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HDr with LR/Enfuse

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headmj

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The photos below were produced using LR/Enfuse and then touched up in photoshop. This program did a really wonderful job of combining three exposures spaced about 2 stops apart. The scene was fairly contrasty as I was in a creek bottom with the sun coming almost straight in through the trees. It worked more quickly than the PS HDR routine and did a better job. It uses an entirely different algorithm and refers to the process as blending. Enfuse is an open source project and the the Lightroom plugin was written by Timothy Ames at this URL

http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/lrenfuse.php

Please let me know what you think and your experiences if you try it.

Regards

Mike





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http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhphoto/
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MikeChip said:
It sure did a good job with those shots, they to me look pretty much as the eye would see the scene.

Mike
Click to expand...
That is exactly my impression Mike. It seems to be a much more realistic rendering than some of the HDR/Tone mapping software output. The kicker here is that the software is almost free! I made a donation to Timothy's site and will donate to the Enfuse project when I get back to work.

You can use seperate images produced from the same raw file as well as seperate photos like I used. I will try some of that and post some results. I have a photo in mind.

Regards

Mike

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhphoto/
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Mike,

thanks for the info and the link. I think both images were excellent and what i would look for in an HDR. Since i use LR a lot, this is sort of a non-brainer.

I'll write back on this thread once i find something to use with this software
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Phil B
K20D, K10D
 
Philnw2 said:
Mike,

thanks for the info and the link. I think both images were excellent and what i would look for in an HDR. Since i use LR a lot, this is sort of a non-brainer.

I'll write back on this thread once i find something to use with this software
--
Phil B
K20D, K10D
Click to expand...
The other interesting thing is that you don't need LR. You can run Enfuse from droplets or a command line.
Mike

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhphoto/
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I agree with the others. I'm not a fan of hdr but these look really good!

Marion
 
headmj said:
The photos below were produced using LR/Enfuse and then touched up in photoshop.
Click to expand...
Thank you Mike. I was sufficiently impressed to want to have a go myself, with a stack of 9 images which I'd previously processed using Photomatix.

I downloaded EnfuseGUI 2.0, it's a nice Windows front end and comes with Enfuse embedded. Quick and easy to install (I am running Windows 7 in a virtual machine).

http://software.bergmark.com/enfuseGUI/

Here are three images processed from the same stack. First with Photomatix then with Enfuse, and finally Enfuse with additional post processing in Photoshop where I applied some local contrast enhancement to give it a slight 'HDR' look. I did this with the USM filter, using a small amount + large radius (approx 14/80).

Photomatix has pulled a lot more detail in the foreground. However one shouldn't don't draw any firm conclusions because Enfuse was on its default settings, whereas I spent a while tweaking the parameters in Photomatix.



Photomatix, tweaked settings



Enfuse, default settings



Enfuse as above plus Photoshop tweaks

--
Mike
http://flickr.com/rc-soar
 
Thanks for posting these great examples.

I'm a fan of the LR/Enfuse plugin as well. I mostly use it in my B&W conversion process to enable detail in all parts of the images. After I apply contrast to return to a more normal look.

Note that Enfuse doesn't do HDR accrording to its strict definition but uses an alternative algorithm called enfusion to achieve a similar end result.

I prefer Enfuse since it produces results out-of-the-box that can I can work on in Lightroom. Most HDR software requires too much work for me to get to a result that looks as I want them...

Wim

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Belgium, GMT+1

 
I agree about LR/Enfuse, and I given a donation to the creator as well. The images just look a lot better to my eye, they dont have that over-the-top tonemapped look that most software produces, and it does not require as much tweaking as most programs.

It also plugs straight into Lightroom, and further editing is easily done after enfusing to a 16-bit TIFF file.

--
My Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36164047@N06/
 
Thnx for the link, I have tried photomatix and other software and hated the outcome from them all. This might be what im looking for :D
 
Model Mike said:
Thank you Mike. I was sufficiently impressed to want to have a go myself, with a stack of 9 images which I'd previously processed using Photomatix.
Click to expand...
A very impressive turn out from both programs. You have learned Photomatrix well.
Model Mike said:
I downloaded EnfuseGUI 2.0, it's a nice Windows front end and comes with Enfuse embedded. Quick and easy to install (I am running Windows 7 in a virtual machine).

http://software.bergmark.com/enfuseGUI/
Click to expand...
This will be great for folks that don't run LR.
Model Mike said:
Here are three images processed from the same stack. First with Photomatix then with Enfuse, and finally Enfuse with additional post processing in Photoshop where I applied some local contrast enhancement to give it a slight 'HDR' look. I did this with the USM filter, using a small amount + large radius (approx 14/80).

Photomatix has pulled a lot more detail in the foreground. However one shouldn't don't draw any firm conclusions because Enfuse was on its default settings, whereas I spent a while tweaking the parameters in Photomatix.

Enfuse as above plus Photoshop tweaks
Click to expand...
I too find that a general increase in contrast is necessary after producing the Enfused image as it tends to be flat

Thanks for you rcomments and your help.
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhphoto/
GMT -5
 
Ishpuini said:
Thanks for posting these great examples.

I'm a fan of the LR/Enfuse plugin as well. I mostly use it in my B&W conversion process to enable detail in all parts of the images. After I apply contrast to return to a more normal look.

Note that Enfuse doesn't do HDR accrording to its strict definition but uses an alternative algorithm called enfusion to achieve a similar end result.

I prefer Enfuse since it produces results out-of-the-box that can I can work on in Lightroom. Most HDR software requires too much work for me to get to a result that looks as I want them...

Wim

--
Belgium, GMT+1

Click to expand...
Thanks for the nice comments. I too find that contrast needs to be applied to the enfused image as it comes out of the program somewhat flat but it is easily modifiable in LR or PS.
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhphoto/
GMT -5
 
godfrog said:
I agree about LR/Enfuse, and I given a donation to the creator as well. The images just look a lot better to my eye, they dont have that over-the-top tonemapped look that most software produces, and it does not require as much tweaking as most programs.

It also plugs straight into Lightroom, and further editing is easily done after enfusing to a 16-bit TIFF file.

--
My Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36164047@N06/
Click to expand...
I agree. Thanks for looking
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhphoto/
GMT -5
 
tagged

mind posting small pics of the OG files you used? I'm kind of curious what it looked light...although i do have an idea lol.
 
I know you are not tech support, so I'm not exepecting an answer on this, but wanted to see if anyone else had this problem.

When outputting to a tiff file, the image comes out washed out and with vertical striping. When output is set to jpg, the image is fine, and can finish tweaking it in LR or whatever I am using.

The images it produces are very good - increased detail, without the over the top HDR feel about them.
--
Mark Duke
http://markdukephoto.com/
 
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