Selectiong HDR Merge "Source Image" When Deghosting.

[mexitographer]

Hello I am using Affinity Photo 2 HDR Merge with seascape images where three different images are being heavily deghosted because the water is completely different in each image. My question is how to I choose the "source image? for the deghosting so that it is the final deghosted water image when the merging and tone mapping are finished. Is there a way to establish which image will be the "sourced master image" ?

[Lee D]

The HDF merge feature doesn't have an option to set the images used for de-ghosting. It may be better for you to stack the images instead and use masking, these videos may be beneficial to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2WUtsG120M&list=PLjZ7Y0kROWittYeNU6L38uDDgP5BNL1Pd&index=19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGjzaOSiVek&list=PLjZ7Y0kROWittYeNU6L38uDDgP5BNL1Pd&index=20

 

[James Ritson]

Hey @mexitographer, once the merge completes you'll have the option of cloning from each source image (plus an automatic deghosted result if you enable "Automatically remove ghosts") via the Sources panel. This panel is not typically shown because Photo launches into the tone mapping process straight away.

You can either cancel out of tone mapping, or on the HDR Merge dialog you can uncheck "Tone map HDR image". When the merge completes, you will instead start with the Clone Brush Tool selected and the Sources panel open.

From the Sources panel, you can select an image to clone from: all images will be exposure equalised, so you can clone from any of them without the final result looking uneven.

The eye icon on the Sources panel lets you preview each individual image, so you can pick out the one where you want to clone the water from. Then you would disable the eye icon and simply paint into the main image with that source image selected. Don't forget to reduce your brush hardness to 0% before painting, as a soft brush edge will generally give you a better result.

Hope that helps!

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