3 HDR Programs Tested.

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Just recently I tried the new Aurora HDR 19 program from Skylum.

I had a few problems with it including crashing on large images - but that seems to have been my fault since I had a RamDrive created on startup which used 32GB of my 48GB RAM.

And having 2 other VMs opened at the same time left me with very little RAM.

Then I decided to test my usual HDR program - Easy HDR 3 - and 2 others - Aurora HDR 2019 and Oloneo HDR.

I used a photo of a bird I took some time ago where I just missed focus on it.

1.jpg

I cropped just the bird:

2.jpg

Then put it through the 3 HDR programs - all at their default settings.

This one is from Easy HDR 3 - and it can be seen that noise is quite prominent - a common problem with all HDR programs and which I usually cure by running it through Neat Image 8 to reduce or eliminate the noise.

3 - Easy.jpg




The next on is Oloneo HDR and as you can see the noise is vastly reduced even without using an external NR program:

4 - olo.jpg

Finally Aurora HDR 2019 where the background noise is extremely well controlled:

aur-def.jpg

So it looks as if my usual HDR program has lost out - not really a surprise since it is now a few years old and the 2 newer ones - oloneo and Aurora HDR 2019 are brand new.

If I was going to upgrade it, which I may well do then Aurora HDR 2019 looks like the choice - apart from the price of £92.

But Aurora has a huge set of adjustments, including the ability to recover details in 3 different ways, fine, medium or large, all of which allow a load of tweaking to get the best results.

I did find a website supposedly giving a £35 discount - which makes it a much better proposition.

Both Aurora HDR 2019 and Oloneo HDR use AI which certainly does seem to be going from strength to strength.
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I'm confused,:confused: why are you using HDR software on an image that doesn't seem to have a high dynamic range problems to control. :thinking: Is it just for a grungy high contrast 'look'?

If you have Photoshop and the (once free) Nik Collection, and specifically Silver Efex Pro 2, you can get a similar effect for free using a certain method to enhance contrast.
 
I'm confused,:confused: why are you using HDR software on an image that doesn't seem to have a high dynamic range problems to control. :thinking: Is it just for a grungy high contrast 'look'?

If you have Photoshop and the (once free) Nik Collection, and specifically Silver Efex Pro 2, you can get a similar effect for free using a certain method to enhance contrast.

No it was just to compare the three different programs.

I don't have the programs you mention, and I use an HDR program these days simply because it's often far easier than spending a lot of time experimenting with layers etc.

A lot of HDR programs have also come to the realisation that they are useful on single images as well and advertise that fact.

They can also give almost infinite adjustments to an image.

And I can easily turn up contrast in my ordinary editing program if I so wish.

And although this was just a simple test of the three programs, Aurora HDR 2019 does seem to be way ahead at the moment as these tests, and others, illustrate and I will certainly be testing it much more.
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I've heard Microsoft Office 2010 Picture Manager can do this too.

Not sure if HDR software has its day nowadays.
 
I'm sorry if you all missed the point which was to COMPARE 3 HDR programs - nothing else.

Sorry if it was too abstruse for you.
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Not abstruse at all. (Great wordsmithery by the way)

I'd have thought a good test of HDR software would be to use bracketed images with copious amounts of dynamic range.


It's akin to Top Gear testing 3 supercars on an empty motorway not going over 70.


Pointless.
 
Hi, did the same kind of thing to try out Aurora 2019. Normally use SNS-HDR as found it gave the most natural looking result straight out of the box although the ghosting in that was not IMO 100% so used Photomatix to create a .exr file and send that to SNS-HDR however after trying the new version of Aurora have to say well impressed with the output but note by no means am I an expert. I also batched a total of 100 images to try out the batch option, 100 images x 5 per set took a long time to process but again JMO. Russ.
 
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