![]() Overall, HDR Express is an app that uses HDR as a starting point for a more full featured image editor.īottom Line: On the high end of the price scale, but if you spend a lot of time taking HDR photos, this app produced some of the best results. These styles are optional, customizable, and can be skipped if only tone mapping is desired. The Styles filters range from more standard Vivid and Black & White, to dramatic looks like Grunge and Retina Burn, which go way beyond adjusting the dynamic range of the image, to adding cartoonish and surreal effects. The tone map controls create the actual HDR characteristics of the image and, after those are adjusted, you can add more filters to the HDR photo. Any custom changes that are made can be saved as presets. Any preset can be adjusted on the right side of the window with slider controls that change brightness, highlights, shadows, black point, contrast, and saturation. In HDR Express, the Tone Map presets are represented along the bottom of the main window by thumbnails that can be clicked on to make adjustments. HDR Express uses a series of presets for tone map and style settings, giving it an iOS feel in certain areas. Take your time with the controls and you’ll get nice results. So take your time, move those sliders carefully, and you’ll be pleased with the outcome.īottom Line: The nicest user interface of the bunch with a very familiar feel. When I was editing, minor adjustments resulted in bigger visual changes than other apps. Higher quality previews take longer to render. Hydra allows you to set the preview quality in the app’s preferences. The completed image will be rendered and saved. When you’re happy with the result, click the Render button and choose your preferred file output type. Each method offers a different slider for adjustments, and the changes can be seen in real time in the large preview window. The Tone Mapped editing pane has three tone-mapping methods: Compression, Local Adaption, and Perceptive (which seemed to yield the best results, to my eye). Once you have selected the Merge pane on the Inspector window, a histogram appears with an exposure slider below it to set the overall exposure for the HDR image. ![]() The editing controls are simple and straightforward. Overall, HDR Darkroom’s user interface is relatively intuitive but could use a little more polish around the edges to make the workflow more clear. Each of the engines also allows for custom settings to be saved for quick future access. In some case this may be all that’s needed, but there is more fine turning available with the other two engines. The final engine is the Fast Tone Compressor, which apples a uniform adjustment to all areas of the photo and allows for the quickest adjustments of all the tone mapping engines. ![]() This engine seemed to quickly wash out the overall image. The Fill Light slider is the key to this engine and will reduce the overall contrast of the image, and lighten some darker areas of the photo. The Local Tone Enhancer engine is for targeting the shadow details specifically. ![]() Local Tone Balancer can be used to balance highlights and shadow detail in small areas of the photo via the Strength and Local Lighting sliders. After the selection is made, the slider controls in the Tone Mapping Parameters panel adjusts automatically. The app’s strength lies in the three tone mapping engines to adjust your image after the files are loaded-Local Tone Balancer, Local Tone Enhancer, and Fast Tone Compressor. HDR Darkroom easily combines multiple image files to create an HDR photo. The settings are not refreshed when you load a new set of images, so adjust accordingly.īottom Line: A good starting point for HDR on the Mac. Light Compressor’s default tone mapping settings seems overly strong, but yields pleasing results when lowered slightly. Below this, there is a familiar Photoshop-style curves adjustment tool, which allows for multiple adjustment points by clicking the plus sign at the top. There are three sliders under the tone mapping controls that allow you to adjust strength, radius, and saturation. The dynamic range of a photograph is much wider than what can be accurately displayed on a computer screen, and tone mapping-a core concept in HDR photography-reduces the overall range while maintaining as much of the contrast as possible. With very simple controls, this app allows you to quickly drag three image files to the main window, and make tone mapping and curves adjustments to the combined image. Available in the Mac App Store for $1, Light Compressor is a basic HDR app that yields solid results. Don’t be fooled by the price tag on Tai Shimzu’s
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