Olympus E-M1 Mark II HDR Merge Issues

[steve500]

Upon trying to import a 5 bracket image from my Olympus EM1 Mark II (raw files) in raw processing, I am brought to a pretty rough image in Affinity vs what Photoshop merge to HDR is giving me. I understand that these neon lights are very harsh but I am not understanding why I am getting drastically different results. 

I have played with the sliders over and over again in affinity photo trying to figure out what I am doing wrong, if I am. I have tried disabling every option upon merging the HDR images in affinity. Playing with tone mapping, pulling down highlights, etc, correcting the harshness and over-soft effect. Anyone got any leads? 

Thanks, looking forward to moving my editing workflows towards Affinity. 

 

[stokerg]

Hi steve500 and Welcome to the Forums,

I've seen a few cases of where for some reason we don't handle these type of highlights too well, but nothing for your model of camera.  Are you merging from RAW files or are you processing the images 1st and then stacking them?

[F_Kal]

I have a similar issue with my Olympus OM-D E-M10 mark II camera in AP.

I can't compare it to Adobe's RAW rendering since I don't have an adobe subscription, but in AP intense lightsources often have high-chroma color noise inside or around them. I've attached the original .ORF file of the below example. The issue is visible when opening the raw (orf) files in AP, no need for attempting an HDRmerge (though it's more pronounced there as well)

P8159719.ORF

[Ldina]

@F_Kal @steve500 My personal experience with Affinity HDR Merge is that I get much better results merging pre-processed TIFF, PNG or JPG images, rather than using RAW source files. I've used both in-camera jpgs, and images converted from RAW to JPG/PNG/TIFF using AP. If pre-processing the files in AP, I set the WB the same on all bracketed exposures, and ideally, tweak each exposure a little bit (if you wish to spend a little extra time). I also pick a wide gamut color space for export (I use Display P3, 16 bit).

I've also had decent results using New Stack (mainly to align the images), but it's more work to blend exposures together manually. 

For preprocessing to JPG, Tiff or PNG, you can do a New Batch Job to convert your RAW files to you chosen bitmap format. First create a "Develop Macro" which you can add to the batch job.

To create the Macro, open any RAW file, set a WB, make sure you select Linked or Embedded before developing, then click Develop. Once in Photo, open the Macro Panel, and hit the record button. Then, double click on the Image thumbnail in the Layers panel, which will take you back to the Develop Persona. Simply click Develop, which will take you back to Photo. Those steps will be recorded in your macro. Stop recording the Macro and save the Macro to your Library. Use this macro when running your New Batch Job and it willl apply the same exact WB to all your RAW images and save them in whatever format you choose in the New Batch window.

I saved three versions of this macro for future use....one for Daylight WB, one for Cloudy WB, and one for Shade WB, each with different WB settings. This insures all batch files have the same WB. They don't need to be exact at this point, I just want them to be close and all the same. I can always tweak WB once the HDR Merge process is complete.

 

[Ldina]

The following doesn't relate specifically to HDR Merging, but does discuss RAW conversion of super bright/saturated blues and cyans (neon-like colors) using the Serif RAW processing engine. I had a problem with super bright blues and cyans shifting toward purple/magenta when developing RAW photos of my espresso machine (which has ultra bright, garish LED lights). If you are using a MAC (Mac only unfortunately), you can switch temporarily to the Apple Core RAW processing engine in the Affinity Develop Persona for these types of images (discussed the following thread). I was able to achieve a much better result with the Apple Core RAW engine for these types of images (images which, for me thankfully, are very few and far between). 

 

[F_Kal]

18 hours ago, Ldina said:

To create the Macro, open any RAW file, set a WB, make sure you select Linked or Embedded before developing, then click Develop. Once in Photo, open the Macro Panel, and hit the record button. Then, double click on the Image thumbnail in the Layers panel, which will take you back to the Develop Persona. Simply click Develop, which will take you back to Photo. Those steps will be recorded in your macro. Stop recording the Macro and save the Macro to your Library. Use this macro when running your New Batch Job and it willl apply the same exact WB to all your RAW images and save them in whatever format you choose in the New Batch window.

