Converting an SDR Panoramic image into an HDRi by SlickSHWart, literature
Literature
Converting an SDR Panoramic image into an HDRi
Converting an SDR Panoramic image into an HDRi (and why you're doing it wrong).
Stop it. You're making my brain itch.
So, the reason I am writing this tutorial/rant is because I have seen a whole lot of well intentioned people out there on the interwebs pushing some very bad information on how to get illumination from SDR images. These people usually advocate for one of two approaches; either A) Open the SDR image in Photoshop/GIMP, change the bit depth to 32, and re-save as an .hdr or .exr file. B) Open the SDR image in Photoshop/GIMP, then use exposure filters to save out several "faked" exposures as SDR JPEGs or PNGs, and then import them