HDR Merging (Affinity Photo)

I'm going to show you how to HDR merge a set of bracketed exposures in order to create a 32-bit high dynamic range document which we can then tone map so first we can go to file and choose new HDR merge and then we need to add our images so we can click Add navigate to where we've stored that set of bracketed exposures shift-click to select them all then choose open okay so they appear in the file box now we've got some options down here automatically align images I'm going to leave checked because I shot this bracket handheld if you shot on a tripod you could try unchecking this next we have automatically removed ghosts if you have moving elements between each of your exposures checking this will automatically try and use the most detailed areas from whichever images in order to remove the trail effect next we have noise reduction I'm going to uncheck this because I shot JPEGs or rather I'm merging these JPEGs JPEGs have already undergone a degree of image processing including noise reduction so further noise reduction is unnecessary however if your HDR merging RAW files you'll want to leave this checked and finally tone map HDR image means that as soon as the initial HDR merge has concluded we will jump straight into tone mapping that's what we want to do so we will leave that enabled and click OK so photo will then align each of these images and begin the HDR merge process so what it does is it equalizes all of the exposures or images and then picks and chooses the most detailed pixels from that set of images and merges them together for extra precision it results in all of these out of bound values like this pure white sky that you can see here and what tone mapping does is it brings these values back in range maps and back in range to something that can be displayed on your typical display okay so when the tone map procedure finishes we're going to see a vastly different result here we go okay so first of all I'll just quickly point out that we have various presets that we can choose from including preset categories on the left-hand panel here so we can just click to apply these presets however we should focus over here on the tone map panel so tone compression is the amount of actual compression to apply to all of the out of bound values so as I gradually increase this it's bringing all of those values back in range so that they can be displayed local contrast is what's going to give you that renowned tone mapped look okay and we can find a balance between these two sliders until we're happy with the overall look both of these will help to map the values back into range so that they can be displayed so for this image I might just apply a tiny bit of local contrast but what I will do is scroll down here and able shadows and highlights and drag the highlights slider back about there okay so that reveals some of this background detail including the Sun here now additionally I'm just going to increase the saturation slightly and then I'll use curves so curves is a really powerful tool within the tone mapping persona in order to really shape the tones so I'm going to click drag I'm going to bring those darker tones right down click drag again perhaps boost around here and then all the way up here I'm going to boost these and that's dramatically improved the contrast in the image okay so let's look at some other options as well perhaps will enable white balance and we can warm the image up slightly perhaps change the tint and then to round off we might just increase the black point now with all of these options you can either just drag the slider or you can actually set a value in the input box and you can either just click into that and type a value for example five or you can use the icons here next to the input box to move the value up and down so once you're happy with the tone mapped result you can click apply this will then move you back to the main photo persona for further editing and when you're ready to export you can simply go to file and export and these documents are in 32-bits unbounded which is a completely different pixel format to 8 or 16 bit integer however when you go to export it will automatically convert to the appropriate bit depth for you so you don't need to worry about converting your document down to 16 or 8-bit before you export and there we go just a quick overview of how to HDR merge your bracketed exposures

Channel: Affinity Photo

Views: 30,649

Keywords: Photoshop, dynamic, Image editor, tone, merge, range, 32-bit, Mac, Non destructive, iPad, hdr, Affinity Photo, high, map, Windows, Serif, depth

Id: k4ER7ci74nI

Length: 5min 51sec (351 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2019