Thanks Ldina, that's a brilliant trick! I had given up on the idea of recording macros since the develop persona was being excluded from the process

On the topic of HDR merges, I've tried all possible formats as inputs, but affinity photo reads the full brightness data only from RAW files: For all the other formats, it clamps the input values to the SDR range ignoring values that are outside of it. Usually this is fine since you compensate by the overlap between the bracketed shots, but In my case I am trying to squeeze the maximum possible dynamic range out of 2 photos so even those 1-2 extra stops that these RAW files capture make a difference in the end result  - Perhaps in some future test I could try compressing all the dynamic range of the RAW file into the SDR range (but with a 16/32bit precision) and use those developed images as source - food for thought!

[Ldina]

@F_Kal I wasn't having good results using RAW source files with HDR Merge, so I quickly moved onto using pre-processed, 16-bit SDR, bitmap source files. So, my experience is limited with RAW source files. Also, I don't need 32-bit HDR images for 3D and usually save images to SDR anyway so anyone with a decent monitor can display them. My goal was probably different than yours.

One thing that I still find a little confusing are the settings in the 32-bit panel and also in the Tone Mapping Persona related to EDR/HDR, Clamping tonal values to SDR, etc. You may want to experiment with the settings in both panels to see if that helps (you may already have done so). James Ritson has a LOT of YouTube tutorials on HDR workflows, so perhaps he has something that will address your specific need. I don't do much 32-bit work (I only played around with Blender for a few months), so my experience in this area is pretty thin. I'm not sure if you can achieve the extended dynamic range you desire with a bracketed set of pre-processed 16-bit SDR bitmap images, which go from very overexposed to very underexposed or not. I've never tried pre-processing images to 32-bit and saving them in an HDR file format (EXR, etc), then using them as source files for HDR Merging. I don't even know if that works with the HDR Merge module.

BTW, James Ritson has a YouTube tutorial on creating an HDR image from a Single RAW file. It requires a RAW image that is purposely underexposed in-camera to avoid clipping super bright pixels and exceeding the camera sensor's maximum brightness. He goes through how to process the image in the Develop Persona in 32 bit mode to retain highlights and recover shadows. The downside is that very underexposed shadow areas are noisy and need substantial noise reduction. 

 

[Ldina]

@F_Kal Here's another James Ritson HDR video (from his v1 tutorials). Maybe I am misunderstanding what he is saying, but combining multiple pre-processed SDR images (Tiff, JPG, PNG, etc) will generate a 32-bit HDR image that greatly extends dynamic range beyond the standard 0-1 range if you have suitable bracketed exposures. Anyway, I thought it might be helpful. Like I said in my last post, my final result is aimed at generating images for SDR display, but reveal more highlight and shadow detail.

EDIT: I just created an HDR Merge in AP v2.5.5 using four bracketed JPGs as source files. Dynamic range of the resulting HDR image definitely exceeds 0-1 SDR, which can be shown by toggling the EDR Preview (on Mac) on/off while the HDR 32-bit file is left as 32-bit Linear. If I export this file to an SDR format, like JPG, all the brightness values exceeding 0-1 SDR range are clipped to fit into SDR. If I export the 32 bit linear file to an HDR format (JPEG-XL or HDR PNG), those extended brightness levels remain (if you have EDR toggled ON in the 32 bit panel). Converting the AfPhoto file to 8 or 16 bit, of course, leaves 32-bit floating point HDR-land and clips all values to SDR. This may not be what you are looking for, but I thought I'd mention it. It may not be helping you, but I'm learning a thing or two! 🥴

 

[F_Kal]

thanks @Ldina! Both are very useful videos - It's actually the first video (single-photo HDR) that inspired me for my HDR-escapades. Nowadays with true HDR support in formats like png and jpegXL and more and more devices being able to actually display the extended dynamic range (eg. OLED phones), I thought that it's a good moment to start making use of the extra stops in my camera's RAW files that old-school jpeg files would clip, and thus forfeiting jpeg and storing my images into 32bit jxl instead. Perhaps the novelty at some point will wear off but for now I enjoy seeing ultra-bright artificial lightsources in my photos shot using my 2014 mirrorless!