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timh82449064
Inspiring
August 4, 2023
Answered

Artifacts When Using HDR Merge for Ocean Photos

  • August 4, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1293 views

Hi

 

I'm looking for advice on HDR photo merge of the ocean photos.  I'm getting poor image quality of the water where the sun is reflecting off the surface (see attached sample) .  I've tried the various deghost options but it doesn't help. Any advice on this would be much appreciated. 

 

thank you,

Tim

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer D Fosse

Yes. This really needs to be done in Photoshop, and I would do it with a hybrid procedure. For the water, pick one exposure, the best, and use that. Anything on dry land is fine for HDR, but not the constantly changing waves!

2 replies

H
hr114
Known Participant
August 11, 2023

@timh82449064 I totally know what you're talking about here. I often do some pretty extreme brackets of long exposure subjects, and have really good success with it for the past decade just using this plugin for LR:

 

LR Enfuse 

 

The downside to this is an extrnal reound trip, and moreover it's no longer in RAW or DNG format for further LR processing. I was really hoping that LR's Merge to HDR would work well for this, and for the most part it does. But when it comes to movement from frame-to-frame in the HDR sequnce, it fails pretty badly compared to LR Enfuse. Please have a look at the attached screenshot. Hope that helps.

 

 

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 4, 2023

Think about it. Are those two surfaces identical? No, they're not. The waves and ripples change constantly. What's white in one is black in the other.

 

In a normal panoramic stitch, the algorithm will seek out the areas of similar tones, and place the transitions there. No problems there - it's either one or the other.

 

In HDR it's getting more complicated. How do you blend two completely different textures? I don't know and I'm glad it's not my job to find out. But what is clear, is that this area is not just two different exposures - it's two entirely different images, so to speak.

 

Yes, it would be nice to have automatic procedures that solved all problems. But sometimes the real world isn't as simple as we would like.

 

 

 

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 4, 2023

    Deghosting should normally deal with this, but may indeed not be enough. If that is the case, you probably need to try to fix this in Photoshop. You could also try 'Merge to HDR Pro' in Photoshop. Its deghosting is a little different and allows you to select one of the images as the deghost base. Maybe that helps, it's worth a try.

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
      D Fosse
      Community Expert
      D FosseCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      August 4, 2023

      Yes. This really needs to be done in Photoshop, and I would do it with a hybrid procedure. For the water, pick one exposure, the best, and use that. Anything on dry land is fine for HDR, but not the constantly changing waves!

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