Aurora HDR Tutorial and Review

ronmartblog.com does a live walkthrough and tutorial on this hot new HDR photo editing product for the Mac.

---

Closed Caption:

this is Ron Martin sent abroad Mark long
dot com and I'm really excited to talk
to you today about a cool new program
called or HDR by Mac fun and tree right
now for now this product is only
available on the Mac but it will
eventually come to Windows so hang in
there when those fans I wanted to also
point out that I'm using older MacBook
Pro from 2010 only eight gigs of memory
and only 500 rolls gives of issues and
bites of graphics memory so this isn't a
super powerful machine I'm not using out
capitan simply just because I haven't
upgraded and have no desire to upgrade
and that the images I'm going to be
using today our full-size images so
definitely not a super fast machine
nothing's being done to make the
performance super fast for the demo so
just want to be transparent about that
come down here and it's not running
already motherhood Photoshop is running
them go ahead and start up Aurora HDR
Pro and I'm doing this because it's
really pretty decent performing products
and so I've been really happy about that
by default it comes with sample images
this is the final version but as the
demo version just because I haven't got
my product idea yet so this is the same
as you'd get if you did a free trial so
you can load the sample images like
about the product and say create HDR is
going to the far right now and just get
passes a lunch tomorrow so it comes up
pretty quickly and you'll see that
doesn't take a whole lot of time to
merge the images but tone mapping part
that's really the most time-consuming
part of the process and so comes up and
I'm gonna talk about the UI a little bit
first four starters if you want to
integrate with any products you can come
over here to the install plugins are
those will just happen automatically the
first time around
the product of a prompt to you and you
can do it after the facts of life you
have this product before you install
Adobe products you can take this step
and you can detect what's on the system
and allow you to install or uninstall
them again this will happen
automatically the first time you're on
the product so doesn't yet to do but i
just like a great design that they did
this work can be run at any time and
actually installed and uninstalled as
you desire
another cool thing is that over here on
the right hand side there's a lot of
powerful panels but it can be kind of
overwhelming to people who like things
to be lonnie organized by person you
like mine like this where things are
opened opened up but for those who don't
like that probably one thing you won't
hear much about is that if I go into
here to the View menu there's a single
view mode and that allows you to just
see one of the time and some people are
gonna find this much more satisfying
because it's not quite so confusing
having that so for the purposes damn I'm
gonna do it this way just to make things
a little more clear you can also use the
view
toggle presets for the Tab key somewhere
to use the Tab key year and it will show
you all the presets that it shows you
real-time what it's going to look like
with your actual image that you're using
so I started with the user presets if
you've done the pre order these are the
presets that you get for doing the pre
order but if you don't have that that's
ok there's a lot of great ones that come
with it there's basic architecture
landscape and so on one of the ones I
think a lot of people like trees preset
succumb built in
so I'm gonna just click on one like
angels but then you see it's a little
dark but there's a whole bunch to choose
from I'm a comin mouse clicker site and
to distract like this but it's actually
easier to use the touchpad sliding back
and forth like a Windows system are you
just touch it and scroll a better than
earache come back over here to user I'm
actually gonna try out one of the ones
that came with the bundle called by the
nation's actually like down really good
starting point here and you'll notice
when I hover over these there's a little
star that allows me to market as a
favorite kiss I wanna keep this in mind
there's so many priests etc built in
that ass kind of handy so if I come in I
can do things like create layers and so
on and I'll get in bed later so let's
actually talk a little bit about the
main UI so this is a trial version so
you there's not anything that open and
export but if you did want to export you
could create a file or continued
applications and sites and stuff and so
if your Mac fun user if you're familiar
with how to transfer between products so
you don't have to go save the file and
go find it and finder and then open it
up you can actually send the file with
all your edits directly over to the
other products and transfer between them
so it's great just functionalities death
disabled for the demo but if you buy the
full product is available as your
typical being able to view images that
hundred percent and fit to screen and
then you know typical features you want
to see a before and after 20 years
before after and so this is basically
turning off all the settings under have
been sent here from one of your crease
thats
and showing you what the basic HDR was
like after it was done if you wanna do a
different kind of compare you can do
this type here which will give you a
real time slider truly smooth and allows
you to show impact another thing you can
do is to side by side was pretty cool
and turn that off and if you wanna do I
do like I come in here and I make
changes just randomly sliding bars I can
come in here and have multiple stages
