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photo500
Participant
January 8, 2022
Question

Adobe support made me try Photoshop CC 2021 and the HDR highlight clipping from 2022 vanished.

  • January 8, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 1166 views

Previously, I posted about Photoshop CC 2022 clipping highlights without fail despite the underexposed shot in the bracket not having clipping when using Merge to HDR Pro. No such issue existed in Photoshop CC 2021. I then did a screen share with a support rep from Adobe. The rep made me install Photoshop CC 2021. I tried the same set of bracketed photos with Photoshop CC 2021. I blended the photos with Merge to HDR Pro, saved as 32 bit OpenEXR, made a 16 bit PSD file with Exposure and Gamma with the right numbers entered, adjusted the levels and gamma in new layers, and made a 64X64X64 3D LUT for use in Exposure X7 (a non Adobe program), and took the flat 16 bit TIFF file from Photoshop to Exposure X7 along with the LUT.

 

The highlight clipping and all the problems with it vanished. The absense of clipping and color banding in Exposure X7 allowed me to adjust the tones, colors, etc. better than Photoshop CC and Lightroom Classic CC without all the problems with conventional HDR program methods.

 

I have Windows 10 by the way.

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1 reply

P
photo500Author
Participant
January 8, 2022

Background

In the past, I used Photoshop CC 2021 Merge to HDR Pro to blend 3 DNG files and save as 32 bit OpenEXR. I took the OpenEXR file in Photoshop, changed to 16 bit mode, and selected exposure and gamma. I saved the 16 bit file as PSD in Prophoto RGB, made a levels layer, and slided the highlights to the left and the shadows to the right. I left the bottom clipping numbers at 0 and 255 while moving the slider on the histogram. I then exported the layer as a 64x64x64 3D LUT. I took it to Exposure X6 and Exposure X7 (not from Adobe) and had no color banding or other problems redistrubuting the tones and colors and doing other slightly elaborate edits.

 

I have the latest version of Photoshop CC 2022. I used the same function for a different pair of 3 bracketed shots. They were DNG files I made with the Adobe DNG converter from my Sony A1 RAW lossless files. The highlights did not clip in the underexposed shot. Despite this, when I made the OpenEXR file and converted to 16 bit, the highlights clipped. I tried the same process in 2 non Adobe HDR programs (Photomatix 6.3 and EasyHDR 3) that save in OpenEXR. They cannot read my Sony A1 RAW files so I used the DNG files from the Adobe DNG converter. Both third party programs cropped off the bottom and left a black bar prior to saving and after taking into Photoshop CC. I confirmed this when I cropped the black bar out. I tried the oldest version of Camera RAW in the DNG converter as well as saving as demosaiced. This happens without fail.

 

Questions:

  1. If I'm doing something wrong, what am I doing wrong?
  2. What solutions should I try?
  3. If it's a problem with Photoshop CC, how should I go about having the problem fixed ASAP?

 

Thanks in advance.

TheDigitalDog
TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
January 8, 2022

Can you upload one or more DNGs for examination to something like Dropbox?

As for clipping, there really isn't anything in Photoshop, Lightroom Classic or ACR that show true highlight clipping as there is no true raw Histogram. RawDigger can do this and if you upload a DNG, I can examine the actual raw data.

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
P
photo500Author
Participant
January 8, 2022

The link below has the DNG files.

https://we.tl/t-HWkruz1fkE

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