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Which software is best for making luminosity masks to combine images with different exposures?

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Theovv

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Hi guys,

I have been looking for a technique for landscape photography to blend multiple photo's with different exposures (at least 1 underexposed for the sky, 1 normal exposed and 1 overexposed for the foreground) into 1 photo, by using luminosity masks.

Until now, I have been doing this with 32bit HDR from lightroom to photoshop and back, to avoid the real HDR-look, that I don't like. But it gives me not enough contral to adjust the photos locally. So that's why I became enthousiastic about Luminosity masks, but I've havent started using them.

I want to try to achieve the best quality as possible and start learning on a specific panel or software. I found many types of software, like TK7, Raya Pro/Instamask, Lumi32, Lumenzia.
Without having tested those, I am leaning towards Lumenzia, which seems to be a favourite choice, or Lumi32, because it seems to offer the highest quality, with a special software and an algorithm designed to do just that: create the best luminosity masks.
What are your opinions about the best (in highest quality) luminosity masking software or panel, especially about Lumenzia and Lumi 32? A tool with good free tutorials would also be a pro.

(I also kinda wonder why Jimmy McIntyre now offers Raya Pro, Instamask and Lumi 32 which can all be used for luminosity masks in another way. I know Raya Pro offers other tools as well, but which one of those 3 is the best for luminosity masking and what is the difference?)

Thanks in advance!
 
TKPanels is highly regarded but has a learning curve. I'd suggest starting with something simple and free like Jimmy McIntyre's Easy Panel

https://www.shutterevolve.com/photoshop-powerpack/

The panel has a link to a tutorial.

If you want to spend a bit of money but not too much on something that is a bit more powerful but still easy to use McIntyre recently released Lumi32

https://www.shutterevolve.com/lumi32-powerful-32-bit-luminosity-mask-plugin/

Once you're comfortable with luminosity masks and if you feel you need something more powerful, then TKPanels is probably what you'd want to get.
 
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Thank you for your advice!

What does Tk7 offer more or better than Lumi32?
 
Theovv said:
I want to try to achieve the best quality as possible and start learning on a specific panel or software. I found many types of software, like TK7, Raya Pro/Instamask, Lumi32, Lumenzia.
Click to expand...
Did not see the one below in your list ... check it out.

ADPro panel.

 
Theovv said:
Hi guys,

I have been looking for a technique for landscape photography to blend multiple photo's with different exposures (at least 1 underexposed for the sky, 1 normal exposed and 1 overexposed for the foreground) into 1 photo, by using luminosity masks.

Until now, I have been doing this with 32bit HDR from lightroom to photoshop and back, to avoid the real HDR-look, that I don't like.
Click to expand...
Do you ever just do it all in Merge to HDR in Lr? I like the natural results too and of course the result is still a raw file and no pre-developing of the individual files is necessary which is nice. I was just wondering what you did with the file in PS since you said you made a round trip.
Theovv said:
But it gives me not enough contral to adjust the photos locally. So that's why I became enthousiastic about Luminosity masks, but I've havent started using them.

I want to try to achieve the best quality as possible and start learning on a specific panel or software. I found many types of software, like TK7, Raya Pro/Instamask, Lumi32, Lumenzia.
Without having tested those, I am leaning towards Lumenzia, which seems to be a favourite choice, or Lumi32, because it seems to offer the highest quality, with a special software and an algorithm designed to do just that: create the best luminosity masks.
What are your opinions about the best (in highest quality) luminosity masking software or panel, especially about Lumenzia and Lumi 32? A tool with good free tutorials would also be a pro.

(I also kinda wonder why Jimmy McIntyre now offers Raya Pro, Instamask and Lumi 32 which can all be used for luminosity masks in another way. I know Raya Pro offers other tools as well, but which one of those 3 is the best for luminosity masking and what is the difference?)

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
 
Theovv said:
Hi guys,

I have been looking for a technique for landscape photography to blend multiple photo's with different exposures (at least 1 underexposed for the sky, 1 normal exposed and 1 overexposed for the foreground) into 1 photo, by using luminosity masks.

Until now, I have been doing this with 32bit HDR from lightroom to photoshop and back, to avoid the real HDR-look, that I don't like. But it gives me not enough contral to adjust the photos locally. So that's why I became enthousiastic about Luminosity masks, but I've havent started using them.

I want to try to achieve the best quality as possible and start learning on a specific panel or software. I found many types of software, like TK7, Raya Pro/Instamask, Lumi32, Lumenzia.
Without having tested those, I am leaning towards Lumenzia, which seems to be a favourite choice, or Lumi32, because it seems to offer the highest quality, with a special software and an algorithm designed to do just that: create the best luminosity masks.
What are your opinions about the best (in highest quality) luminosity masking software or panel, especially about Lumenzia and Lumi 32? A tool with good free tutorials would also be a pro.

(I also kinda wonder why Jimmy McIntyre now offers Raya Pro, Instamask and Lumi 32 which can all be used for luminosity masks in another way. I know Raya Pro offers other tools as well, but which one of those 3 is the best for luminosity masking and what is the difference?)

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
I think that as long as you chose one with 32 bit masks then it doesn’t matter much. I’ve been using TK for years, and the luminosity part of PP is the least of my worries :). This is a huge space and time- sink, do don’t agonize too much over this.
 
