Is it just me or is the LRc HDR functionality useless?

[merkk]

I pretty much never use LR's hdr merge function. I shoot a lot of bracketed images and it's just too clunky to work with lots of bracketed shots in LR. But occasionally I just have 1 or 2 sets of brackets. And once in a while I'll let LR take a crack at merging them. And everything time it does it seems completely useless to me. Because to my eyes, the merged image looks almost exactly the same as the middle bracketed shot. Maybe the highlights are just slightly turned down, or shadows turned up just a tiny bit. But it's such a small difference that it's useless. I always use a 3rd party HDR app.

Is the HDR functionality in LR just completely useless? Or am I doing something wrong?

[Jill_C]

Take a few minutes to view the HDR tutorial embedded on this page. Julianne Kost discusses what all the check boxes do, and illustrates what additional edits are possible and necessary after the merge has completed. I've been using the HDR mode for years, and picked up a tips that I never knew (or forgot).

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/hdr-photo-merge.html

[Todd Shaner]

"It is truly a high dynamic range I'm working with. Usually with a dimly lit interior and a bright exterior outside a window. Or occasionally an exterior scene with bright sunlight and hard shadows. In most cases I usually do 2stops of exposure with 3 images, sometimes 5."

A wider dynamic range image is going to require more bracketed files. Using more backeted image files is going to require more extreme Basic panel Tone control adjustment to get a good looking image. Below is an example using five 2EV bracketed image files. On the left is the HDR DNG file with no adjustments applied, which looks pretty crappy! The image on the right is with the adjustments showing in the Basic Tone control panel and no other settings applied. I created an article with suggestions and tips on using the Tone control adjustments, which may be helpful.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/tone-control-adjustment.html

[merkk]

It might be that I just didn't apply any of my own adjustments then. I think the few times I tried LRc HDR i just looked at the generated image and then deleted it. I'm used to most of the 3rd party HDR tools which generate an image that already looks adjusted. 

I'll try it again and try adjusting the image and see if it gives me the wider latitude. I'm glad I asked for some opinions here 🙂

[GoldingD]

Yes, LrC Photo Merger HDR takes a conservative approach on image presented. You need to add your own edits, your own style using what LrC creates as a starting point.

[merkk]

Ok, so I guess I owe LRc HDR function an apology 😉 It does work, I just need to adjust the image as others have pointed out here. For now I'll probably stick with the software i currently use to generate HDR images. It's just easier to work with batch files in that program. And I already know how to get the look I want using that system. I would say it's also quicker for me to edit the generated HDR images in the other program, but I know if i used LR for an extended period to create my HDR images I'd cut down on the editing time there as well. The biggest time sink for me with the LR version was having to apply some exposure brush strokes to adjust parts of the image that still needed some exposure comp. With the other program I use I pretty much never have to do that. And there's also disk space savings since with LR it's basically going to double the amount of disk space required if i want to keep the original bracketed shots alongside the HDR merged image.

Thanks to everyone who posted some helpful information here. If nothing else it forced me to reexamine how I process photos in LR. It's always good to get out of a rut and try things from a new persepective. 

[RomasBudras]

For me, the biggest advantage of LrC HDR is that I still can work with the picture as a raw file, and can quickly change any decisions in previous steps of the workflow. I also have revisited many HDR images made with earlier versions of LrC, to apply new capabilities, with minimal effort - and here is very important new feature of selective edit masks (e.g. gradient, applied on part or full frame, with selective effect based on luminosity). This mostly reduces the need for brush adjustments, and I use selective Exposure adjustment with lower than +/-100 Highlights/Shadows slider settings. There's also a batch mode on multiple stacks, if you have many HDR images.

[Todd Shaner]

"The biggest time sink for me with the LR version was having to apply some exposure brush strokes to adjust parts of the image that still needed some exposure comp."

This shouldn't be necessary for the majority of LrC generated HDR files. In my example with five 2EV bracket image files no local brushing was applied, just the global Tone controls in the Basic panel. Try using -100 Highlights & +100 Shadows and then adjust the other controls as needed. If the HDR file still needs brushing I suggest uploading the bracket set to a file sharing site and we can take a look. Concerning disk space once you're happy with the adjusted HDR DNG file you can delete the bracketed image files.

[merkk]

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/295iqzd2yie7fks/AAAvOALYl1pER10tPfvU8dR1a?dl=0

You can find the bracketed set there. The part of the photo i needed to brush was the dark corner in the back near the front door.

I did consider deleting the original raw files. But someone else in another post mentioned that at some point adobe will probably update the hdr function at which point i might want to recreate the hdr file. Although in all likelyhood I'd never need to do that with these photos. 

