Mucking about with HDR software.

bilzmale

Hall of Famer
Location
Perth, Western Australia
Name
Bill Shinnick
It's not a secret that I'm a keen software collector and tryer-outer. When I was putting the 2020 version of On1 Photo RAW to the test I was disappointed with how it merged a 3 photo exposure bracket from the X100T (+1. 0, -1).
So also owning Aurora 2019, Photomatix Pro 6.1.1 and Franzis HDR Projects 5 it was time for a shootout. I let each program run without tweaking and selected the 'most standard' preset. There was no other postprocessing done other than straightening. Here is the middle shot of the bracket followed by a collage of the four results. Comments are welcome.

Middle_BracketTxt.jpg
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collage.jpg
 
at these smaller sizes, it's fairly hard to compare. The On1 just seems to have brightened the whole scene. The Aurora seems to be the contrasty-iest...and I like that there are still some shadows. And the Franzis looks to have created the "flattest" image (which to my mind seems counterintuitive for HDR software). But maybe that would be the best "first step" in the entire processing workflow and then you can tweak contrast to your liking.

So, which of the four do you prefer at the standard preset? Do you prefer other aspects of the software UI? It's been several years since I was really into HDR and now I can't even remember what software I used. I tried a couple of them and none of these names are familiar to me. And all of the software is on my old, dead laptop.
 
Bill, I think you're as bad about software as I am about going through lenses. Which is not a bad thing.

Overall I like the image out of Aurora the best. But I like the sky in the background out of Photomatix the best. Although, there is a minimum difference between the two on the sky.
 
Thanks Luke and Bobby. I decided on the montage as I find it easier than having to scroll through large separate images. Personally the 'old faithful', Photomatix is my preference. This was not a very scientific exercise and with more tweaking and/or bigger bracket the results may differ again.
 
PS: the montage and text annotation were done in the free version of Photoscape X. It is easy to use and would suit beginners with the option to upgrade to the Pro version to add layers, gradients etc. It works with RAW and is available for Win and Mac.

 
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