Aurora HDR 2017

Is anyone using MacPhun's Aurora HDR 2017?

If so do you have any tips on best way to avoid haloes and to get natural but dynamic scenes especially in contrasty landscapes?

thanks

I suggest you try a free trial. I have found it does not cope well with true HDR scenes. Try 3 or 4 different test scenes and run them through the app and see how it fares. There are plenty of alternatives.

I have not tried it in a while, but I trialed the first three versions and there was little improvement. I corresponded with the developers and sent them image sets with a detailed critique of the problems in each set I encountered using their application. They always answered me and appreciated the feedback - they just have not addressed the problems. So I gave up on AuroraHDR.

It will probably be a simple and effective process for a scene that contains a not-very-high dynamic range, one that you can probably capture in one or two well exposed raw files. Notice that most of their tutorials involve merging and tone mapping a set of three JPEGs. Not a very challenging data set, but makes the application run quickly and produces ok results.

Try it for yourself, it may be what you are looking for or it may not work very well for your data.

kirk

thanks Kirk, yes I actually bought it and have been playing with it but I don't see any improvement over haloes over any other HDR program of which there are many but Photomatix and Nik HDR Efex Pro (pro???wtf??) are the ones I have tried most

kirkt wrote in post #18306191
They always answered me and appreciated the feedback - they just have not addressed the problems. So I gave up on AuroraHDR.

Do you mean it was simply an automatically generated answer they sent everybody?

I'd like to read more feedbacks on Aurora. They've launched a significant sale https://aurorahdr.com on their website which sounds attractive. But you know, these special offers might be tricky so I want to know more about its advantages and disadvantages. As for me, trial was good, but I'm not a professional photographer (yet? )... Need advice of experienced colleagues.

Be careful of internet reviews. The first-listed reviews in Google are by principles and companies involved in the software.

Here's an independent review:
http://www.amateurphot​ographer.co.uk …rora-hdr-pro-review-90655

Here's the conclusion quoted:

"I will start by saying I don’t like the overbaked HDR look, but I will cast aside my opinions for an honest and untarnished verdict. I find in many cases that Aurora HDR Professional introduces a lot of technical flaws into your image. In many cases, the software achieves a really punchy image with strong contrast, lots of detail loss and lots of oversaturated areas. There are image-noise issues in overworked shadows, too.

I find the presets are seriously overdone. They can work wonderfully, but only on very specific images. With software such as Adobe Lightroom I can usually import a reasonably average shot and make something half decent with a few of my presets. With Aurora HDR Professional you really have to start with an incredibly strong composition and image in order to convincingly carry off the extensive editing that it goes through.

Sometimes I imported an image into Aurora HDR Professional, tweaked a few presets and came back with something that was much better than the original, but the success rate certainly wasn’t as high as I was expecting.

All in all, Aurora HDR Professional isn’t a bad piece of software. It’s a little sluggish and it isn’t the one-stop shop for instantly amazing pictures at two clicks of a mouse that it’s made out to be. But it’s well laid out, intuitive and you get a lot of software for £72."

What I have been using Aurora for mostly is to give a little punch to images that need it over ab=nd above what I can EASILY achieve with other software (LR etc)

I the open as a layer in photoshop and play with opacity and blending modes and mask until I get the effect I want.

I could probably get pretty much the same effect from other HDR packages or combinations of programs like Viveza, Nik Clarity etc ,

Aurora HDR works best if you DO want the overbooked HDR look, (I don't) other than that it is sudeful for getting adifferent look with minimal effort from images that need a little punch

karolinmetzger wrote in post #18311389
Do you mean it was simply an automatically generated answer they sent everybody?

I'd like to read more feedbacks on Aurora. They've launched a significant sale https://aurorahdr.com on their website which sounds attractive. But you know, these special offers might be tricky so I want to know more about its advantages and disadvantages. As for me, trial was good, but I'm not a professional photographer (yet? )... Need advice of experienced colleagues.

I did not get the impression it was an automated response, it was usually a thank you, and that they would pass along my comments to the developers kind of thing. I did not ever get a response from technical folks asking questions or looking for more information about what problems I was encountering.

It does not have much to do with being a professional photographer - I am not one for sure - but understanding what you want to accomplish with a particular data set and having the experience to evaluate whether or not a particular application does what it is supposed to do.

My recollection was that it failed in three areas: merge, tone map and ghosting. The merger often left a lot of noise in the deep shadows, as if the incorrect image data for the shadows was being included. The tone mapping algorithms were way too aggressive and there was no way to undo their heavy local contrast and tonal range compression. The deghosting left desaturated halos around objects that were moving, like tree branches moving between exposures - there were not redundant tree branches, but there were gray halos in the sky area around the tree branches, for example. That was an improvement over the original version that had large patches of sky desaturated in between intersecting tree branches.

I emailed the devs my results and the raw source files and gave them detailed critique. I do not know if it was ever something useful or if it was ever addressed. Like I said, I tried two or three different trails and then gave up on it.

The main marketing/photography person that is all over the web site and their promo materials is Trey Ratcliff. He is the guy who runs "Stuck In Customs" website that has been a source of HDR tutorials and products for a while. In my mind, his website and his tutorials are the epitome of the over-the-top wildly saturated, over cooked HDR images that have become associated with the genre. It is not surprising that the AuroraHDR application produces that kind of look. Aesthetics aside, I think the application needs to refine its merge/tonemap/ghost algorithms to be able to handle HDR data. Maybe they have since I stopped trailing their product, so maybe give the trial a shot and see if it works for you.

kirk

Thank you for your detailed reviews! To tell the truth, I didn't expect anybody to mention my message
3 feedbacks so far and all of them are a bit... discouraging.
It seems tone mapping is something they boast about the most, and it fails. Are the other options even worse?
Judging from all abovementioned information, Photoshop and Lightroom are still better varians for me.