it desaturates orange hues, thereby pulling them closer to gray tones. Then, for contrast, it lowers the luminance of aqua and blue. This means that these two cool colors would appear deep and rich instead of bright.

This specific style works best in urban settings, as you can see in the example above. This industrial loo,k works best on photos that show a lot of buildings, metallic surfaces, or grungy material like cement. Try to examine the results by comparing the respective colors of the Before and After photos.

Enhances Texture

An HDR photo of a woman holding a red umbrella while talking in a town square

Sharp Details. What is HDR without crisp details? It is impossible. A photo cannot be considered HDR without starkly defined textures. HDR Scape thus increases sharpening and adds some noise reduction. These two improvements go hand in hand when creating the modern HDR effect.

Finally, HDR Scape applies vignetting. The darkening of the photo’s edges helps bring out the dark tones even more. It also draws attention towards the center of the image.

HDR Scape is for Lightroom Mobile, Desktop and…

Like all our presets, you can absolutely use HDR Scape as is, right out of the box. With any preset, you might need to make adjustments to accommodate your specific camera, settings, lighting, and subject matter.

If you want more presets like this, be sure to check out our Lightroom HDR presets.

  • Entirely Adjustable
  • Compatible with Lightroom 4, 5, 6 and CC
  • Performs with both PC, Mac, and Mobile
  • Applicable to both RAW and JPG images
  • 100% Free
Landscape Free Lightroom Presets

Free Lightroom Preset by Presetpro

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