and I'm due to get back to the state
that I was and from the very beginning
that after a preset actually after the
second prosthetic ok so next up you have
the ability to crop your image so you
know say you don't like how does corner
was doing here we had a little bit and
that's one advantage to being a
standalone application but as I
mentioned there is integration support
other products so it is standalone but
it does play well with other products
you can use the stuff I go into full
size I can cook and driver is using the
hardware acceleration so it's really
fast I'll talk about russia's we start
her players actually Cisco do that
tonight I'm gonna do as I'm gonna add a
layer and it was gonna come this
secondly I'm going to choose just
another preset and I can you look
carefully here a paucity I slide this
slider here it has an impact on the
paucity and so cool thing is is that you
can decide how much you want to this
effect right off the bat or you can do
it later just how city but those kind of
nice built-in feature you can market as
a favorite
and by default this is a layer that is
fully visible now I come in with the
brush and I look at this light a fault
it's going to be 50 percent and I paint
over the sky but that's gonna do it
that's going to create new layer that
has a mask black conceals and white
reveals and sexy showing up is great
because it's the middle black and white
is correct and so 50% of the effect of
showing that's usually a good starting
point for some people they say you know
I want to support to come in right away
rather than paying a bunch of times you
can come in here to 100% and just get a
whole effect in there just ran away
again I guess it's white and black
times people do between 33 and 50% is
kind of pain n adding until they have
the right amount that they want but
sometimes you know what you're doing
that out just a little tip you wanna see
them asked why I can't and you can see
that it's a solid mass custom tailoring
on the
and clear out the mask you can convert
it create luminosity masks dropping the
mask all sorts of cool things you can do
with it he did too much they just wanted
everyone else I type this other side of
each year from over this site you'll see
it puts in like in here so take it out
of that part
to do is restore running disclosed up
more and I'm gonna load my own images so
I have three images taken from Japan and
CCI have no exposure my dark my life
exposure and you know I can enter online
to see can see those reduction and
chromatic aberrations just go ahead and
turn all three on and let's show you how
long it takes
halftime was adopted at HDR image of all
three of those and look pretty good
actually right off the bat little time
playing around with it now this isn't
hearst I'm gonna do this just on the fly
and the primary reason for doing that
it's cause I'm learning the product and
I want to just sort of experiment show
you what's their agency up in that top
here showing that there's three
exposures ranging from negative to 20
deposit 23 images and the same basic
information and that this is actually a
big big smile that is so great that the
image is combined and so let's start
with tone mapping so by default I found
it you know I'm pretty happy life easier
to the process you can see some
modifications one of the things I like
to do what happened to product is this
experiment to see what these things do
there's additional stuff talk about my
website about functionality that
existing product I'm gonna just can I
show you some of these things do because
there's some of the descriptions they
have and some of their videos right that
good sometimes just picture is worth a
thousand words so if I drag this
spectrum all the way over to see more
detail
came in appearing at top and then if I
double click this like Lightroom and
other products
results back to zero and you'll see how
a little darker and then if I pulled us
all over to the right to see it got even
darker so you can see that it gets
brighter as I go to left and darker as I
go to the right and I like to just do
this but I'm just gonna see what's
happening so if I do spot lighting and
other stories like a little change that
happened here to see what happened there
right
to call some of that and then textures
darker here to write a little brighter
there so it's kind of breaking up the
shadows and so trail public talk more
detail about these things specifically
do and you can always resell it to
double back in there and so smart tone
and we'll just crank that guy all the
way up to see this really answered all
up and a lot of nasty things start
happening up here not really well and if
we turn it all the way down we get a
really nice dark image but maybe a
little too dark as part of HDR is being
able to see some things that were lost
in the shadows so it's reset that and
then you know the story what the
highlight Jones shadows do you want to
try to spend more time working on these
one of the way one of the many ways that
I could do that would be that I would
come to these highlights down a little
more detail in those areas and while
we're on that subject let's just go
ahead and show you a little experiment
so let's go ahead and do it later for
this one
one of the really really cool features
as I can come in here and say that for
this layer that the system is either
previous layer texture download or I can
pick which one of the frames that one
are you know a lot of time she spent a
lot of time going back over to Photoshop
and bringing in those other train sets a
lot of tedious work so this is all
really nicely integrated and so I'm
gonna take the dark stream that in there
and remember by default it's going to be
