My first attempt at stacking

Crotal Bell

Crotal Bell

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So I tried two free HDR merge apps, Picturenaut and Luminance HDR

Both merged the images but produced pretty dark final shots.

To be honest I found it easier to take a bracket of 5 or 7 in the camera and just edit the one that could be manipulated best from the single shots.

Maybe it's just that the free software is poor compared to the premium stuff?
 
The best stacking software I found was affinity its £47.99 at the moment, but keep an eye on it, they do it at about half price, from time to time.
Scroll down there is a free trial at the bottom of the page.
It's also a good substitute for photoshop too.

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Cobra said:
The best stacking software I found was affinity its £47.99 at the moment, but keep an eye on it, they do it at about half price, from time to time.
Scroll down there is a free trial at the bottom of the page.
It's also a good substitute for photoshop too.

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Thanks Chris, I'll do the tester, I'm sure it will be better than the freebies I tried.
 
I think it best, if you are searching for guides, to stick to the conventions of description.

By that I mean....and IMO;)

Stacking is normally used when talking of focus stacking i.e. you are focus bracketing.

HDR merging is a process that starts by taking an exposure bracketing set of images across up to 2 stops of exposure range.

Each process requires the camera to be held steadily or on a tripod as may required.

PS as in the case with Affinity Photo one of the setting selections is "alignment" and that will try to compensate for slight positional variances. However, if the merge will not align there will be a warning IIRC. It is possible the free ones you tried failed to align and 'simply' used the one(s) of the set that would align and rejected the rest.....hence the poor exposure of the merge created???
 
Box Brownie said:
I think it best, if you are searching for guides, to stick to the conventions of description.

By that I mean....and IMO;)

Stacking is normally used when talking of focus stacking i.e. you are focus bracketing.

HDR merging is a process that starts by taking an exposure bracketing set of images across up to 2 stops of exposure range.

Each process requires the camera to be held steadily or on a tripod as may required.

PS as in the case with Affinity Photo one of the setting selections is "alignment" and that will try to compensate for slight positional variances. However, if the merge will not align there will be a warning IIRC. It is possible the free ones you tried failed to align and 'simply' used the one(s) of the set that would align and rejected the rest.....hence the poor exposure of the merge created???
Click to expand...
Many thanks
 
I agree, Affinity is one of the best, and easiest to use..

The other free one I use is Fusion, which is also very good and easy to use.

I have never see before that HDR is "up to 2 stops of exposure range", I frequently use +- 3 stops, which gives a 6 stop range, and hardly ever use less than +-2 which is a 4 stop range.

Software now seems to be calling it an "HDR Merge", and Affinity calls the focus one a "Focus Merge"

The "Auto Align Images" is what makes software better than the in camera HDR, which don't seem to be so good at aligning images.
Also check the "Remove Ghosts" box.

It should not be possible to end up with a dark image, as you should have control over all the visual parameters.
I have tried the two you mentioned in the past, but gave up on them years ago as not being the way I like.
 
I'm no pro but you can see a couple of attempts at stacking using affinity in my 52 thread. They aren't the best, but it was my first ever attempt so I was quite happy. Plan to do some more over the weekend of some watches.
 
Sangoma said:
I agree, Affinity is one of the best, and easiest to use..

The other free one I use is Fusion, which is also very good and easy to use.

I have never see before that HDR is "up to 2 stops of exposure range", I frequently use +- 3 stops, which gives a 6 stop range, and hardly ever use less than +-2 which is a 4 stop range.

Software now seems to be calling it an "HDR Merge", and Affinity calls the focus one a "Focus Merge"

The "Auto Align Images" is what makes software better than the in camera HDR, which don't seem to be so good at aligning images.
Also check the "Remove Ghosts" box.

It should not be possible to end up with a dark image, as you should have control over all the visual parameters.
I have tried the two you mentioned in the past, but gave up on them years ago as not being the way I like.
Click to expand...
Doh!

My bad it was late :headbang:

What I meant was indeed +/- 2 stops.......but you are also correct I have read that some scenes can be better enhanced with +/- 3 stops.
 
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There are two distinct Ways to merge images. one is the HDR route which is used to merge wide exposures range and can manipulate the tonal ranges.
The other is Photo Fusion which can fuse both for focus and for exposure.
I mostly use one called Tufusepro which is inexpensive and works very well and is less extreme than most HDR programs.
All such programs require the various images to be pulled into register, and some are better at this than others particularly for focus fusion.
I often pre-align them in Photoshop first and then fuse them. in tufuse.


