Recommended HDR Software

Hi,

Have never done an HDR photo but will do so fairly soon - I hope. It seems HDR can help with too much backlighting in a photo. I suppose you could just shoot 2 separate photos and expose for the sky in one and the subject in the other and then use photoshop to blend them together - but would like to play with HDR a bit.

So, what is the prefered software to merge the photos? I have Photoshop CS5, will that do the job or is there a better more dedicated software for this job?


Thanks

Photomatix is usually the software of choice for a lot of people. Lately I've been using Nik HDR Efex and think I prefer it.

Either way, I find both way better than CS5's built in HDR function.

pridash wrote in post #14345012
Photomatix is usually the software of choice for a lot of people. Lately I've been using Nik HDR Efex and think I prefer it.

Either way, I find both way better than CS5's built in HDR function.

Hi,

Yes I have seen Photomatix referenced a few times now. Will give it a try.


Thanks

General_T wrote in post #14345021
Hi,

Yes I have seen Photomatix referenced a few times now. Will give it a try.

Thanks

Just know that HDR is available in CS5, so give it a try alongside of Photomatix. What I'm not sure about is how to get it to handle processing two separate Raw processes without converting them into a tiff. Maybe someone else knows?

I like Nik HDR Efex Pro the best but that's just me.....I actually like the ghosting correction the best in the photoshop HDR pro, so if I have an image with a lot of movement, I'll put it together in CS5 as a 32 bit image and then do tonemapping in HDR Efex Pro. With HDR, less is more to me.....I mainly use it for getting a perfectly exposed image in bad lighting situations and then treat it like a RAW file and process it like any other photo

For me it depends on the image. Sometimes Nik HDR Efex, sometimes CS6, sometimes use CS6 to blend layers..... Sometimes I end up doing all methods just to see which one looks best, talk about a time waste.

GIve Picturenaut a shot:

http://www.hdrlabs.com​/picturenaut/index.htm​l

if you are serious about actually merging exposures and utilizing the 32-bit data. Picturenaut is free, too. It is PC-only, but I run it on a Mac Book Pro under WinXP/Parallels.

It is not so much about outputting a final image with a lot of fancy toning controls, but it will do a great job at merging and compressing the tonal range of your data for further finishing in 16bit land.

kirk

Also - the newest version of DPP has HDR merge (more like image fusion, because there is no 32bit intermediary file made to save). Your 5DIII will do in-camera "HDR" as well.

kirk

Luminance HDR works well for me...

I only use Photomatix, but I can highly recommend it.

SNS-HDR for some of the finest, granular control over the images. Has built in masking to allow different areas of the image to be handled in specific ways. If you have never given it a go, you might be surprised how good this app is.

Oloneo for some of the fastest and easiest HDR/Tonemapping of any application - period. Often needing little post-processing work. Update needed for more effective de-ghosting though it already has routines than can work well.

Photomatix for good deghosting

LR/Enfuse for rapid, batch processed fusion mapping from Lightroom. Use these images as the starting point for later processing in PS through masking.

Photoshop for creating a 32-bit HDR image that is them processed in LR 4.1 ; this looks to have tremendous potential and might well make it into my standard set of tools

All IMHO of course

KA | Photography wrote in post #14398554
Luminance HDR works well for me...

The Luminance HDR 2.3.0 Beta1 is available now:

http://qtpfsgui.source​forge.net/?p=239

Can't stand photomatix; way to hard to get a realistic result. SNS HDR is the best IMO for realistic HDR.

Every Image is definitely different! I just used HDR on this photo out of necessity since the wind was blowing and the foliage in the foreground was moving during the 0 exposure. Used HDR for the foreground and then manually blended the background as the HDR version just looked kind of evil Not really a good example I guess since the natural image looks completely unreal due to the light conditions that happened here (some clouds in the valley/low cloud level/sun just below cloud level), and this valley in Kauai will just take your breath away in person, but HDR made it a usable image in this case

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