Sep 07 2009
Creating HDR Images Directly in Lightroom – Video Tutorial
Here I was just doing my daily Web surfing when I came across a Youtube video by Michael James. In this video, he compares various ways of creating HDR images. The one that caught my attention was Lightroom plugin Enfuse. The reason it caught my attention was the fact that I could create an HDR image directly in Lightroom without ever leaving Lightroom! I’m all about workflow efficiency and this option sounded great. If you missed my Photoshop tutorial on HDR, you can also check it out.
The best news of all is that it does work really well. In this Lightroom tutorial, I’ll show you how to install, configure and use the Enfuse plugin. But before we get to the video, here’s what you need to do first.
1- Download and install the Enfuse application. You need to have the application installed for the plugin to work.
2- Download the Enfuse Lightroom plugin HERE (top right). It’s donationware. You can still use it without a donation but your images will be saved at 500px.
3- Unzip and put the LREnfuse.lrplugin folder in your desired location.
The rest of the steps are shown in the video, so let’s get right to it!
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Hello YAnik
Tahnks for this info . When I click on save 2- Download the Enfuse Lightroom plugin HERE (top right)I get only a PC ( not Mac) option
Will you have a mac version?
Regards
Ricardo Baez
@ Ricardo
Check out the instructions here: http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/lrenfuse.php?sec=install
they explain how to install for Mac.
great plugin and tutorial Yanik,
as what I can understand from other HDR softwares incl CS4, you often use 3 exposures at -2, 0, +2 stops. Here it seems you get a great result using 2 images. What are your recommendations of settings, -0.7 and +0.7 stops? Have a Sony a300 and bracketing aren’t the best, limited to the 0.7 stops.
Pls advice your recommendations.
Are you able to manage the tone mapping ín Lightroom/enfuse?
Dear Yanik
Thank you for introducing Enfuse to me. It is a wonderful HDR tool within Lightroom and it is so simple to use, producing very natural looking HDR results. My first successful HDR photo is a process of 5 virtual clips with different exposures plus the original, all done within Lightroom. I recommend to contribute to the software developer to get the license for the full version which will render the HDR to a much higher quality image. My HDR resolution is 4460 x 2974 and at 16,904 KB, the print out is stunning. I am delighted with this tool. Thank you.
Great work! You have shared with us a well written and very informative tutorial. Thank you. I will try to do it on my own and see what will happen.
Hi Yanik. Thanks for the great post – Do you have an alternative download for the application? Seems the install file’s been removed…
I have watched your video on Enfuse in Lightroom. When I installed Enfuse, it did not create a an Enblend-Enfuse folder with a bin folder underneath. How are those created?
I don’t think this is a good result. Look at the muddy dark grey halos on the walls surrounding your window. This should be brighter, from the light coming through the window.
Is this product ready for Lightroom 3 Beta?
I have to agree with Justin on this one, the halos are very bad..
Justin and Tom, if you watch the video again you’ll notice that everything shown here was done in the LIBRARY module. I would remind you that this is prior to going into the Develop module. This plugin is typically run BEFORE your work on exposure, color balance, contrast, saturation, etc. where your objections are addressed in a typical workflow.
I have followed everything in your video and when I hit the button to Enfuse the images I get an error that says ./LREnfuse.lua: attempt to index local ‘handle’ (a nil value)…Any idea what I could do to correct this error?
I kind of like this and I will give it a go but I’m a bit concerned about the effect which occurs around the windows.
Unless you donate the maximium output filesize is 500px which is not realy large enough to see the effects.
You need to get the Enfuse file from http://enblend.sourceforge.net/ and download some Hugin files when you run the first time.
The tutorial was interesting and easy to follow.
This is an awesome tutorial! Thank you very much for posting!
Hi,
Every time I tried to enfuse the pic’s i get an error msg!
this is the msg i get:
“./LREnfuse.lua:728 canceled”
Why is that?????
can you recommend the best way to take close up photo’s of wedding invitations and related wedding stationery.
Thanks
A
My HDR results wont show up in Lightroom after I clicked the button.
So it starts working but LR saves it in my original map.
‘Reimport image into lightroom’ is ON.
Thx
I was happy to uncover this particular site. I wanted to thank you for your time, and then for this wonderful read – I certainly appreciated each and every little bit of it, and already have you book-marked to check out new stuff.
@Neil
If you have “Don’t import suspected Duplicates” checked, LR will not import the tif, at least that is what I have found. I also had to remove metadata to be able to import any of the resulting tiffs.
@Neil
After playing around more, I take that back. If you change the name entirely, you can go back and manually import. LR appears to be importing them, but I cannot figure out where to. If the name is not changed, then the tif is blacked out on the import screen.
Someday, when I have several hours just to waste, I’ll see if I can figure it out.
I’ve used Photomatix until now, but I am new to Lightroom and would like to use Enfuse for my real estate photography work… it looks exactly like what I need to create true photo realistic photos.
I am having a problem with getting it to work.
I get an error:
./LREnfuse.lua:728:
canceled
I use iMac and have to say that I am new to iMac and Lightroom
Could someone please help me?
Thanks.
Great video. I used it for my weblog: http://corrosphotoblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/enfuse-and-lightroom.html
I was very curious to try enfuse for lightroom3.6
I installed the enfuse application and the LRenfuse plu-in. My first try succeed except the import to lightroom. I receaved an error:
AgImportsession.addonephototolibrary: failed to import photo
Via windows explore i found the HDR foto as a jpeg. Can you help me. My next step will be a donation because the first result is very good