These days however, raw files usually have a sufficiently wide tonal range such that fusion of multiple exposures is not necessary. And the normal raw processing tools are sufficient to recover details from the entire tonal range and the contrast adjusted as required with curves.

A quick look at the histogram gives you a good idea if multiple exposure will be needed, if both ends are not blocking up. You can be sure you will not need fusion.
 
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Terrywoodenpic said:
There are two distinct Ways to merge images. one is the HDR route which is used to merge wide exposures range and can manipulate the tonal ranges.
The other is Photo Fusion which can fuse both for focus and for exposure.
I mostly use one called Tufusepro which is inexpensive and works very well and is less extreme than most HDR programs.
All such programs require the various images to be pulled into register, and some are better at this than others particularly for focus fusion.
I often pre-align them in Photoshop first and then fuse them. in tufuse.


These days however, raw files usually have a sufficiently wide tonal range such that fusion of multiple exposures is not necessary. And the normal raw processing tools are sufficient to recover details from the entire tonal range and the contrast adjusted as required with curves.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I think I need to get a free trial of some serious editing software and see what I can achieve when I up my game.
 
Sangoma said:
I agree, Affinity is one of the best, and easiest to use..

The other free one I use is Fusion, which is also very good and easy to use.

I have never see before that HDR is "up to 2 stops of exposure range", I frequently use +- 3 stops, which gives a 6 stop range, and hardly ever use less than +-2 which is a 4 stop range.

Software now seems to be calling it an "HDR Merge", and Affinity calls the focus one a "Focus Merge"

The "Auto Align Images" is what makes software better than the in camera HDR, which don't seem to be so good at aligning images.
Also check the "Remove Ghosts" box.

It should not be possible to end up with a dark image, as you should have control over all the visual parameters.
I have tried the two you mentioned in the past, but gave up on them years ago as not being the way I like.
Click to expand...
Yeah I don't think those freebies were a good place to start.
 
Talking of freebies,
Have a read through this thread.
DXO is quite useful too.
www.talkphotography.co.uk

Free - DXO Nik collection free legacy version

On the back of the thread created by @Cobra regarding DXO's Nik Collection, I thought I would create this post to help others download the free legacy version direct from DXO themselves. Previously DXO advertised through their help pages that the free version could be downloaded from them even...
www.talkphotography.co.uk www.talkphotography.co.uk
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
These days however, raw files usually have a sufficiently wide tonal range such that fusion of multiple exposures is not necessary. And the normal raw processing tools are sufficient to recover details from the entire tonal range and the contrast adjusted as required with curves.
Click to expand...


I now have Lightroom, but have used a freebie in the past (can't remember what now).

What I tended to find with the free one I had was that you got what you got. Any attempts to manipulate the HDR images after they were produced then just seemed to make it worse. I think I had more success, or at least more noticeable difference, when I used to shoot JPEGs. But they all definitely had that HDR look (slight halo around certain objects)

There must be an improvement in shooting RAW bracketed shots and merging them compared to just messing around with sliders and masks in LR, but it's been negligible in my attempts. Maybe they're not extreme enough.

The good thing is that Lightroom-produced images don't seem to have that HDR look I mentioned above. Although I suppose, if you wanted that look, then that would be a bad thing.

I've also done focus stacking (even on several handheld images) with Photoshop in the past. And they've worked too.

I know not everyone is in a position to just get the latest PS/LR*, but I guess when you pay for programmes, you are paying for better algorithms.

*I am lucky in that I get Creative Cloud through work.
 
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Cobra said:
Talking of freebies,
Have a read through this thread.
DXO is quite useful too.
www.talkphotography.co.uk

Free - DXO Nik collection free legacy version

On the back of the thread created by @Cobra regarding DXO's Nik Collection, I thought I would create this post to help others download the free legacy version direct from DXO themselves. Previously DXO advertised through their help pages that the free version could be downloaded from them even...
www.talkphotography.co.uk www.talkphotography.co.uk
Click to expand...
Thanks I'll have a look at that tonight
 
I think I can stack them in camera, not something i've tried or that particularly appeals either.
Probably only jpegs, have you looked to see if your G80 supports this?
 
tijuana taxi said:
I think I can stack them in camera, not something i've tried or that particularly appeals either.
Probably only jpegs, have you looked to see if your G80 supports this?
Click to expand...
I've tried it, thought it was good .... till I compared the result against a single high f/. number shot taken from further back then cropped.
 
tijuana taxi said:
I think I can stack them in camera, not something i've tried or that particularly appeals either.
Probably only jpegs, have you looked to see if your G80 supports this?
Click to expand...
Is that focus or exposure?
 
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