Focus Stacking plus HDR

[RockvilleBob]

I am looking for a way to combine HDR and focus stacking. For example lets use 3 shots at each focus position to enable one HDR image and assume there are 5 different focus position or slices. Can Affinity first merge the 3 images into one HDR image and then use the resulting 5 HDR images in focus stacking to create one HDR image? -- Can the Affinity focus stacking ability handle HDR files generated in Affinity?

Thanks

[James Ritson]

Hey RockvilleBob,

 

The quick answer is no unfortunately - Photo can't merge pixelidentical brackets whilst focus merging at the same time. What it will do is produce a psuedo-HDR result (without the increased precision or unbounded tonal range), so I'd encourage you to at least try it and see how you find the result.

 

Alternatively, if you were to HDR merge the individual brackets first, then either save them as .afphoto documents or export to OpenEXR, you should then be able to focus merge these into a 32-bit HDR result.

 

Hope that helps!

[anon1]

so we expect AP to have an option to automatically do this internally right? I mean this really is very possible to implement.

Same goes for panoramas.

 

In the end we still need a way to properly white balance such stacks/ panoramas from RAW. This currently is very cumbersome to say the least.

LR can do this for HDR, it outputs DNG which can be whitebalanced just like a RAW afaik.

 

cheers  :)

[Graham]

On 3/21/2017 at 3:53 PM, James Ritson said:

 

Alternatively, if you were to HDR merge the individual brackets first, then either save them as .afphoto documents or export to OpenEXR, you should then be able to focus merge these into a 32-bit HDR result.

 

 

 

Could you (or someone else) please expand on what is being said here. I would be grateful. 

 

What I am trying to achieve is a focus merge and HDR merge with the same 3 bracketed images. I am reading this reply as, once I've merged the bracketed images in HDR, I can then focus merge them? 

 

Thanks for anyone's time!

[John Rostron]

For each triplet of exposures at one focus point, load the three images using Load new HDR stack.

Process these to your liking and the save as an .afphoto file. You could save this an 8-bit or 16-bit image.

 

Do the same with each of the other triplets using exactly the same parameters, especially in the tone mapping phase. Again save as before.

 

You should now have five HDR-processed images.

 

Load these five images into a new Focus Merging stack and process.

 

You should now have a focus-merged HDR image to export or save as you see fit.

 

John

[Graham]

Thanks very much for your reply, John. It is clear and very much appreciated.

 

I am looking forward to trying this out.