It’s important that it’s a 16-bit TIFF – HDR Efex Pro in particular will use every ounce of the image’s tonal range, often stretching the contrast so far that a regular 8-bit image would show serious banding and posterisation. You just click the plugin you want to use from the list and PhotoLab will send it a processed 16-bit TIFF version of the RAW file. This displays the Plugin Selector panel seen here in the middle of the screen. There’s a button in the bottom right corner of the screen to launch the Nik Collection. Now I need to send it to HDR Efex Pro, and that’s easy.
All I’ve done is to use the Highlight Priority – Slight exposure compensation option to bring the highlights back in range, and DxO Smart Lighting set to Slight to keep the shadows from going too dark. I’ve used the split-screen view so that you can compare the slightly overexposed original (left) with the corrected version. Here’s the original RAW file opened in DxO PhotoLab. It’s the expensive route (obviously), but it’s the one I’d recommend. I have PhotoLab 3, the Nik Collection, DxO ViewPoint and DxO FilmPack installed – the full DxO suite. You can buy PhotoLab separately and add the Nik Collection later, but if you get the Nik Collection it comes with PhotoLab Essential anyway – you can upgrade to the Elite version later if you need to. Very often, though, there is enough dynamic range in a single RAW file if it’s processed carefully, and that’s what I’ve used as the starting point here.ĭxO PhotoLab and the Nik Collection are designed to work together. The point of merging exposures is to capture a wider range of brightness values than the can capture with a single exposure, and there are times you need to do that. It may give you better quality, but it also brings potential ghosting and alignment issues. You don’t need to shoot and merge bracketed exposures to use HDR techniques. It works well as a high-contrast black and white image with an almost white sky and simple graphic shapes, but for this version I wanted to see if I could create a much stormier feel. I liked the simple, minimal composition in this scene. PhotoLab was ideal for preparing the photo to make sure it had the maximum tonal range (no highlight or shadow clipping), and HDR Efex Pro added the stormy sky and enhanced structure. So for this shot I used DxO PhotoLab and HDR Efex Pro, the HDR plug-in in the Nik Collection. But it’s also possible to use HDR to enhance regular images to add depth and drama, but winding the effect back just a little so that it’s no longer center stage.
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