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Author Topic: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability  (Read 48734 times)

torger

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Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« on: November 25, 2013, 08:28:24 am »

This is a commercial announcement, but as a long-term and active forum member I thought it would be okay, and I'll of course be around to answer questions etc, so it's not just a fire-and-forget spam announcement :)

We're doing a "stealth introduction" of our first commercial photo application called "Lumariver HDR". Actually it's here at Luminous Landscape we announce it first. We've had it ready for a while but it took some time to get our Apple Developer ID for signing, but at last it's there ready to download and install.

It's an HDR software that can do merging and tonemapping, and is in that far from unique, but we have some features that makes it one-of-a-kind:

  • The tonemapping algorithm is made to produce natural-looking results. We're not after the "HDR grunge look", but simply control difficult lighting situations and produce a natural-looking image. I think myself that we are up there with the best in terms of  results :), and you get to see the resulting multiply map which you can export to work further on in photoshop etc.
  • It can read raw files (various formats) and merge to raw output (DNG), so you can work with the file in your favorite raw converter just as if it was a normal raw file.
  • Import/export: all output is made visible as layers, including merge maps and the tonemapping multiply maps, and can be exported/imported to your favorite photo editor such as photoshop for further editing.
  • Raw highlight reconstruction: optional advanced reconstruction of highlights such that you can get the sun center be yellow etc.
  • No black magic hidden away from the user, you get to see the true linearity of the file, all output as layers, we don't hide away anything from you. We want the photographer to be in control and be able to see what the algorithms do.
  • "Zero-noise HDR" and reproduction HDR, you can merge raw files into a new raw file with the exact same properties as the original (ie no modification to linearity etc), just without noise in the shadows, which can be useful for those that just want to have an extremely robust file for post-processing or just noise-free raw in reproduction work. I've used it myself when copying dense color reversal films.
  • LCC (flat-field correction). I'm a medium format tech cam user myself so I've of course made sure it works well with a tech cam workflow. I often shoot with grads myself to capture large DR in one shot in the field, and LCC-cancel that and tonemap with greater control in Lumariver HDR, that workflow and others are described in the manual.
  • Supported formats: TIFF 8/16/32 bit floating point, OpenEXR (an HDR format), various raw formats (.cr2, .nef, .iiq, .mos etc), DNG input and output (including floating point DNGs). The wide input/output possibilities makes it possible to do merging in this HDR software and tonemapping in another or the other way around.

You find the manual and a fully functioning trial at http://www.lumariver.com. I recommend to take a look at the manual.

Currently it's Mac OS X only. We work on full-size floating point images so it's a resource-hungry software, we recommend running it on a fairly recent and powerful machine, especially if you work with high res medium format files :). We've focused on getting best quality possible in the output rather than speed, we expect to improve speed in further updates though. I shall be honest and say that we don't aim for the casual user, while we try to not be too user-unfriendly it does not hurt to be somewhat familiar with how digital photography works and HDR in general.

I use the software myself for my landscape work. My favorite workflow is shooting one raw with a grad to control the sky, LCC to cancel out the grad (and color cast, I have a tech cam), import in Lumariver HDR, tonemap it, and export to DNG (ie raw in raw out) and open up in my raw converter and make further adjustments there. It's open for many other types of workflows though. When I make a fine-art print I almost always make manual fine-tunings in a photo editor and then I export the tonemap multiply map layer(s), may also adjust merging if the image is a merge.

If you have any questions write here in this thread, or post me a private message or email me.
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Redcrown

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2013, 12:54:43 pm »

Sounded interesting till I got to the "Mac OS only" part.

According to this most recent report, a Mac only product addresses a small and declining 13.4% share of the market.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/10/technology/mac-pc-sales/
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torger

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2013, 01:56:03 pm »

Sounded interesting till I got to the "Mac OS only" part.

