Develop HDR DNG from Lightroom Mobile in Affinity Photo

[Olivier.A]

HI everyone !

I took several photo using Lightroom Mobile. I forgot I set the mode to High Dynamic Range instead of auto. So I took a bunch of image, and I don't know how I could process them. On Develop Persona, the image has a magenta cast. If anybody has suggestions how I could proceed.

I attached
- a jpg exported from lightroom mobile, and
- the DNG also exported from lightroom Mobile
- a screenshot of the DNG in Affinity Photo Develop persona

Thanks !

 

APC_0147-hdr.dng

[Ldina]

@Olivier.A I don't use LightRoom Mobile (I've used the desktop version, but it's been a few years). I'm not sure what's going on, or what LR did, but that file is a mess. The white balance, brightness, contrast, saturation, etc, are all off the charts. By playing with various settings/sliders in AfPhoto Develop Persona, I was able to make it a lot better than that magenta version, but still not very good. I had to use extreme slider values even for that.

You said you exported the DNG from LR Mobile. I would look for another export method from LR, or some way to access the original RAW camera data without LR messing with the file data. If you still have the image on your iPhone, save it to your computer and try opening it directly without using LR as a middleman.

Probably not much help. Perhaps someone else here uses LR Mobile and has good advice for you.

EDIT: BTW, I checked in FAQs on this forum, and your iPhone 13 is supported for RAW formats in the Develop Persona, however HEIF MAX compressed RAW files are listed as not being supported at this time. I assume this is not an issue with your file, since you converted your iPhone RAW file format to DNG format. As long as conversion to DNG worked properly, the file should work fine in Affinity. At least that's my experience.

[mopperle]

Only Lightroom (Desktop Version) displays the file correctly, also FastRawViwer. Tried it with Darktable and I see the same mess as in AFPhoto.

So LR obviously made soemthing "special" while developing/exporting the picture. If you have the original RAW files you might check the HDR function in AFPhoto.

To shoot pictures with my iPhone 13 Pro I use the app ProCamera. Any developing is done on the Desktop with LrC.

[cgidesign]

I have cross checked with a photo editing software. It can open the dng correctly. The shown temperature ("as shot") seems odd to me but that might be the way iphones do it.

Question is, whether the dng is not ok or APhoto just does not support that type of DNG.

Maybe the support has an idea.

By the way, you might like to delete the gps data when you post photos. With your dng it is easy to get the location where you made the photo.

[Olivier.A]

HI, thanks for the comment,

19 hours ago, Ldina said:

that file is a mess

Sure, it is a complete mess. I don't know what kind of HDR format is used inside the DNG. I tried to open it in Affinity photo on my old iMac 2016, the image was overexposed, on top of having this magenta cast.

But this "problem" only happens with HDR photos. Non-HDR are fine.

19 hours ago, Ldina said:

I would look for another export method from LR, or some way to access the original RAW camera data

Sadly, lightroom mobile is very limited to export RAW image. The only way is using DNG. I could export as TIFF, but this is no more RAW (TIFF is limited to 16bits depth). Exporting as TIFF produces a correct image though !

Please note that Lightroom mobile took the photo, not iPhone built-in Camera app. the iPhone 13 is not capable of shooting RAW image.

[Olivier.A]

HI !

17 hours ago, mopperle said:

If you have the original RAW files you might check the HDR function in AFPhoto.

Lightroom mobile took the RAW photos. I don't know any other way to export the RAW file other than through the DNG format. I don't have Lightroom Desktop. So my RAW is the DNG I provided. If someone have suggestions, you're welcome

I opened the DNG in the HDR function of AFPhoto, but the result is not better than the Develop persona.

[Olivier.A]

3 hours ago, cgidesign said:

Question is, whether the dng is not ok or APhoto just does not support that type of DNG.

Hi, I think you are somewhat correct ! I googled a bit more and found several people talking about DNG being encoded with 16bits floating point... this is quite unusual, as HDR are usually 32 bits. That may be the issue here, and AF is not capable to using 16bit float images.

I found this blogpost from Adobe explaining the HDR process in Lightroom Mobile :
https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2017/03/06/lr-mobile-update-raw-hdr-capture-mode-for-ios-and-android

Quote

The new HDR mode works by automatically [...] You get a 16-bit floating point DNG, with all of the benefits of both an HDR and a raw photo [...]

Non-HDR photo are still 32bits, though...

[mopperle]

I just took a HDR with my iPhone, and it really seems that LR mobil is doing something special here. When I open the dng file in Lightroom (Desktop) it is not really a RAW file. In the develop module in LR, you see that a lot of settings have already been made by LR mobile. FastRawViewer shows it undeveloped and underexposured:

Lightroom Desktop

FastRawViewer

I suggest to completely develop it in LR Mobile and export it as jpg.

[Olivier.A]

1 minute ago, mopperle said:

I suggest to completely develop it in LR Mobile and export it as jpg

For these photo, this is certainly something I will do. But in the future I will avoid LR HDR feature :p Pictures I took, didn't need HDR, so I'm fine

Thanks !

[Olivier.A]

Little Update,

I opened this HDR DNG in Krita (open source drawing application). When you set White balabce to automatic, the image opens correctly ! (D65, camera or manual gives this magenta cast) I'm quite surprised by the result.