EnfuseĮnfuse is an open source command line application that’s part of the Hugin project.Įnfuse produces fantastic results, but the command line interface made it quite painful to use. However, to create the “HDR look” blending isn’t going to help. So, for interior shots like the one above, where a natural looking image is paramount, blending is definitely the way to go.

Most people find it very difficult to create natural looking images using HDR.

HDR software is more complex to use, but it’s possible to create all manor of ‘unnatural’ but often very interesting styles by playing with the tone curve.

Blending software is very easy to use but it can only produce natural looking images.

Typically this is done by controlling a tone mapping curve that dictates how and where the dynamic range is compressed.Īre the end results of the two approaches the same? Well, sometimes they can be, but mostly they’re not. The dynamic range of the image needs to be compressed to fit within the dynamic range of the chosen media. The difficulty comes when we need to display an HDR image on media that can’t display this high dynamic range, such as a screen or a sheet of paper. We don’t wish to delve into the technicalities, but the result is that an HDR image allows for each pixel to contain practically any exposure value, so if the difference between the the darkest and lightest parts of an image is 20 stops, this will be faithfully preserved in the HDR’s file format. An HDR image uses 32 bits per pixel, and these bits are used to store a floating-point value. To create an HDR image several exposures are also used, but the similarity stops there. Note that this is not the same as creating an HDR (high dynamic range) image. I took several shots at different exposures and then blended them together directly from within Lightroom using my LR/Enfuse plugin.Įxposure blending essentially involves examing a group of photos with varying exposures and creating a final photo, pixel by pixel, by choosing the best exposed pixel from all of the photos.

Normally we would expect most of the room to fall into shadow due to the high constrast difference between the window-lit table and the shaded corridor so how was this avoided? The shot is taken using ambient light only, and yet everything is well exposed from the forground table right through to the back of the room. You may have seen the me mention this photo in a previous post.

Lr enfuse processing jpegs