Which pre-adjustments for Pano and HDR in LR 6 / CC?

[jrp]

Which adjustments should one apply to the base images before turning them into (a) a Pano; (b) HDR?

In particular, should one apply lens correction (CA removal, distortion correction, or even just select the correct lens for the shots, where the camera has not stored the right value?).  What about cases where the lens correction parameters are stored in the raw image?

[RikkFlohr]

Information on which adjustments are applied and which are not:

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-6-photo-merge-doesnt-take-into-account-all-settings-applied-to-nef-files

[Schewe]

Good post on what is or isn't used for HDR/Pano...during the beta, this was a hotly debated point. The one area I disagreed on is the lack of spot healing being used. One time I disagreed with Eric Chan :~)

[Wayne Fox]

personally I've been playing with applying no adjustments, hoping all of the information from the raw file moves to the new DNG merged file.  I've tested this a few times and found that if I merge them as is, make adjustments to one of the originals, then sync those settings to the merged file the results appear identical, haven't found a case where the merged file couldn't handle the changes.

The ability to wait and make all adjustments to the entire image after merging is nice ... I can see how each adjustment affects the entire image, and not have to sync to other files and check the results.

I"m unclear at this point how much I lose by converting my files to a linear DNG which Jeff said "is sort of a RAW" file, but testing so far has looked pretty promising.

Here's one of my tests, I even used the Flat Field plugin to solve the lens cast of my tech camera before merging into a pano.  This is all done in lightroom.  Also I attached a small version of one of my starting files that I merged into the pano to give an idea of the slice size and before adjustments.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Information on which adjustments are applied and which are not:

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-6-photo-merge-doesnt-take-into-account-all-settings-applied-to-nef-files

Hi Rikk,

When I read

Settings that are copied over (with some exceptions):
...
- Lens Correction (HDR yes, Pano only Defringe)
...

Does that mean that for pano's, the Chromatic Aberration correction is not used for the individual tile, only 'Defringe'? I'd understand if it cannot be used once the pano is stitched, but it seems quite essential to correct it before stitching, after which it becomes impossible to remove easily.

Cheers,
Bart

[jrp]

Thanks for this.   I'll do some further experimentation.  So far my HDRs are a bit hit and miss.  Sometimes, particularly if you select deghosting, I get a very weird rendering with HDR, with some of the tones seemingly inverted.   I think that this is because the Leica does not record the aperture used correctly, it's only an estimate and that estimate is not self-consistent on bracketed shots.  Since HDR seems to use the Exif data, rather than the exposure values, it produces very strange, unusable, results.

PS: Should I be using the embedded profile or Adobe Standard (on a Leica, that contains its own profiles, which seem similar but different)?