Want to create the best HDR merged image? Please review the tips below.
- A number of frames: You typically need three frames to handle most scenes of high dynamic range: one underexposed by 2 f-stops, one correctly exposed and one overexposed by 2 f-stops.
- ISO: You should set your camera to a fixed ISO, as low as possible, given the necessary exposure time for the brightest frame.
- Focusing: It is recommended to use manual focus, to ensure that all frames are focused at exactly the same distance.
- Bracketing program: If your camera has an exposure bracketing program, please set it to 3 frames of 2EV separation. If you preferer to use smaller separations steps, then make sure that you still cover +/- 2 f-stops. If you are doing the exposure bracketing manually, pay attention to the movements of the camera/ tripod.
- Bracketing order: Set the order of the frames to -, 0 and +, it is much easier to separate the different series of frames in Capture One.
- Tripod: It is recommended to use a tripod. Some modern cameras with bracketing programs and image stabilization can be used handhold if you can handhold the longest exposure time.
NOTE: Please avoid moving objects such as people, cars, branches moving in the wind, etc. as much as possible.
Useful tips for merging RAW frames to an HDR file in Capture One:
1. Select three frames for the HDR merge. If you have more than three frames to pick from, then pick:
- Darkest frame: select the darkest frame for the merge as the brightest frame without overexposed highlights. See the example below.
- Middle frame: choose the best overall exposed frame as the middle frame.
- Brightest frame: choose the one that best shows bright shadow details.
2. Use the HDR merge function found by right-clicking on one of the frames in the browser.
With the highlight warning turned on, it is easy to see which frame to select as the darkest frame. In this case, it will be number two from left, the brightest, without highlight clipping.
Merging in Capture One
With the 3 frames selected, right-click in the thumbnails browser and select Merge to HDR.
The final HDR image can be adjusted with all tools in Capture One.
Example of HDR merging of a large dynamic range in your motif
Final HDR Merged Image
Comments
20 comments
When doing the HDR merge, is matters on which image you right-click to select the "HDR Merge" option.
Choosing the brighter frame produces a much brighter output, than choosing the darker frame.
(At least that is the case with files from my Fuji camera).
I think that it is worth mentioning this in the guide.
I can't understand the meaning of "Bracketing order: Set the order of the frames to -, 0 and +, it is much easier to separate the different series of frames in Capture One.".
Should I take darker(Ev-2), normal(Ev0), and brighter(Ev+2) photos in sequence, not normal-darker-brighter sequence?
@Bosung Kim Yes, that's what it means. Take the exposures in order EV-2, EV-0, EV+2.
Hi Tim van der Leeuw,
Thank you for your comment.
We appreciate the time you’ve taken to contribute to our new features.
The Support Team will get back to you via the ticket soon.
@Tim van der Leeuw
That's so ridiculous... the order of photos must not be matter.
If so, it is very inconvenient for using camera and C1
I want C1 analyze exposure order of selected photos automatically.
@Bosung Kim I believe that this is an issue they are aware of and working on fixing.
Currently, no matter how many times I try, the merged image comes out brighter than or as bright as the brightest bracketed image. So that's no good. Is this because I shoot my bracketed images in a different order than what is stipulated by Capture One? My default bracketing is 0, -1, +1, and it has worked well for Lightroom, Aurora HDR, and Photomatix Pro.
@Mark Smith
My experience is similar to that of @Pavel Hubik.
The image will be brighter than my brightest image, but reducing the exposure by 2, 3 or even 4 stops will give me an image of "correct" (desirable?) brightness, after which I further tweak it by reducing the "white" and "highlight" sliders, and adding a tad of "black" and a bit more "shadow".
Images with chromatic aberrations, as branches can have against a bright sky, produce terrible HDR merging results with C1.My camera sensor has a dynamic range of 14 f-stops. Any image developed in the conventional way with C1 produces better and at least equivalent results with C1 than with the new HDR merging function. The new HDR merging function becomes useless in these cases as soon as hard contrasts are accompanied by purple fringing or chromatic aberrations. This needs to be improved!
Two observations.
FIrstly the DNG produced by the merge is not intended to be a "final" image and Auto-Adjusting may give a closer-to-expected result. However in the end the entire process is really preparations for an appropriate editing activity for the result one desires. So whether the preview result is bright, dark or somewhere in the middle really does not matter so long as something closer to what is possible can be derived by the end of the process. Applying Auto-Adjust manually seems to change things towards the central exposure settings.
