Highlights blown out after exporting HDR Merge

[Joshrocker]

I'm editing a photo in Affinity for Mac. The photo I'm working with looks completely blown out when I try to export it. The image is a bracketed photo that I imported using the HDR Merge feature. These were raw DNG files that I took with my drone (DJI Mini 3 pro). I'm working on my 2019 16" MacBook Pro if that helps at all. 

I've tried exporting in several different file formats (PNG, JPEG, and HDR to name a few). They all basically look the same when exported. I've tried sharing directly to Apple Photos on my Mac and that looks the same. I deleted the original file and started again with the same bracketed files, but it continued to act the same way. 

When I preview the photo at the export screen in Affinity, it looks blown out and when exported, looks like the preview. However when I go back to the editor, the photo looks completely different. 

Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Or how I can correct this? 

I'm a hobbyist who is starting to learn more about editing, so I may be doing something dumb. I've attached the photo from apple photos and the AF file for comparison. I also attached screenshots of the export screen and the image profile. 

Thanks for any help. 

Barge on the River.afphoto

[NotMyFault]

A HDR merge will not restrict tone values to the SDR range (0-1). You can use adjustments (exposure, levels, curves) in combination with histogram to reduce overall brightness / outblown highlights, and/or use the tone map persona for this purpose.

After you tone mapped the images (no longer values >1, use the histogram with max set to e.g. 4), you can the use other adjustments light HSL or vibrance. If you use them with values >1, they could clip highlights, as we see in your image.

[DWright]

You can use the HSL adjustment to tone down the highlights and increase the saturation as shown below and the HDR export will reflect this adjustment

When you did the HDR merge which exposure values did your source DNG files use.

[Joshrocker]

15 hours ago, DWright said:

You can use the HSL adjustment to tone down the highlights and increase the saturation as shown below and the HDR export will reflect this adjustment

When you did the HDR merge which exposure values did your source DNG files use.

The HSL did the trick! I was able to export my image and it looks like the edit version in Affinity Photo. Thank you very much for your help with this. Sorry, my exposure value? Do you mean the exposure time of the 3 bracketed images? If that's what you mean it was 1/6,000 1/8,000 and 1/3,200 for the exposure time. If you meant something different, let me know and I'll figure it out. 

On 8/21/2022 at 3:00 PM, NotMyFault said:

A HDR merge will not restrict tone values to the SDR range (0-1). You can use adjustments (exposure, levels, curves) in combination with histogram to reduce overall brightness / outblown highlights, and/or use the tone map persona for this purpose.

After you tone mapped the images (no longer values >1, use the histogram with max set to e.g. 4), you can the use other adjustments light HSL or vibrance. If you use them with values >1, they could clip highlights, as we see in your image.

Thank you for the advice on on changing the tone values. I'll have to research the proper settings for an HDR photo. 

[DWright]

For the HDR merge the images have exposure bias stop values rather than exposure for example a common setting for the bias is -1, 0 and +1, your drone has a built in HDR feature that will use these bias setting and then create a HDR merged image so you do not need to use the HDR merge option in Photo you will just need to open the HDR file from the drone.