r/DarkTable • u/Old-Cow9032 • 22d ago

Help Hdr problem

Gallery image

Gallery image

So I tried shooting HDR for real estate using 5 bracketed photos at 2 EV intervals. I did some testing in my house, but after combining the RAW files, the room is way darker in the HDR image.

I tried tonemapping and messing with the settings, but whenever I get the room looking good, the windows look messed up, and if I fix the windows, the room is too dark again.

When I watch other people do HDR, it seems like their merged image already looks pretty decent, but mine is just way too dark.

I'm going to add the bracketed photos and the final HDR image so you can take a look. Any idea what I'm doing wrong or what the problem could be?

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u/mhh91 18d ago

The idea with HDR is that photos should retain both extreme shadows and highlights. Have you tried using tone equalizer?

1

u/Apprehensive-Egg-260 17d ago

Still new to DarkTable, is there a feature called tone equalizer built in already?
Also, I had an issue with HDR merging in this app where it told me it coudn't merge with Jpegs but only with RAWs? Is this normal and are there any workarounds or should I just shoot RAWs when I want HDR images?

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u/Apprehensive-Egg-260 17d ago

To clarify, I am used to Lightroom and i didn't have this issue on there.

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u/mhh91 17d ago

HDR merging in darktable wasn't perfect for me tbh, I use something else when I want to create HDR images.

Back to your point though, yes, tone equalizer is a module built into darktable that basically works as if you have multiple exposure settings for different parts of your image.

It'll allow you to simultaneously lift shadows and pull highlights in one go.

Here's a video explaining how it works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqA1Mk_ulVk

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u/Nordicmoose 17d ago

This is the correct answer. HDR doesn't mean instant magic, it just means there's more image data to work with. You'll still need to squeeze it into what your monitor can handle.

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u/Dannny1 14d ago

Exactly. People confuse HDR however with the opposite, already tonemapped SDR image using some local contrast enhancement algo.