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Archive 2014 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue

  
 
DreamInColor
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


I have had success using the "Merge to HDR Pro" method of blending multiple exposures to create one 32-bit image, which I then edit in CR. This has yielded me realistic-looking HDR images in the past. However, something has changed in Photoshop CC, perhaps via an update? I haven't used this feature in a few months, and I tried it this week with some landscape images. For whatever reason, the process makes everything extremely dark. By this, I mean there's a ton of black information in the 32-bit file, and I'm not able to recover anywhere near the shadow areas that I could when I last used this feature. I haven't changed my workflow/technique - I normally shoot up to nine exposures from very underexposed - overexposed, then merge these to create the 32-bit file. In the past there's been a ton of "room" to recover shadows (reduce highlights, increase shadows) in CR, but now there's just too much "dark" information in the file. I've tried using minimal underexposed images and additional overexposed, but in the end, all the 32-bit files contain excessive dark information. I even went back to some of my previous images, and sure enough -- I'm unable to re-create what I did then.

Has anyone else experienced this issue?



Feb 02, 2014 at 07:34 AM
Mr Joe
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


I have CS6 at home, and CC at work. I'd be happy to test for you if that would be helpful. What type of RAW files are you using? Do you want to put 2-3 files on box or Dropbox for me to test with?


Feb 03, 2014 at 09:02 PM
DreamInColor
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


Mr Joe wrote:
I have CS6 at home, and CC at work. I'd be happy to test for you if that would be helpful. What type of RAW files are you using? Do you want to put 2-3 files on box or Dropbox for me to test with?


Thanks for the offer. I've actually processed the same RAW files (CR2 and DNG) through CS5, CS6 and CC. The latter consistently produces a 32-bit image that is so dark it's literally unusable. CS5 and CS6 produce very usable images, with plenty of shadow recovery information. I've been reading the Adobe forums, but I've seen nothing about this particular issue. Strange...



Feb 04, 2014 at 08:57 AM
Bifurcator
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


The difference between CS6 and CC is that there are now a few more options and the defaults are not what you might expect - coming from CS6. But CS6 results are perfectly duplicatable in CC. Just choose the proper settings after sussing out what they are.


Feb 04, 2014 at 09:02 AM
DreamInColor
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


Bifurcator wrote:
The difference between CS6 and CC is that there are now a few more options and the defaults are not what you might expect - coming from CS6. But CS6 results are perfectly duplicatable in CC. Just choose the proper settings after sussing out what they are.


Thanks for the suggestion. I have had success using this technique with Photoshop CC in the past -- something appears to have changed recently that is resulting in the very dark 32-bit images. I'm testing the process with CC on a different machine to see if I can isolate the issue.



Feb 04, 2014 at 11:15 AM
DreamInColor
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


Update:

1) This issue is now occurring on three separate machines (all iMacs). One has Maverick, one has 10.8, and the other 10.7.5. All have Photoshop CC, with the latest updates installed.

2) I phoned Adobe. They are completely unaware of the issue and could not provide a solution, aside from suggesting I uninstall/re-install the software.

Ugh……..



Feb 16, 2014 at 08:35 PM
Bifurcator
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


2) This is why I think "support" from most companies is meaningless. Unless you have the same problem that literally everyone else has already had or it's a problem born of extreme user ignorance, they typically got nothing.

1) With nine exposures and a good exposure spread PS CC should be able to map some great tonality. Are you setting the middle exposure to the (+0) middle and giving the correct values to the spread images? What does the 32bit histogram look like in ACR?




Feb 16, 2014 at 09:35 PM
DreamInColor
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


Bifurcator wrote:
1) With nine exposures and a good exposure spread PS CC should be able to map some great tonality. Are you setting the middle exposure to the (+0) middle and giving the correct values to the spread images? What does the 32bit histogram look like in ACR?


Whatever is causing this issue, it is something that has happened recently -- perhaps through an "update" of PS CC or some other oddity. I have tried many different exposure sets taken with different camera bodies and lenses, and the issue persists in all cases. I have also re-done some exposures I had previous success with and am unable to recreate the original result (not even close in fact). Specifically, after merging the exposures in using Merge to HDR Pro, the resulting image that opens in ACR is unusably dark. Normally, there's a ton of room to lift the shadows/blacks to recover dark area and lower the highlights to preserve the lighter areas of the image. Now this is no longer possible. I've attached three separate images which will hopefully illustrate this issue. This particular series was shot with a Nikon D800e / 14-24mm.

I have not altered my workflow nor the method by which I expose the images in the camera. I have tried this process in CS5, and the results are as I used to obtain in CC before the issue arose.








Initial screen after merging exposures using "Merge to HDR Pro"







Initial image that appears in ACR







ACR image with Shadows and Blacks at 100% - still way too much dark information.




