Norway16 Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 Hi, HDR Merge in Affinity Photo is producing very poor results, with the final merged image being considerably more blurry than any of the source files. I have done numerous HDR merges before and cannot remember this as being a problem previously. I am currently on version 2.2. I tried now to do the same exact HDR merge with 1) original RAW files (three bracketed Sony ARW files from a6500) and 2) TIFF exports from the original RAW files for comparison. To my surprise the HDR merge based on the TIFF files were much better, see the comparison below, where you can clearly see the blurry version to the left and the better version to the right. I have done no editing on either of the files. Is this a bug? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 As you are on Mac: how did you open the raw files? Apple Photo has a bad habit of giving low-res jpg images to other apps, unless you explicitly export them to the finder. So try to open from files, not from Photos or iCloud. Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 Another potential source for quality differences: Only when use the Develop Persona for one single file, the full Development features will be used. If you open multiple RAW files for any stacking (HDR, stack, focus), a „shortened“ development pipeline will be used, with some default settings, and omitting advanced corrections. Try a regular stack with live alignment, so you can inspect the individual layers and compare to a „manual“ Developed file. Move one layer out of the stack place an corresponding exported TIFF on top set blend mode to difference add levels adjustment, and set white level to 10%. This boosts all visible differences. Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norway16 Posted September 27, 2023 Author Share Posted September 27, 2023 Thanks for the reply. Good point, however the RAW files were imported directly from Finder, not via Apple Photos. As for your other suggestion, I'm not sure I totally understand, I have not worked a lot with regular stacks. I attach the three RAW files here and maybe you can see if you get similar results as I do when doing the HDR Merge, and can check the regular stack suggestion you pointed out? I really appreciate the help! DSC07678.ARW DSC07679.ARW DSC07680.ARW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted September 27, 2023 Share Posted September 27, 2023 Thank you for uploading. I get better results, directly from RAW files. But I always deactivate noise reduction (which is 40% by default and is absolutely unnecessary for your images). Can you please make screenshots of all settings used for creating HDR from RAW (new HDR stack dialogue) Creating TIF from RAW (which RAW engine Serif or Apple, all settings like noise reduction / refinement (which is effectively unsharp mask) creating HDR from TIF (new HDR stack dialogue) As a side note, new HDR from raw produced far too dark image, so I needed to boost exposure by about 2.6 units. (serif RAW). here my results (after mild tone mapping, and 2nd adding high pass and unsharp mask) Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norway16 Posted September 28, 2023 Author Share Posted September 28, 2023 Thanks for the effort, I really appreciate it. When you mentioned the RAW engine, I thought I'd do a couple of tests and it seems to have isolated the issue to differences in the RAW engines (or to be more precise - problems with the Serif RAW engine). For all the HDR Merges, I also turned Noise reduction off as you have. The settings used are in the screenshot below. To be honest, I think the results you got (using Serif RAW Engine) also looks blurry and worse than the original RAW? Can you also try to make an HDR Merge with Apple RAW Engine and see if you get the same results as me? (If the RAW engine is indeed the error source here, it also explains why the HDR Merge based on the TIFFs were better - since the RAW engine presumably was not used for this merge). See the attached screenshot which compares the original RAW file (top), with HDR Merge results using Apple RAW engine and Serif RAW engine. To me there is a clear difference. Maybe Serif has made some updates to the RAW engine lately? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted September 28, 2023 Share Posted September 28, 2023 How did you create the tiff files? Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norway16 Posted September 29, 2023 Author Share Posted September 29, 2023 I created the tiff files by exporting from Apple Photos. I also tried to create tiff files in Affinity Photo from the original RAW files (with Serif RAW engine), and also with the Apple RAW engine, and to me it is now clear that the Serif RAW engine is at fault here, look at the screenshot below. Could it be something with the way Serif RAW handles Sony RAW photos? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted September 29, 2023 Share Posted September 29, 2023 1 hour ago, Norway16 said: to me it is now clear that the Serif RAW engine is at fault here... What Develop Assistant Settings are you using for the Serif engine? Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.5.6 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 All 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotMyFault Posted September 29, 2023 Share Posted September 29, 2023 Well, please consider: some companies like camera vendors, Adobe, Apple, and a handful of independent software companies develop their own raw engines, or license some proprietary code from those. Adobe and Apple are big $$$ companies with virtually unlimited resources Affinity uses free software, LibRAW, with a few tweaks (for Canon CR3, now irrelevant). Any more questions? The only advantage of SerifRAW is ability to use linked/embedded RAW, and you can disable lens corrections which comes handy in exceptional cases. In almost all quality aspects, Serif RAW is inferior, to Apple RAW and Camera vendor RAW engines. Quote Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080 LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5 iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589 Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps. My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norway16 Posted September 30, 2023 Author Share Posted September 30, 2023 10 hours ago, R C-R said: What Develop Assistant Settings are you using for the Serif engine? I have not changed any default settings so the ones used are in the attached screenshot. 10 hours ago, NotMyFault said: Well, please consider: some companies like camera vendors, Adobe, Apple, and a handful of independent software companies develop their own raw engines, or license some proprietary code from those. Adobe and Apple are big $$$ companies with virtually unlimited resources Affinity uses free software, LibRAW, with a few tweaks (for Canon CR3, now irrelevant). Any more questions? The only advantage of SerifRAW is ability to use linked/embedded RAW, and you can disable lens corrections which comes handy in exceptional cases. In almost all quality aspects, Serif RAW is inferior, to Apple RAW and Camera vendor RAW engines. I am definitely not trying to bash Serif RAW here, I am not an expert user so I was not even aware of the possibility to change RAW engine until you made me aware of it. I have just used the default settings in the app But I do understand that there are differences in the RAW engines now, and when you put it like that, it also makes sense. Thanks for all the help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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