(macOS 12.5) Lightroom 6.4 merge HDR stuck on 44%

[delavorro]

Hi everybody,

No matter how much free resources I have on my Mac when I try running a merge operation for 48 selected photos it's getting stuck at 44%, closing and opening the app between attempts doesn't make a difference. Did you experience this issue yourself and how did you resolve this?

{Thread title updated by moderator}

[Sameer K]

Hey, @delavorro. Welcome to the Lightroom Community. I'll help you figure this out.

Is this an Apple silicon or an Intel-based MBP? What type of images are you processing? RAW or JPEG?

You're working with MacOS Monterey; update macOS to the latest version if possible. Try these steps:

• Create a test album in Lightroom with all the images you wish to do HDR merge with.
• Right-click on the album and save the album locally.
• Try HDR Merge now.

Let me know if this helps,

Thanks!

Sameer K

[delavorro]

Hi, thank you for the answer!
I was working with RAW files in RAF format; the OS update didn't help, as well as saving the album locally, but when I've dropped the number of photos to 24, it was able to merge it eventually. Probably something with the resources consumption, although I have 16Gb of RAM on my laptop and I don't know how that couldn't be enough.

[JohanElzenga]

A moderator changed the title, but I assume you try to merge 48 images to panorama, not HDR.

[Sameer K]

I did restructure the title, and it said HDR merge. Let us wait for the OP to give us more details.

[delavorro]

Hi! It's HDR, yes, not a panorama

[JohanElzenga]

Hi! It's HDR, yes, not a panorama

By @delavorro

You are merging 48 images to HDR?... Just out of curiosity; can you explain what kind of photo this is? A normal HDR merge is three to five images, shot with one or two stops exposure difference. I have used seven images in extreme circumstances, but 48 images??? No wonder Lightroom chokes on that!

[delavorro]

It's a photo of a toilet partially visible from the door ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was experimenting with multiple focus stops to see what's going to happen

[JohanElzenga]

Right! I'm sure you found in the meantime that this is useless. HDR and multiple focus (focus stacking) is not the same. Lightroom doesn't do focus stacking (yet?) and HDR merge is not an alternative for a focus stack.

[Simone35708657pcna]

Wow, so I'm attempting a Lightroom panorama merge with 340 photos.... I guess I can forget about that working!! I've actually been able to merge x50 photos at a time so far, overlapping circa 5 photos each time, and now am merging those panorama's together - surprisingly this has been mostly successful with a few missing photos. So I guess lucky me!