Throwback Thursday: A hike in Switzerland

You know, I was in Switzerland in August, where I did several hikes. When on a hike in beautiful landscape you can’t always stop and wait for the prefect light conditions. So, you have to cope with the light you have. In my case, we had a wonderful sunny day with only few tiny white clouds ahead of us. But, we were below a huge gray cloud.

While we walked uphill along this creek, I liked the perspective very much. But, because of the light conditions, the image would come out very ugly: either I’d get a dark foreground (my main subject) with a beautiful background a sky or I would get a perfect exposed foreground with a white sky and an overexposed  mountain range in the back.

The solution is taking at least 3 images of the same frame: 1 over-exposed (at least + 1EV), 1 under-exposed (at least -1 EV) and 1 for the middle. Without a tripod (who takes a tripod along on a hike through the mountains?) it’s a challenge to get these three images without any movement.

Back at home you can take these three images and combine them on your computer. You can do it by hand using i.e. The Gimp. Or you can use a specialist for this job. One of these specialists is Aurora HDR by Skylum. In the past I already written about this software and I like it. Although I don’t take HDR images very often, I use it for this kind of job every now and then, because it’s so easy to get good images from bad lighting situations. Fortunately, Aurora HDR is able to eliminate slight movements when the images were taken without a tripod. It is also able to eliminate ghost fragments, when a part in the image moved (i.e. animals, people or cars). And it is able to read the raw images of my camera, so that I don’t have to develop them first.

Recently I got a review version of the upcoming version of Aurora HDR 2019 and checked it out with some recent images like the one above. First of all, the user interface looks familiar when comparing it to the previous versions. The auto-aligning, anti-aliasing and the ghost-detection works very well, just like before. After combining the source images, the user interface changes and offers a couple of presets in different categories, similar to the previous versions. The presets give you a good starting point to finalize the image.

Despite, I don’t like these ugly, over-saturated, typical HDR images, I like the natural results I get with Aurora HDR. If you want, you can get these typical HDR images as well, as very natural images. The results with Aurora HDR are much better, as only increasing the deeps and decreasing the highlights in the raw editor.

For the next days you can preorder your copy of Aurora HDR with a discount. Owners of a previous version of Aurora HDR get the new version for a reduced price.

Take care!

(This post contains advertise for Aurora HDR 2109 by Skylum)

import window with previews of the source images

the combined image with the presets at the bottom and the filter controls on the right

Review: Aurora HDR 2018

For a few days the latest version of Aurora HDR from MacPhun is available. This new version is not only for Mac, it’s also for Windows. I got a review version for testing.

Yesterday, while out with my photographers roundtable, I visited a former coal mining building, now a museum. That mining buildings are notable because of its wonderful architecture made from brick-stones. The mine was open from 1899 – 1955.

Most of the time I was inside the machinery hall, a very modern building for that time, but with an unusual architecture style for a mine. Many parts inside reminded me to the movie “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang from 1927.

Being inside a quite dark building on a dark and rainy day gave me the opportunity to take some images by using bracketing. That is a technique where you’re taking one image just the way the light meter says, but two (or more) additional images with exposure correction (+ and – i.e. 1 or 2 EV) to develop them later with HDR or DRI software like Aurora HDR. Often HDR or DRI images have over-saturated bonbon colours, which I don’t like. So, you don’t see many of them here in my blog.

While the user interface of Aurora HDR did not change much and the preset sections are also still available, I won’t waste too much time on these parts. Have a look at my last review.

I want to focus on the new results and an unexpected feature I discovered: distortion control. The export results are much better in quality, than in the original version. I like the resulting colours more and the results don’t have so much noise in it. The auto-alignment feature works quit good. But ist’s still better to have exact aligned images by taking them with a tripod instead of free-hand. The distortion control feature is nice. I’m using DxO Viewpoint for distortion control. The results are great. Compared to Viewpoint, Aurora is too complicated. Here they have some work to do.

When you own some other tools from MacPhun, you can use them as plugins inside Aurora HDR and vice versa. They are also available as plugins inside Photoshop.

A new kid in the block: Aurora HDR

In my previous post on HDR images I already mentioned this new software by MacPhun: Aurora HDR.

I got the opportunity to test it. As I mentioned in that post, I use HDR sometimes to enhance some of my images. Until now, I worked with Photomatix HDR, Luminance HDR, HDR Efex, Oloneo PhotoEngine and the build-in HDR function of Photoshop. All of these are great. So, why another software?

First of all, Aurora HDR can open RAW files. The other tools only work with TIF or JPG files (never try HDR with a bundle of JPG files!!). Next, it will align your images if necessary and remove ghost artifacts as well as chromatic aberrations. It also works great with a single image, although this is not the common situation when it comes to HDR 🙂

The image alignment and ghost artifacts removal functions work really great. The above image consists of 3 single images +/- 1EV and were all shot hand-held, because it was an unplanned shot. Thus, I didn’t have had a tripod with me. While the alignment function shifts the images in layers in a manner, so that all lines are in the exact same positions, the ghost artifact removal function tries the same with moving elements. You know, taking a few images in a row, moving elements (i.e. the people in the above image) are moving further and the software hast to estimate, which parts to keep for the final image and which parts to skip.

The GUI is very similar to the other MacPhun tools, like Tonality, Intensify and so on. In the lower right corner you get a collection of presets grouped in categories as a starting point. At to bottom of your screen, you can see a small preview of a the pre-sets applied to you current image. You can suppress this area, once you have chosen a preset. Now, you work with the sliders on the right of your screen to adjust the settings inherited from the chosen preset. Each change is displayed at once. So, you can see, what you get when changing a setting. An other similarity to the other MacPhun products is, you can work with layers. This is, you can paint an enhancement in parts of the image, while having a different setting for other parts of your image. So, you can work in layers without Photoshop. On the other hand, Aurora HDR will also work as a plugin for Photoshop (just like the other MacPhun products, too)

Although it comes with many presets, I miss some of the typical HDR presets available in the other tools. Those, with the over the top colorful output. OK, I won’t ever use them, but I guess, some guys out there will complain about it. In my opinion, there are enough presets. Finally, you will end up using only a few of them on a regular basis, those fitting most to your personal style. And, you have the option to save your own presets and eventually exchange them with your friends.

Jump over to MacPhun and get your trial. You can also apply for a free seat and attend a webinar to see this software in action. Currently there’s a Black Friday Promo running ’till December 1st.