AFFINITY PHOTO: HDR MERGE OR IMAGE BLEND. WHICH IS BETTER?

[@leidischd]

I wish all comparison videos were made like this. Great job!

[@takebetterphotos8132]

Thanks! glad someone found it helpful! 🙂

[@alexannis4740]

Nice, thanks for the difference options.

[@takebetterphotos8132]

No problem 👍 Thanks for watching!

[@RyanTsou-t4v]

Nothing beats the Lightroom workflow and cataloging. Also, I've found its HDR merge to be the best so far as well (in terms of the dynamic range and quality of the merged photo combined with CameraRAW's editing capability). However, to fix the fine details of the HDR merge artifacts, the only solution is to use manual blending, and there's not a good workflow for this. I need to manually edit all the bracketed photos to a similar brightness level and sync the editing, then export them to Photoshop, and do the manual overlay and masking. I hope there's something to improve this workflow....

[@takebetterphotos8132]

I agree with this --"Nothing beats the Lightroom workflow and cataloging. Also, I've found its HDR merge to be the best so far as well". Yes as of now blending is a pretty manual process. Don't know a workaround for that other than just using and accepting HDR merge's result.

[@marcoshuayai3995]

I tought thag blending and HDR is was the same. Any video whwre you can show how to merge the HDR photos togheter please. Thank youm

[@takebetterphotos8132]

The purpose of blending and HDR merge is the same-- to get more detail in highlights and shadows. You can think of HDR merge as automated merging while blending is done manually. Here is a video I did on HDR merging on the ipad, I'll see if I can make one for the desktop soon. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3mXlZp9hJyljM0si=xNomLi5xyxZ88UEv

[@dmmchugh3714]

I have used the 'new stack' option in Affinity Photo to blend 3 brackets. The output is fine to my eye and I do not need any other layers. Is this what you refer to as 'image blending' ?

[@takebetterphotos8132]

Stack option is one type of blending. That basically takes the average of the dark, normal and bright exposures. The blending I'm referring includes some masking to combine the best parts of multiple exposures into one image. However both blending strategies have essentially the same goal.

[@dmmchugh3714]

@@takebetterphotos8132 : thanks for this update. Can the technique you demonstrate in this video also be used to create 'window pulls' for real estate photography ?

[@takebetterphotos8132]

After checking out what window pulls are (first time I've heard the term) certainly yes. It's just another form of image blending.

[@std01077]

thanks for making the video, it’s an interesting topic. You’d get better results if you did not use the „tone mapping persona“ which by definition compresses irreversibly all the dynamic range into 8bits. you can either deselect it at the HDR Merge dialog, or click cancel when it pops up. then you are free to pull all the details you want with filters, masking or using curves. when you are done, you can go to the tone mapping persona to make sure your end image is SDR. For best results you may also have to enable 32bits(HDR) from the develop assistant settings! having done the above, that’s the comparison of the two techniques that i’d like to see!

[@markgilder9990]

Too be fair, if I could produce anything near to that quality with any of the apps, I’d be happy with any of these results.

[@takebetterphotos8132]

Definitely. They are all just tools to achieve an end.

[@robwarner1858]

How are we supposed to judge the results when the video is not itself in an HDR format? It is meaningless.

[@takebetterphotos8132]

We are just doing the standard tone mapping. You really don't need HDR video to see this properly.