Yes, I've tried that as well. What I do normally is selecting multiple photo's of the same scene, with different exposures for each photo, and then select "Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop". After the Photoshop proces it comes back in 1 file in LR. It does look natural, but I don't think this offers the best possible results for landscapes with high contrast between the sky and the foreground. It still needs local adjustments and it would be better to do those local adjustments with luminosity masks, instead of graduated filters etc.
 
Do other programs also offer 32-bit masks? I thought Lumi32 was the only one. At least, Lumenzia and Raya don't offer it.

What is the advantage of 32-bit masks compared to 8 or 16 bit?
 
Theovv said:
Yes, I've tried that as well. What I do normally is selecting multiple photo's of the same scene, with different exposures for each photo, and then select "Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop". After the Photoshop proces it comes back in 1 file in LR. It does look natural, but I don't think this offers the best possible results for landscapes with high contrast between the sky and the foreground. It still needs local adjustments and it would be better to do those local adjustments with luminosity masks, instead of graduated filters etc.
Click to expand...
The Photoshop Merge to HDR Pro command isn't as good as Lightroom's HDR or some other HDR programs. Photoshop's Merge to HDR Pro would be my last choice for HDR while Lightroom's HDR is my first choice.
 
While we are on the topic of HDR the best way to shoot multiple exposures for HDR or Luminosity Masking is:

ETTR, ETTR plus X-Stops, ETTR plus X+X-Stops, etc. where X-Stops is increment in stops between each exposure. For example ETTR, ETTR+2, ETTR+4, etc.

The ETTR exposure will capture all of the highlights in the brightest highlight that should retain details so there is no need for lower exposures, only higher exposures to capture more low noise shadow details.

Note that there are highlights such as specular highlights that shouldn't have any details. Using the camera's Highlight Alert will help differentiate between highlights that shouldn't clip and ones that should.

--
Living and loving it in Pattaya, Thailand. Canon 5DS R & 7D - See the gear list for the rest.
 
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Sailor Blue said:
Theovv said:
Yes, I've tried that as well. What I do normally is selecting multiple photo's of the same scene, with different exposures for each photo, and then select "Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop". After the Photoshop proces it comes back in 1 file in LR. It does look natural, but I don't think this offers the best possible results for landscapes with high contrast between the sky and the foreground. It still needs local adjustments and it would be better to do those local adjustments with luminosity masks, instead of graduated filters etc.
Click to expand...
The Photoshop Merge to HDR Pro command isn't as good as Lightroom's HDR or some other HDR programs. Photoshop's Merge to HDR Pro would be my last choice for HDR while Lightroom's HDR is my first choice.
Click to expand...
Totally agree.
 
Thank you.

The point is that I don't like HDR at all, because it doesn't give me enough control in editing the highlights, shadows and midtones.
 
Thank you for this advice! I have to look into my camera (Sony A7R IV) on how to set this up (ettr).
 
Theovv said:
Thank you for this advice! I have to look into my camera (Sony A7R IV) on how to set this up (ettr).
Click to expand...
I don't think you will find the ETTR term (expose to the right - on the histogram) in your menu or manual exactly. All that means is to increase exposure as much as possible without blowing out the highlights. The information on the histogram will touch the right side without climbing up. But keep in mind that is a jpeg representation, and the raw file can actually take more exposure without the highlights blowing out.

You can open one of your raw files in Fast Raw Viewer to see if the raw file is actually over exposing the highlights or not. And you will often be surprised to see that the raw file can take a lot more exposure than you thought.

--
Ernie Misner
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erniemisner/
"I bet we'll find hints of extraterrestrial life before 2030" - Jamie Shreeve, Popular Science
 
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Theovv said:
Thank you for this advice! I have to look into my camera (Sony A7R IV) on how to set this up (ettr).
Click to expand...
Something else to check in your manual. You can probably set number of shots as well as the exposure range for a set of bracketed shots and if you use a timer the camera will take all the shots automatically; no need to press the shutter multiple times (in case you didn't already know this ...you probably did.)
 
I also find that one or two underexposed shots are necessary to get more detail in very bright areas .
 
Sailor Blue said:
The Photoshop Merge to HDR Pro command isn't as good as Lightroom's HDR or some other HDR programs. Photoshop's Merge to HDR Pro would be my last choice for HDR while Lightroom's HDR is my first choice.
Click to expand...
I was glad to see what you wrote. I thought I was missing something based on the OPs description of his workflow.
 
Theovv said:
Thank you.

The point is that I don't like HDR at all, because it doesn't give me enough control in editing the highlights, shadows and midtones.
Click to expand...
Is there any advantage to doing some localized work on the individual frames that are to be combined before they are combined? To give a simple example of what I mean - Sometimes locally toning down some highlights on the 'over-exposed' frame or doing the opposite, working on bringing up some shadows locally on the 'under-exposed' frame before combining making a difference in the combined HDR final image LR gives you.

What I find the most limiting in LR's HDR process is the lack of an ability to selectively manually mask anything from each frame before being combined. I would love to see Adobe implement this feature in the future, I think it would be a massive improvement.

--
Thanks,
Mike
https://www.instagram.com/mikefinleyco/
 
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mfinley said:
Sometimes locally toning down some highlights on the 'over-exposed' frame or doing the opposite, working on bringing up some shadows locally on the 'under-exposed' frame before combining making a difference in the combined HDR final image LR gives you.
Click to expand...
You can do that, but I don't want the highlights from the overexposured frame or shadows of the under exposed frame, I want to combine to well exposed parts of each frame, and with luminosity masks, I can select and combine those parts.
 
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