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I've got a stack of vacation photos to post-process, and since one of the locations was plagued by partial cloudcover, I decided to compensate by shooting a number of bracketed sequences in hopes of getting a few good HDR shots.

BUT...what are all of you enthusiasts using for HDR processing these days? I did some Google searching and came up with a variety of options for Lightroom plugins and shareware programs and now I'm not sure what to try first.

What do you have in terms of image processing tools right now? For plug-ins at least that would help to narrow things down.

Canon Digital Photo Professional, Adobe Photoshop Elements 10, Adobe Lightroom 4, and sometimes use Paint.NET for the fast and dirty work.

HDRSoft's Photomatix Pro is the most commonly used HDR plugin in my circles.

However, I have also heard good things about L/R Enfuse, which is a donationware product. It may be lacking some of the fine-tuning features of Photomatix Pro, but it also supports focus-stacking for macro shots, which is a definite plus.

Okay, I did see Photomatix come up a few times when searching a bit pricey for the functionality, though, even the LR plugin is $30.

L/R Enfuse looks intriguing. I might give that a try and see if it's going to do what I want it to do, then if it works, donate and unlock.

Have you tried online hdr? There is an online photo editor named Fotor offering such tool. You do not need to download any software. More attractive, it is totally free. BTW, if you are satisfied with that, you can also try HDR Darkroom, which is a hdr software for professional use.

experiencenew wrote:

Have you tried online hdr? There is an online photo editor named Fotor offering such tool. You do not need to download any software.

Thanks...I checked it out and it looks like it might work for casual use, but in general I do want to maintain local control of the source images, and would like to merge in RAW if possible.

Did you shoot in RAW or JPG?

I use the HDR Pro built into Photoshop CS6. If you shot in RAW that opens up a whole other realm of possibilities. Like 32bit HDR edits in the RAW processor.

These days I always shoot in RAW+Ljpg. I don't have CS6, though.

dx0 Optics Pro is my favorite. I snagged it for $99, and the noise reduction and HDR is AWESOME! I have a Sony A580 and I shoot in RAW. Makes even ISO6400 look good.