Feb 18, 2014 at 08:03 AM
bobrcw
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


When I do this in CS6, Merge to HDR Pro doesn't present the option to "Complete Toning in Adobe Camera Raw." I click OK out of HDR Pro and then save a 32-bit Tif out of PS. Then from Bridge, I open that file in ACR. Is that your workflow in CS5 and CS6? Have you tried unchecking the Complete Toning in ACR option in CC and then saving out of PS and reopening in ACR? You might also try opening a 32-bit Tif saved out of PS CC in ACR CS5 or CS6.


Feb 18, 2014 at 10:16 AM
redcrown
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


DreaminColor,

I had not used Merge to HDR Pro on my Win7 Photoshop CC installation yet (used it many times with CS6), so I did a compare. Turns out my CC version works fine, almost the same as CS6 with one curious difference.

However, in your screen shots I noticed two things:

1. In your Merge HDR Pro screen you have the "Set White Point Preview" slider all the way to the right. That will give a very dark preview. That HDR preview and slider have always been a mystery to me. Moving that slider to the extremes certainly changes the preview, but does not affect the resulting output MUCH. Delibrate emphasis on "much" because in my previous tests it does affect the result, but only very slightly.

2. In your second ACR screen you have shadows and blacks at the max 100, but you have no adjustment in Exposure. That will definitely create a very dark image. The secret to this process is in making fairly large positive adjustments in Exposure. Note that when ACR processes a 32 bit (HDR) image, the Exposure slider range is expanded from the normal 5 stops to 10 stops. There is a reason for that.

The best process, and the one I learned from various tutorials, is to adjust Exposure first, usually in a range of +3.5 to +7.0. Then adjust highlights and shadows. I rarely adjust blacks.

But back to my CC vs. CS6 comparison. When I processed the same 6 bracket set of raw images with identical settings in both the Merge and ACR steps, the CC version came out slightly darker than the CS6 version. Both versions were quite useable, but I can't explain the slight difference.



Feb 18, 2014 at 11:37 AM
DreamInColor
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


bobrcw wrote:
When I do this in CS6, Merge to HDR Pro doesn't present the option to "Complete Toning in Adobe Camera Raw." I click OK out of HDR Pro and then save a 32-bit Tif out of PS. Then from Bridge, I open that file in ACR. Is that your workflow in CS5 and CS6? Have you tried unchecking the Complete Toning in ACR option in CC and then saving out of PS and reopening in ACR? You might also try opening a 32-bit Tif saved out of PS CC in ACR CS5 or CS6.


Thanks for the reply. As I understand it, the "Complete Toning in CR" is part of the Photoshop CC upgrade. I have indeed tried to save the merged file as a Tiff and then reopen in ACR. I still ended up with the very dark file. However, when I use the Merge to HDR Pro using CS5, I get a very usable file (as I used to get from CC before this issue began).



Feb 18, 2014 at 04:35 PM
DreamInColor
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Photoshop CC - 32-bit Merge to HDR Issue


redcrown wrote:
DreaminColor,

I had not used Merge to HDR Pro on my Win7 Photoshop CC installation yet (used it many times with CS6), so I did a compare. Turns out my CC version works fine, almost the same as CS6 with one curious difference.

However, in your screen shots I noticed two things:

1. In your Merge HDR Pro screen you have the "Set White Point Preview" slider all the way to the right. That will give a very dark preview. That HDR preview and slider have always been a mystery to me. Moving that slider to the extremes certainly changes the preview, but
...Show more

Thanks very much for the suggestions:

1. Regarding the "Set White Balance" slider. I've tried moving that around to various settings, but I've seen no appreciable difference in the resulting 32-bit image that opens in ACR. A mystery to me too!

2. I tried the technique you described and managed to get an "ok" version of the image. However, the shadow areas are still very dark. This after I moved Exposure to where the sky should be (as I saw it that day). And again, there appears to be far less "flexibility" in adjusting the image as there was before this issue started occurring. When I used this process before in PS CC, I was able get the image very close to where I desired by lowering the Highlights to 0 and raising the Shadows to 90 (give/take). I would then make adjustments to Exposure (and sometime a few to Whites/Blacks) to fine tune the image. As you know, there's tons of flexibility with Contrast/Clarity/Vibrance/Saturation depending on how "far out" you want to go with the image.

I've tried this process with several exposure sets that I had success with in the past, and I'm unable to achieve anything even resembling those images now. So something has definitely changed here. I've kept in touch with Adobe about this issue and sent them some sample images to illustrate the problem. For now, I may re-insall CS6 to see how different the results might be.

Again, I'm very appreciative of your feedback!




Feb 18, 2014 at 04:52 PM





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