Can Lightroom do HDR?

<p>The artifacts you are pointing out are in the preview image, not the final image. I'm still looking for the neon. Have you used Nik HDR Efex Pro 2?</p>

<p>Yes, that's exactly what I use. I love it, but don't really understand why you take objection to my rather mild statement about the presets requiring "tuning down" - call it what you will, it's no skin off my hide.</p>

<p>LR doesn't have a HDR function. Missing HDR functionality has also been criticized in the recent release of Lightroom 5.</p>

<p>Thought Lightroom's PV2012 tonal distribution behavior with Highlight and Shadow sliders along with a slew of other algorithm changes provided enough tweak capability to get HDR results.</p>

If someone built a camera with 20 stops of clean dynamic range and a 32-bit raw file, and if Lightroom were used to

manage the highlights, shadows, white and black points of one exposure from that camera, would the process be

considered HDR? It seems pedantic to suggest that HDR must always involve multiple exposures. The word 'high' is

arbitrary until someone decides the number of stops of DR that can be considered high dynamic range.

 

The tools and programs that are used today won't be used for HDR in 10-20 years, so don't get too attached to the -2, 0,

+2 model.

<p>Dan, with the way the exposure building in the O-MD E-M5 works, I would say we aren't very far off. It has actually puzzled me for a while why we don't have a single 32-bit HDR capture mode on cameras. I would love it.</p>

Dan,

Thanks for that bit of sanity. I'd like to believe that as tools change so will my method of using them. As of late April 2013

the camera I most regularly work with, a Canon EOS 1D X, has a larger dynamic range at any ISO setting than the

camera I most regularly used before that, an EOS 1Ds Mk III.

 

At an industrial site a few days ago i was presented with a set up that had an extreme highlight (mid day bright cloudy

sky) to deep shadow range. With the inherent dynamic range of the 1D X a -2/0/+2 combination nailed the shot with

some room left over. I used the Enfuse plug in and left the Lightroom Basic Develop controls at their defaults of 0.

 

With a Nikon D800 I may not have needed three shots. 2 at +1.00 might have nailed it or with judicious application of Lr's

Basic Develop controls it is possible, a single frame might have nailed it at the expense of over amplified colors and

contrasts that result from pushing the parameters hard.

 

What many people do not seem to grasp is that all Raw processing, and this is true of all raw processing programs, is

tone mapping. This is even true for film processing. Whiletheir are absolute black and absolute white points determined

by the sensitivity of the recording medium or device, it's possible to push, pull, poke and prod all intermediate values to a

desired point. Of course with "Raw" files we can always go back and start afresh.

<p><em>"...What many people do not seem to grasp is that all Raw processing, and this is true of all raw processing programs, is tone mapping. ..."</em></p>

<p>Yes, in the strictest sense, normal raw converters perform tone mapping, as does the hardware and software in your camera, as does the simple act of changing the exposure, etc.. However, none of the raw converters that I am familiar with perform two of the all-important functions of true HDR software:</p>

<p>1. For a given pixel, conventional raw converters obviously do not selectively weight the image in in a stack of similar images in which that pixel is closest to being best exposed. This is a critical difference because HDR software minimizes the noise-in-the-shadows problem, whereas the usual RAW converter will boost shadow noise if extra brightness is requested in those areas.</p>

<p>2. Other than the "clarity" and "sharpening" controls in ACR and LR (and their counterparts in other raw converters), all operations in conventional raw converters are global - ie, they do the same thing to all pixels. In contrast, one of the most useful functions of HDR tone mapping algorithms is how they handle local contrast, steps in brightness, etc. They do this by adjusting the action performed on a given pixel only after considering the neighboring areas of the scene. There is a short introduction to this in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_mapping">this Wikipedia article</a>, and many, many scholarly articles in computer science / image processing journals on this topic. </p>

<p>That being said, I am in agreement with your general premise that the dynamic range of digital cameras is steadily improving, and one can now often get by with a single exposure whereas in the past, going through the process of multiple exposures would have been necessary. </p>

<p>Tom M</p>