Many times we have tools in our quiver that we forget to use. There’s a feature I have not leveraged with Aurora HDR — a single image process. Now that I have revisited the possibility, I’ll be using it lots more.
HDR capture
I often use ability of my cameras to create multiple exposures of a scene. My standard, especially if I am on location, is to bracket five images separated by one stop. In the past, if a scene had an extremely high dynamic range I might even go for more. Now that I have revisited single image HDR, I might even go for less exposures.
Expose to the right — straight out of camera
As a micro four-thirds photographer I need to be careful about underexposure. Most of the noise in an image lives in the darker 3/4 tones. I’ve learned to expose to the right side of the histogram in order to work with the cleanest pixels possible. Single image HDR processing is perfect for this workflow.
Here’s the image straight out of camera. In the past I might have blown right past this photo — now it is the type of capture for which I look. It appears to be overexposed, but the file has all the detail I need after running it through Aurora.
After processing with Aurora HDR
I’ve gotta tell ya, I forgot how powerful Aurora HDR can be. This image is about 1-1/3 stops overexposed yet still contains all the highlight detail I need.
Revisit older files
I’ll be heading back into my library of images to do some reprocessing. What I especially like about single file processing is I get an even cleaner output than I was able to accomplish with multiple brackets. High dynamic range in an image without the ‘HDR look.’ Yay!
Looking to try Aurora HDR? Get a free trial here.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
I too came to the same realization that Aurora is more than a bracket based one-trick pony. Now, it is always my first stop before Luminar or any other editing program. Also, didn’t realize most 4/3 noise is found in the darker parts of an image. Is that true for other sensor sizes? I’ll have to go back and look at some older RAW images.
Joseph,
Yes the same holds true for the noise patterns in other formats. It can be more of an issue in the smaller sensor sizes than in the larger ones because we are working with smaller buckets that are gathering the information.
I remember when digital was first coming around when my friend Kevin Ames, director of content here at Photofocus, said one of the beauties of digital would be the ability to revisit older files with new software and techniques.