Best programs for HDR photography

What do you know about HDR? It can make many kinds of photos much more attractive. The detail in such images is amazing, and the balance of light and dark in the image is greatly improved. Even if you get a special camera, you still need special software to combine photos with different exposures into stunning photos. Just imagine, when you’re inside the Vatican Cathedral, you can take advantage of the best software to enhance the color range, brightness, sharpness, and shadows of a standard photo, and add additional dynamic ranges. Today we’re going to tell you about apps that will help you make your pictures look great.

Liminar Neo

This is a great app for HDR photo merge. It’s great for taking nature or architecture photos. Thanks to AI, even a beginner can easily improve the pictures. The user-friendly interface allows you to quickly understand how to work in the application, and the wide range of functions will amaze even a sophisticated photographer.

Artizen HDR

This program allows you to perform various image adjustments, including the creation of photos with an expanded dynamic range. You can take advantage of additional functions: make batch processing, reduce noise, and add various effects. The program is simple and easy to use and does not require high computer performance. To create a photo you just need to load the original frames, apply tone mapping, and tweak additional settings if necessary.

Lightroom

Lightroom will help you create a pseudo effect. To do this, you need to have the photo in RAW format. This will restore the detail in the dark areas of the frame, but if there is not enough information in the light areas, it will not be possible to pull it out even with the help of the program.

To create a pseudo-HDR effect you will need:

• Load the photo;
• Shift the light slider to minus to make the light areas darker;
• Then move the shadow slider to the plus side, so the dark areas become more detailed.

This is enough to get the effect you want. If digital noise appears on the photo, you can turn on their suppression. You can also change the color temperature of the photo, and change the juiciness, brightness, detail, and other parameters if you want.

Aurora HDR 19

It is a very powerful software developed for Windows and Mac operating systems. Incorporating artificial intelligence into this software, allows you to experience an impressive level of color enhancement. In addition, it also presents you with the highest-quality bracket fusion. With its stunning features, it can satisfy all your editing needs. The Denoise feature of this software intelligently detects and removes all kinds of noise present in your photos while maintaining their original quality. The best thing about this software is that it works both as a standalone application and as a plug-in. It presents you with over 80 unique images to help you decorate your images from scratch. The layers and masking feature of this software give you the freedom to create whatever you want. It is similar to HDR photo merge in its toolset.

Photomatix Pro 

It is another software developed for Windows and Mac operating systems. It allows you to combine your regular photos, taken with different settings, with an HDR image that contains all the detail you need to enhance your photos. This software’s auto-alignment feature eliminates the need for tripods for bracketed photography. During a photo shoot, you may have encountered a situation where everyone looks absolutely perfect except for one person who is moving right when you click your photo. This is definitely very annoying and spoils the whole picture. However, with the ghost removal tool in Photomatix Pro, you can easily cut these ghosts out of your images in no time. 

Photomatix Pro lets you enhance even a single photo with Looks and Contrast Enhancements. It even lets you edit raw photos simply by turning on Exposure Fusion. Sometimes you need to edit multiple photos at once with the same settings. This software allows you to achieve that goal with its batch processing feature, with which you can save time by processing multiple photos at a time. Last but not least, Photomatix Pro offers us a free trial, while its paid version costs $99, which is a one-time fee. It has a similar feature set to the HDR merge program.

EasyHDR

It is another software developed for Windows and Mac operating systems. Thanks to the superior merging capabilities in this software, you can easily combine multiple images with different exposures into a single image. The Tone Mapping feature of this software allows you to get realistic or dramatic results depending on your own requirements. It also provides you with lens distortion and chromatic aberration correction features with which you can make your ordinary photos look extremely professional. You also have complete freedom to enhance a single image or perform batch processing to save your precious time. 

The best thing about this software is that it provides you with a free Adobe Lightroom plug-in. You can use it for image organization and image processing. This software is even compatible with 4K and Retina screens. In addition, it also provides you with a 3D reference table for color correction. Its capabilities are comparable with the best HDR merge software.