Nik or Affinity Single-image HDR

[John Rostron]

Following recent posts on Super-Resolution, and Nik HDR, I thought I would try Nik HDR Efex Pro on a single image. I had an image created using PhotoAcute trial on a burst-mode set of images to create super-resolution image. It worked (leaving a watermark), but the image seemed to have lost some detail in the shadows. See image 1, which is a full-resolution, cropped image from the PhotoAcute .dng output, developed and exported as .jpg..

I then applied Nik HDR Efex Pro to it and got this:

And, for comparison, I used Affinity New HDR Stack on the single PhotoAcute dng output:

The two HDR images are a great improvement on the untreated original showing detail in the shadow area. However the Affinity  New HDR Stack took an age to process, at least 30 minutes and maybe longer (I went off and cooked and ate lunch).

My previous experience with Affinity New HDR Stack has not had such long times, although the file sizes had been smaller (Super-Resolution enlarges image by 200%).

Has anyone else had such a wait?

John

[firstdefence]

Hi John, re waiting No, I haven't had to wait that long, Tomorrow I'll take a few images, its raining at the mo but it reckons its going to be dry in the morning so I might get so dew shots to run through. I personally think I get better images without all this Super Smoothing Resolution hoop jumping. In the super res post I only just noticed your workflow ask.

 

I would generally use one of the raw conversion apps I have because I have NEF files and the Standalone HDR Efex Pro doesn't import those so I generally end up making 16bit TiFF. I've done New HDR Merge and then gone onto HDR Efex Pro as the plugin, I have to use a restrained tone mapping in Affinity if I want to use HDR Efex Pro else things get a bit crazy with the colours..

[John Rostron]

17 hours ago, firstdefence said:

 I personally think I get better images without all this Super Smoothing Resolution hoop jumping. In the super res post I only just noticed your workflow ask.

As you will have noticed. I concur with this.the image I used here was, if you like, the last straw.

17 hours ago, firstdefence said:

I would  generally use one of the raw conversion apps I have because I have NEF files and the Standalone HDR Efex Pro doesn't import those so I generally end up making 16bit TiFF. I've done New HDR Merge and then gone onto HDR Efex Pro as the plugin, I have to use a restrained tone mapping in Affinity if I want to use HDR Efex Pro else things get a bit crazy with the colours..

Do you mean that you use AP HDR Merge to creat a single output image and then apply Nik HDR to that?

John

 

[firstdefence]

Just now, John Rostron said:

As you will have noticed. I concur with this.the image I used here was, if you like, the last straw.

Do you mean that you use AP HDR Merge to creat a single output image and then apply Nik HDR to that?

John

 

Yes sometimes.