a hundred percent so I wanted to turn
any gifts yet actually applied at all my
presets just you know
getting distracted by that and you know
this is all happening real time since we
keep seeing refreshes and so I came in
and I couldn't just a pass today that's
not really what I want to do what I
really want to do so said that to this
when you hear what I want to do
something to paint and what I want to
paint is just keep this little lamb
sheer groups are all success in this
area here because that dark exposure has
it pretty close to the way that I want
it and we know that many races shadow
area back here as well now sadly when
features a painful missing is that there
is no I don't edge detection brush like
you would have turned on the auto
feature in Lightroom online really wish
they had that but unfortunately it's not
there again remember these effects are
at 50% so if I said you know hey I
really want to bring all of it from him
back here
larger ain't exactly the way it was
never trained and so it's kind of other
cool things about HDR as you have that
other friend is a picture editing
summary of that other frame you can use
to recover some of those details they
get lost
actually coming here and do it to this
guy is low so there's
smaller at and I'll be back there and
listen here may or may not want to do it
personal preference share details back
and if you had him or brackets the one
you wanted
so this is really nice that you can do
that without spend a lot of hassle
especially if you're coming from
Lightroom were you don't have the luxury
of being able to really benefit so now
that we have that when I create another
layer cuz she's gonna be cumulative so
or changes I'm gonna come over here and
we can start playing with things like
that clarity see how this plays out more
details just like in my room is clarity
I want to play with the HDR look good
although it really garrison St Jean or I
could turn all the way down to get
turned off by default it's around zero
and if I apply this other thing you can
do is you can just after harder edged
and you can do some boost see if I do
this boosts are springing details out
here at the expense of some noise so
this is one that I actually don't play
with a whole lot I wanted to show you
this image I think I'll probably during
low clarity and then she talked a lot
about a chair do you tell can pull that
out start seeing it really kinda heavy
duty effects are still uncertain St
things shadow areas like this office
again I'm I'm not really big fan of that
I didn't like more realistic
turn that off and then come out and down
here and actually just for a moment ago
talking point I'm going to add that
nastiness back one built-in features
noise reduction so if I didn't decide on
my despite this effect by then like all
the noise that it that it came in here
and I'm just gonna go radical get over
200 and if I actually zoom into a
hundred percent were here
side effect back in a second smooth it
out even more I lose detail so it's
going to create some softness so you
know the bill tonight reductions great
if any later if you a nice treat us the
what it looks like with or without
abstract
turning on and off ok cause more harm
than good
a lot of nice texture and hear that I
lose weight reduction and sometimes I
can make you go back and revisit severe
prior decisions I'm gonna actually reset
this fact that this next year and I'm
gonna go get cranked up clarity
surrounding that all I want to see some
texture texture here and then for Noah's
reduction I'm gonna try to find my happy
place that we can afford to render you
see this whole thing here screen during
and I'm gonna try to get rid of some of
this colored noise it happened here
without ruining too much detail here
is that that just now I'm a big fan of
hers and excuse me I was at McSorleys
product by having this integrated
Stephanie big time saver and probably
easier way to go for HDR stand-alone I'd
still probably use knows where but says
this is a good solution
next up is image gradients now back off
again I have no idea honestly with this
thing is that I watched the videos and I
have a really convinced that we have a
good explanation of it again tricia is
worth a thousand words I just turn the
sucker all the way on and what it does
is kinda creates like all like the tray
effect right click images have the kind
I like this
reached homes and a nice movements to
them that just looks really cool stuff
and this was just kind of taking it too
far so I'm gonna back it off I like
what's happening with that so i'm gona
kinda cool little more aggressive with
it and you can bring back the detail or
you can make it even softer and I'm
gonna go and bring back a little bit of
the detail and again you can adjust the
brightness can give you that and kind of
break lower fact turned off I'm not
gonna actually do anything like that so
I double click Reset that and then
there's a school thing called Smart
colorized this is like to me it feels
like luxury coloration image for your
area I think a lot of the struggles to
kind of get really cool color effects as
i cant that up
start to see it kind of feels a lot like
my trees images and I do that the
yellows can get out of control so cool
thing is I can come in here and I just
might want then maybe not have so much
of it like something that just not too
much of it so it was really kinda cool
feature more traditional you want to do
saturation vibrates
contrast and so on you're welcome to do
that I tend to avoid saturation lesser
really knew that but it's there to do
some color contrast and so on
can see how that works and I'm gonna
really do much they're just a little bit
extra vibrance to have a more saturated
