I’m having some subtle issues merging HDR images that are bothering me. When I do a merge of my three exposures, it seems to combine them in a way that makes a sort of “haze” on the shadows of the image.
Here is the longest exposure of part of the image:
It’s somewhat hard to see but the final image keeps this blue haze in the shadows that seems to be originating from the noise of the shortest exposure being combined with the longest exposure. Is there any way to just keep the shadows from the longest exposure while retaining the highlights from the shortest exposure without combining the shadows of every image as if they are of uniform importance?
The default button in darktable isn’t very good as it doesn’t align the images before merging. If you’re not already using it, I highly recommend HDR Merge, there is a lua script to integrate it with darktable.
I know we may be getting somewhat off topic now, but I’m having trouble getting the lua script working. When I installed it it made me point the script to it’s own executable path in the lua folder, which I did, but when I click update it says it’s unsuccessful.
Ok, so I got it working, and I also experimented with a RAW DNG HDR from lightroom in darktable, and I’m seeing the “washed out” effect in every single image (Darktable DNG HDR, HDR Merge DNG HDR, Lightroom outputted DNG HDR)
Is there any way to fix this, or is it baked into the way that darktable deals with HDR images? No matter what editing methods I try I cannot get rid of the washed out effect.
How would you suggest I make the darktable image look like what lightroom is presenting? I’m struggling to get the same look. And yes unfortunately, there are bright windows and objects in the scene that I don’t want clipped.
Use exposure to get midtones right (remember that darktable’s scene-referred workflow is centred around mid-grey). Then use filmic or sigmoid as usual, and tone equalizer, if needed. There’s nothing special to HDR input in darktable.
