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Help with Lightroom and Aurora 2018
Jan 4, 2018 14:28:05   #
jayluber Loc: Phoenix, AZ
 
I was processing some photos and I'm having trouble in LR and Aurora with the sky. Sometimes it gets a gradient or halo I did not input as in the sample photo. Can anyone suggest how to fix or avoid the lightening of the sky above the subject matter? I'm editing RAW or DNG files. I did not use the brush to adjust the sky/mountain interface at all. Tried to attach the original but it is too large.

Also, I have Aurora set as plug in for LR. Yesterday I could right click photo and go to Edit In and Aurora showed on the bottom of the pop up screen. Today it is not there. Arrrrggggggg.... Anyone else experience this?

Thanks



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Jan 4, 2018 16:53:02   #
lesdmd Loc: Middleton Wi via N.Y.C. & Cleveland
 
If you are doing HDR processing halos are a common artifact and the reason I have gone to using luminosity masks to combine exposures.

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Jan 4, 2018 18:15:50   #
jayluber Loc: Phoenix, AZ
 
Thanks. Can you tell me more? The sky gradients came from LR in addition to Aurora.

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Jan 4, 2018 21:19:36   #
lesdmd Loc: Middleton Wi via N.Y.C. & Cleveland
 
All HDR software has varying degrees of problems with creating halos. Here is a reasonable explanation as to why it happens:" A quite common occurrence in HDR when you have a dark edge next to a bright edge. The HDR program will try to lighten the dark object in tone mapping and when it does, it feathers or “Smoothes” the gradation to the adjacent area. If that happens to be a light area, it creates a halo." Some products handle the issue better than others; and using the "natural effect" default usually works. Unfortunately, the halos are time consuming and difficult to eliminate and, for me, result in unusable results.
I often "replace" boring, grey, skies, in post processing. To make the result more realistic looking, I will intentionally apply a gradient to make the sky appear lighter at the horizon. Perhaps this is the natural version of what you are seeing in LR, before (I assume) you are doing any modification to your out-of-camera image? In other words, it is normal for the sky to be brightest at the horizon.
If you will tell me (feel free to private message) exactly what you are doing with your image immediately after it is placed in LightRoom, before you use Aurora HDR, and if the halos are visible in the otherwise "untouched" file. I will be happy to trouble shoot with you. Are you shooting RAW or using JPEGS? Is it possible that, if you are having the camera produce those JPEGS it is causing some haloing? I cannot imagine how the Develop module in LR would cause issues.
Now, for Luminosity Masks. Any search of the web will provide you with a wealth of information. They can be produced manually (and are available in Photoshop, but not in LR); and there are software products that will create them for you. In essence, they isolate the dark, light, and midrange portions of the photo and enable one to blend several images together. With a single image they allow one to isolate any tonal range in the image to work selectively on it. The results can be dazzling, and without halos. To use them one must be comfortable with masks and with using layers; and there is a learning curve involved with utilizing them. They solve the problems of HDR software, but are more difficult to use. Let me know if you would like more information

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