Secondly, I have yet to find a selection of my own files that would be usable for an HDR merge that would allow me to look at the purple fringing question. I DO have a lot of images from one specific, elderly lens that can produce some extreme purple fringing in some situations so I am familiar with the issues. However nothing I can recall taking with that lens is likely to be the sort of image set that would be used in an HDR context.
A couple of things to bear in mind. If the fringing is related to, for example, tree branches in a Landscape photo there is a good chance that branch movement between images will be at least as much of a problem.
Secondly, the full correction effect of the PF tool can only really be seen when viewing the image at 100%. Anything else is a compromise. If, as my aforementioned challenging lens can deliver, the fringing head off into various shades of pink as well as purple, some special correction techniques will be needed.
In a Panorama situation, the recommendation is to apply lens correction before stitching. Whether that also applied to Merging is less clear. In theory, the resulting image is still based entirely on the same lens covering the same frame and the same subject so the lens correction could be applied to the merged result.
if you want I send you three RAWs to see the extreme bad result of branches in front of bright sky. Just tell me your mail adress and I send it to you with wetransfer.
"Applying Auto-Adjust manually seems to change things towards the central exposure settings." Not really true. What we have here is a mess. The bracketed images, when merged, do not look good, no matter how much you massage them. It's an issue that needs to be fixed, not mansplained.
The update helped with the over exposed images but this is still a really poorly engineered tool. It's disappointing that Capture One released it. It's not ready to compete with the other tools.
Unfortunately the HDR system is not very functional since it offers no options to smoothen edges. See the below image of a high-contrast photo (interior bedroom with white sheets and direct sunlight). No matter what combination of 3 / 4 / 6 images, + 2EV, +1EV, ... I never get a satisfactory result. if I can get close enough, then I get those terrible cut edges as well as texture problems that would take forever to locate and remove in photoshop, taking the risk of overlooking some and delivering a corrupt photo.
Hello,
I'm having issues with the HDR merging tool in C1 22 pro.
I have been using it on indoors pictures, sometimes it worked fine but sometimes some texture issues (Like Antoine Lippens above) appeared, and sometimes some weird green artefacts appeared around light sources.
I am now trying to use it on outdoor, landscape views - and I also have an issue with light sources, aka the sun ! several HDR renders look like water had been spilled on the picture, with a strange bubble around the sun. Below are a couple of low res exports :
I have used HDR merging plugins before and never experienced anything like this...
I have just upgraded to 2022 from 21 and am absolutely appalled by the HDR merge feature. Horrible artifacts in highlights/windows in interior photography and crazy noise and artifacts in gradients. My test images were shot with a Canon R, shooting RAW and using 3 images EV-2, EV-0, EV+2. No matter the order I place them to merge I get the same horrible result. Lightroom has never had this issue.
Please fix this as I cannot and will not use Capture One for any HDR workflow.
I have had the same problem since the introduction of HDR. The pictures are close to unusable, although I capture the brackets on a tripod and base ISO and don't merge more than 3 exposures (0,-2,+2). This leaves me very disappointed, as HDR hast been of the biggest updates within years for C1 and now I can't use it. For me as a fulltime architectural photographer this is a very important topic and I can't see why it is not on C1 priority list. I have multiple shots on every shoot, where I have to merge HDR-Panos and it just does not working reliable. Very disappointing!
I am still experiencing the very same issues with image output quality that I raised with C1 after the feature was first introduced and that just about everyone here posts.Many obvious artefacts along edges.
Also, in many instances the full range of light to dark that was present in the input images is not represented in the HDR output and there remain blown out highlights even if the darkest frame did not have those blown out.
I am mostly disappointed that after more than a year, these issues remain unaddressed.
Hello, there's no way to jpgs' then?
Tim van der Leeuw Exactly the same experience. Input 3 frames separated by 2EV, with 1 or even 2 frames having non-overblown data for a certain highlight area in it > output still has overblown highlight.
It would be neat if we could hint C1 which frame to use as a source for a general area of the resulting image. The only real way I see to fix it currently is loading the resulting HDR into a tool like Photoshop and using layers + masking to blend in a piece from one of the source bracket images.
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