Aurora 2018 for Windows - alignment and deghosting tests

Virtually all my bracketed sets are hand held so any HDR app I use must have good image alignment as well as de-ghosting. Here is my test of these features after only 1 day of painless familiarisation! I have also included comparisons with other HDR processors that

I use. I do not have Lightroom and would be grateful if someone would merge my files to HDR with LR for me and post the result(s) in this thread. Here is the Mediafire link for you. Just click on the green download button to obtain 3 DNG files in a folder.

Aurora - Realistic Balanced preset, medium deghosting.

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IMAGE IS A REDIRECT OR MISSING!

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Very nice test. Thanks for taking the time to create and post.

I think a common mistake people would make is to place all attention on the main subject - the orange leaves.

However, the background leaves alignment also tell a story.

Using the lower right quadrant, the background green leaves only: Photomatix 6 is horrible. Lots of double if not triple imaging. The clear looser.

Aurora and Easy HDR are both a little soft - beyond the DOF blur. Nik seem to be the winner here. But then the upper left background green of the Nik is poorly deghosted.

Hard to tell without being able to view at 100%, but the overall winner here seems to be Aurora. A tiny but oversaturated on the oranges (as was photomatix), but that is much more easily repaired than poor deghosting.

Thanks, Martin.

Picture North Carolina wrote in post #18463320
Very nice test. Thanks for taking the time to create and post.

I think a common mistake people would make is to place all attention on the main subject - the orange leaves.

However, the background leaves alignment also tell a story.

Using the lower right quadrant, the background green leaves only: Photomatix 6 is horrible. Lots of double if not triple imaging. The clear looser.

Aurora and Easy HDR are both a little soft - beyond the DOF blur. Nik seem to be the winner here. But then the upper left background green of the Nik is poorly deghosted.

Hard to tell without being able to view at 100%, but the overall winner here seems to be Aurora. A tiny but oversaturated on the oranges (as was photomatix), but that is much more easily repaired than poor deghosting.

Thanks, Martin.

Thanks for your positive feedback.

I should have added that I made no attempt to alter colors, saturation or contrast. Apart from further denoising and resisizing, they are as straight out of the processor. The Photomatix version could have been improved by increasing the deghosting level from 15 to 20 or 25. All I concentrated on was the orange leaves as the background leaves are all well out of focus.

Thanks for taking the time to create this test Martin.. Why didn't you also include SNS-HDR, I thought you like that one very much.

Bianchi wrote in post #18477512
Thanks for taking the time to create this test Martin.. Why didn't you also include SNS-HDR, I thought you like that one very much.

Because SNS-HDR cannoty deghost Sometimes I deghost a scene like this with Photomatix or easyHDR, save the 32bit radiance file and tonemap that with SNS-HDR but it is a bit long-winded.

You are right, I do like SNS-HDR; IMO it generates the best blue and green hues.

Thanks.

Here they are from LR.

First one is Medium Deghosting

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DagoImaging have they updated Aurora to now include the Luminosity mask, also if you use PS, can you now work from a duplicated copy rather than the back round layer. This is all related to Aurora for windows plugin from LR & PS.

Skylum/Macphun support told me with the first update they would include the Luminosity mask. Well 2 upgrades later, and there was no Luminosity mask. Also they would correct the issue of working with back round layer, as everyone wants to work non destructively.. That's how all other plugins work for LR & Ps , so you can work non destructively in PS.

DagoImaging wrote in post #18508208
Here they are from LR.

First one is Medium Deghosting

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./showthread.php?p=185​08208&i=i150902056
forum: HDR Creation

Second is High

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./showthread.php?p=185​08208&i=i121836019
forum: HDR Creation

Many thanks for processing this set with LR. I don't see much difference between them - but my eyesight is not 100% As expected, they look natural. LR has done a good job.

Stiga wrote in post #18508268
I don't see much difference between them...

Me neither. I have checked foreground and background and am hard-pressed to see any difference at all

Bianchi wrote in post #18508229
DagoImaging have they updated Aurora to now include the Luminosity mask, also if you use PS, can you now work from a duplicated copy rather than the back round layer. This is all related to Aurora for windows plugin from LR & PS.

Skylum/Macphun support told me with the first update they would include the Luminosity mask. Well 2 upgrades later, and there was no Luminosity mask. Also they would correct the issue of working with back round layer, as everyone wants to work non destructively.. That's how all other plugins work for LR & Ps , so you can work non destructively in PS.

I do not find the luminosity mask option on the Windows version.

Edit -
I stand corrected it is there but not obvious and VERY limited from what I can tell.

I watched a YT video and it said in 2017 you could pick the zone you wanted to create the LM for.
In 2018 version all I get is the option to create a luminosity mask and it appears to be a Midtone mask. I cannot control which LM I want, therefore making it completely worthless for me.

Thanks DI, I would agree worthleass. When did the luminosity mask get included. After the second update it still wasn't there. In the previous Mac version it was there, but you better know where to find it, and how to use it from the UT vids I seen.

Any word on the back round layer in PS vs using a duplicate layer ?

The LM function was added to the windows version after the latest update a couple days ago.

I tried fixing an image in PS, couple layers, saving it as a tiff and then opening it in Aurora, it only saw the top layer. I had to merge all layers to be able to use it in Aurora.