Natural Looking HDR

Denver International Airport:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Lv5L​8W

^^^Beauty.

J-Blake wrote in post #18132775
Denver International Airport:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Lv5L​8W _DSC2763-Edit-2 by Jon Blake, on Flickr

Very good, Jon!

bpiper7 wrote in post #18132885
Very good, Jon!

Thanks Bill!

M_Six wrote in post #18132806
^^^Beauty.

Thanks Mark!

J-Blake wrote in post #18132775
Denver International Airport:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Lv5L​8W _DSC2763-Edit-2 by Jon Blake, on Flickr

Outstanding work.

Long time since I've done a landscape.
5 shot bracket merged in LRcc.
The field across the way from the house-

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Lu79​Ma

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/LtXU​9E

Sunset over Fuerteventura captured across the stretch of Atlantic from Puerto del Carmen on Lanzarote.
Processed with SNSHDR2.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/MuU7​w6

Playa Chica sunrise whilst in Lanzarote last week.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/MHVS​Lx

Arrecife sunrise.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/LMCn​fL

X-T1 and 16-55 2.8

this one is a psuedo HDR where 3 RAWs were created from the one original RAW( +1 -1 and 0) and then tone mapped in Audora HDR

Dusk at Werribee wetlands

Very nice result.

I have been trialing each revision of Aurora HDR and I have found that it struggles with true HDR scenes, particularly in its ability to combine the source exposures and perform the "raw tone mapping" that it does automagically. It seems to do okay with scenes that require a -2,0,+2 EV bracket. What is also curious is that whenever Trey Ratcliff records a video demonstrating the application, his source images are always JPEGs. Presumably this is to give an impression of speed during the video?

Also, while there is a dizzying array of controls, there is very little control over the combination and initial tone mapping strategy. It is also prone to desaturated halos in areas of high contrast borders.

I have contacted the developers repeatedly with examples of the compete failure of their application in true HDR scenes following each update and they are considerate enough to tell me that they will forward the information to their developers.

I have two test scenes that I use each time and, so far, no improvement - even with the release of the new 2017 version. In full disclosure, although it has no effect on my testing of any HDR application, I am not a fan of Trey Ratcliff or his images. His abuse of the HDR process has contributed enormously to the marginalization of HDR imaging as a technique that produces cartoonish, radioactive, over-the-top images as output.

kirk

Really appreciate that informative report Kirk. As a PC user I've felt like I'm on the outside looking in on a cool hdr app. Now not so much.