then for details now want you to kind of
just it's actually easier for you here
to the city here I'm gonna come into my
highlights and I'm gonna try to get this
under control choose so what happens is
always a way to go to the right you got
a you know a lot more detail team and
this thing gets less blown out and if
all way too left it got brighter so that
states lost and so this is a cool way
for your blood areas to bring details
back another place where this had a
positive impact in this image here and
of course to catch up rendering again
this is a slow systems if you have a
system is gonna be really quick but I'm
gonna go ahead and show you watch this
area here I'm gonna turn this effect
turn it on and you see the israeli
detailed characters start coming in a
lot crisper and so this is a really nice
way to do find him
adjustments and so I want to come in and
do the same thing here for the small
details now these characters that were
once lost her now back and you know you
not always 100% that's the starting
point you can I justed and this is gonna
have ramifications to your home is not
just these areas that we want so start
getting to jagged like we're seeing here
on the speaker character
you can dial it back but it's a it's a
really cool way to try to bring back
some details and don't forget you can
always create a layer and just apply
this to just the things you want so I
wanted to just bring back to a small
characters I could create a new layer
mask and just that stuff and then has no
impact on the rest of the image so
really critical and then it has some
masking built-in as well
now we're going to do some clothes anglo
just gives you this kind of effect I'm
not a big fan of it but those who like
it you can always create another layer
if you want just the fact that a top
bottom lighting this was actually pretty
cool so scared to go out we can see
everything we're gonna let our image
ketchup as a slot machine so just
seconds we should would like that but at
any rate we're gonna do here is right
now there's no effect in turn this from
happening but watch what happens if I go
to bottom so it's more pronounced it
right things get really bright on the
street all eight left it's really dark
on the street and so essentially what
I'm doing a gradient filter filter on
here to selectively just for the image
so great way to see this in action this
all the way out see it's real bright
zero dark up there and then let's go
ahead and play with the shift she goes
up and down actually see you to do this
and road and then you can also affect
the blend much you use this type of
control a room just a little nicer user
interface for it a little more friendly
so it's good reset that one for this
image what I'm gonna do it is I'm
actually going to get a little bit on
the street and again you can create new
layers if you want to do
a little bit to top to bottom out that
turnout tone curve and color filter what
you've probably seen already and other
products are not only talk about that
next interesting one is called Color
Tony and this is very similar to do just
color effects they have a bye color
filters so they're being pretty neutral
density filter its 12 colored filter and
so this one let's consider this option
we have a kind of a bluish on the top
and orange juice on the bottom so if I
were to come and look at this area here
under
ok so if I were to turn this in fact
it's kind of yellow journalism subtle
try different color so you can see this
again is timeless do with bringing it to
a different shade happen here
protection against you more drastic and
show this allows you to a simpler way
colorized you can choose different
colors and so on so you can do your own
colors you can do that so this one here
and when he said it
take a look at the net and so how this
works just adding either late or dark
and yet nothing special so just gonna
move on there and in places center like
other products and then there's a
factual error itself all the changes we
made on the slayer who wanted to just a
paucity of those changes we can deliver
all over
heavy-handed and stuff we could do that
just like before other products in
different blending modes and you can
choose what they are you applying on so
on so that's pretty much it you know
there's a lot of really great stuff here
really powerful Shiite the layers
forcefully great sport
activist for some nasty mask is awesome
lot of great presets and you know we did
quite a bit
you know if you look at our and after
work for something pretty boring which
is what you typically get your average
agency our product and turn it into
something cool without making it too
horribly garish and nasty there
certainly wanted to bring details back
in here and prove that we would need to
do but in this particular image it does
really add value I like the results that
God and I got a lot faster than I got
Photoshop videos been probably 30
minutes be seeing a lot of explaining to
do so by working I know I could
understand 10 minutes and you know doing
the same type of editing in Photoshop
class till I did this particular image
took me a couple hours to get everything
felt in the way that I have it here and
so I was really satisfied with it the
user interface is really smooth fast
there's a little bit of rendering things
that have time to time just as pretty
old systems the fact that it is doing
this well
is as impressive city of one of the
newer systems you're really gonna be
pleased to performance it's just a
really great product
super excited about it really wish it
was on Windows primarily a Windows user
but I think you're gonna love it so I
would strongly encourage you to check it
out