[Bob Somrak]

Here is your photo with Auto and the Highlight and Shadow sliders at -100/+100 using Adobe Color

 

Here is you photo with Auto and the Highlight and Shadow sliders at -100/+100 using Adobe Color HDR which is a profile I created using the Profiles SDK and setting the tone strength to Medium (the only change in the profile from Adobe Color).  It would be more pronounced using High but I have found it was not useful on High for my needs so I deleted my High one.  As you can see the door area is brighter and the outside is darker.  

 

[merkk]

Thanks for taking the time to do that. Unfortunately, for me at least, that corner is still darker then I wanted. I would have posted the image I created, but unfortunately I deleted it after i finished playing around with it in LRc. The image you created isn't bad, it's just not exactly what I wanted.

[Bob Somrak]

That was created using the "Medium" tone strength in the SDK.  You could create presets for both Medium and High tone strengths and see what your results are.

[Rob_Cullen]

Have been following this thread, and just had to have a go at your images!

My quick result using only two of your frames.

A linear gradient from the left pulls up the left of frame.  A circular gradient brightens up the area of the door. Highlights & Shadows adjusted as suggested by @Bob Somrak  Adobe Color profile.

[defaultc2fn59fz53i6]

when I HDR merge the dng file generated doesnt have the dynamic range that the original file has, for example the overexposed area cannot be recovered while the original underexposed file(bracket) can, i shot 3 photos of 1ev，it used to be working.

[Ian Lyons]

Your bottom screenshot shows a TIFF file. If that's the format of the files you're trying to merge, then you're more often than not going to produce poor results.

[defaultc2fn59fz53i6]

The first one was the adobe DNG, but it's dynamic range didnt change, in fact, the histogram looks very similar

[GoldingD]

Something is very odd in those histograms. Images would indicate the highlites are blown, after all, into the sun, and histogram hits a wall to the right, EXCEPT the wall is short of the far right end. Something is displaying incorrectly.

[JohanElzenga]

The histogram is empty on the right because the Exposure is lowered by 2.7 stops. Shooting straight into the sun creates blown out pixels even in the darkest exposure and so in the HDR too, so this is not the type of image to test HDR. Especially not if you only shoot a series of -1, 0, +1 exposures. I would test this again with a more appropriate shot.

[defaultc2fn59fz53i6]

im sure this isnt the best shot for hdr, but none of other image works either, it doenst restore image highlights nor underexposed area's colours, the histogram looks very similar between dng and tiff, i have reinstalled lrc and it still doesnt work, hdr merge looks fine in lr or ps

[JohanElzenga]

Place the images somewhere like Dropbox and post a link here, so that other people can have a look at them. Merge to HDR works fine on my system and I have not seen any other complaints either.

[defaultc2fn59fz53i6]

Temp
this isnt the best shot i have for hdr, but it doesnt merge for me for some reasone, the merged hdr file doesnt contain highlight detail nor shadow

[RomasBudras]

Few notes on shooting HDR which may explain why you are not getting expected result from HDR merge:

1. You should not make HDR bracketing by changing ISO (cameras are mostly ISO invariant - you have the same dynamic range and noise level in all 3 your frames). You should be changing shutter speed instead.

2. Even your darkest frame has heavily clipped highlights.

3. Lightroom HDR merge works best with raw files, not TIFF, as TIFF already has color profiles embedded and white balance baked in, and LR might be struggling to map color tones from different frames properly.

[defaultc2fn59fz53i6]

but the bracketing used to work on tiffs, and even the sony arw files doent work, the bracketing works fine, all parts of the HDR used to work , changing iso does help with noise level. I do know that  this is not a good shot for HDR merge but the clipped highlight on the merged file has less detail than the darkest frame. hdr merge works for these three photos on ps and lr, just not lrc, i think something is wrong about the software or settings because it used to be working.

[RomasBudras]

When exposure is equalized (+/- the same EV value as used while shooting), normally bracketed frames should look identical in mid-tones (except highlights and darks). Your frames have different colors in mid-tones when set to the same exposure.

Can you try to merge the frames from original Fujifilm GFX50S raw files, not the TIFFs created by Silkypix?

Bracketed frames (no exposure adjustment, shot with +/-2 EV):

Bracketed frames (exposure adjustment to the same EV):

Resulting HDR merge:

[defaultc2fn59fz53i6]

Great, after some testing I found that it is indeed because of the TIFF, the iso bracketing works fine. and i am not sure what is wrong with LRC rn because as i said before, the merge on tiff used to work fine, it still works on LR and PS, still, thx for helping!

[RomasBudras]

With TIFF, HDR merging may work, but not necessarily, or produce unexpected results, because tone curve and WB are already baked-in. And if the tone curve or WB are different from what LRC expects, then you will get unexpected results.
ISO bracketing technically may work (you will be able to merge into HDR and using tone mapping it may appear like it has higher range), but you won't get actual increase in dynamic range as the amount of light exposure is exactly the same. The only exception (but still limited value) might be if your camera has dual-gain circuitry and your bracket contains frames with both gain values (above and below 2nd gain level).