Nov 29
HDR in Lightroom
LR/Enfuse is a HDR plug-in for Lightroom for merging your HDR pictures without leaving LR. You just select the images and tell Enfuse to merge them and import the result back to LR. Couldn’t be simpler! I wish I’d known about this plug-in a few months ago when I was doing comparative tests with HDR software. This little snippet of programming can do the job much better than Photomatix, so I’ve re-done many of the Photomatix HDR’s that I wasn’t happy with and LR/Enfuse came up with a winner every time.
LR/Enfuse doesn’t have as many settings as Photomatix does and the HDRs lack much of the “pop” that Photomatix creates so at first look it may seem like Enfuse isn’t that good. However, what really matters is how the dynamic range is handled and this is where Enfuse shines and you create that pop yourself, it’s no different than any post-processing you with your images. I’ll much rather have a perfect “raw HDR” that needs post-processing than a half-baked HDR with generous contrast and saturation. LR/Enfuse even succeeded with the reflection images that Photomatix completely messed up.
The first image above is Njupeskär, a 4-image HDR. Compare it to the Photomatix HDR, where the sky looks like it belongs to a different image. The second image comprises of 3 exposures, where the Photomatix HDR left a nasty grad filter effect in the birch. Both of these new HDRs are done with the default settings in LR/Enfuse and required post-processing in LR, but nothing extravagant – saturation and curves for the most, and a grad filter in the second image to add some more drama in the clouds.
The trial version has a size limit which I think is way to small (500 pixels) for any reliable evaluation, for example, it’s impossible to say how the alignment works. So after some hesitation I paid to get the full version and now that I know how well it works, I only wish I could get my money back from HDRsoft so I could give them to Timothy Armes instead. If you’re a Lightroom user and looking for HDR software, I can warmly recommend LR/Enfuse!
4 comments
What to say… Me likes both the pics. I like the Photomatix too. Partly because one can go “artsy” with it easily. Then again, since the very beginning my goal was to go for larger dynamic range on the camera, now that that is done, I have given away my Photomatix licence already
Nice to see that you’ve found a solution suitable for your needs! If I ever move into LR, I’ll keep this in my mind
Tack för tipset! Har funderat på att skaffa LR till min nya dator, möjlighet till HDR i konverteringsprogrammet avgör saken! Flyttar i januari så jag väntar med att köra igång det hela till efter det.
Hello,
beautiful pictures.
I don’t like HDR and it does not look like HDR, so you’ve done a good job.
have a good day