A large part of our code is cross-platform, in fact I've developed the algorithms on a Linux system so we hope to provide a Windows and possibly also a Linux version eventually. We're a small company though so we had to choose one platform to start with and then aimed to provide the first release on the platform with the most potential users. We think Mac is much stronger among advanced photo users than it is in general, that's why we chose Mac. If we would look at the quotient of Mac users on this site for example I would guess it's more than 50%. But yes it was a bit of a gamble, don't know if we made the right choice, but I think so :).

We will primarily focus on supporting coming users and expanding functionality of the software, but we do desire to also provide a Windows version sometime in the future.
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2013, 03:48:27 pm »

Just what I've been looking for, torger. Thanks for posting this. Have some questions...

How's color management dealt with? The manual makes it sound a bit confusing as to what's going on. Does the app read Pentax PEF and other not so popular manufacturer's Raw formats which don't have custom color profiles? Does it read ACR 4.4 default profiles (Adobe Standard?) or is it better to convert to DNG, embedding a custom DNG profile in ACR/LR prior to opening in Lumariver HDR? What is the color space source that drives the previews?

Is there a place on that site where we can see larger if not full size screengrabs of Lumariver HDR interface? (I won't be able to try it out for now since I'm on OS 10.6.8/2010 Mac Mini).

Looks really promising and quite useful for photographers. Good work!
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Hening Bettermann

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #4 on: November 25, 2013, 04:19:27 pm »


> According to this most recent report, a Mac only product addresses a small and declining 13.4% share of the market.

This is the sale of computers overall. I have no figure, but I'm sure the percentage of Macs amongst photo enthusiasts is a good deal higher.

ErikKaffehr

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #5 on: November 25, 2013, 04:29:32 pm »

Hi,

If I check visit to my site, which is predominantly a technically oriented photography site, I can see that over 50% of my visitors have a Apple OS, MacOS X or iOS.

Nice to see that Anders Torger has developed a new tool, I see forward to testing it.

Best regards
Erik

> According to this most recent report, a Mac only product addresses a small and declining 13.4% share of the market.

This is the sale of computers overall. I have no figure, but I'm sure the percentage of Macs amongst photo enthusiasts is a good deal higher.
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Erik Kaffehr
 

torger

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2013, 05:14:49 pm »

For DNG input and outut we use Adobe's DNG SDK. We base our proprietary raw decoding on the dcraw parser, which have built in color matrices (if not provided by the format, which raw formats usually don't) for the formats it supports. These matrices actually come from Adobe's DNG converter in general.

If Adobe's DNG converter is installed we get color matrices from the corresponding Adobe standard DNG. In this first release the DCP color correction code is not enabled since there was a few issues to iron out but we plan to enable that soon. All this is only valuable if you read raw input and write say TIFF output. If you write DNG output the color management will be taken care by the raw converter you open the DNG in. The internal color space used for raw files is Prophoto, same as the reference color space used by the DNG specification.

With TIFF input we support the typical matrix shaping profiles you would use ie sRGB, AdobeRGB or Prophoto, the software tunnels the icc from input to output, and displays colors properly according to the display profile.

We do support a large variety of cameras, but it's hard to make a precise list. We could copy Dcraw's list, but some cameras require some further fine-tuning to provide good quality. I can tell you that I'd really like manufacturers to adopt DNG :), lots of our development time has gone into parsing raw files. I intend to help out if problems do arise with a camera model, it's often just some fine-tuning fix required. If it's a huge reverse-engineering job I can't comply though, but that's rarely the case. We did run into problems with Leaf's new Credo models though, they use some new revision of the IIQ format which we don't have support for yet. I'm also a developer in the open-source RawTherapee project and there I have among other things contributed with support for various camera models. We do read .PEF. Note that we only support ordinary Bayer array cameras though, ie no Fuji X-Trans or Sigma Foveon unfortunately

To be more specific on the CM question. If you want to read raw and write TIFF output we do not yet have full color management support, as we don't apply the DCP color corrections. We do get matrices though, so you get okay color, but for me to say that we have full CM support I want the software to provide a possibility to choose a camera profile which is not yet possible. This feature would only be used for RAW in TIFF out though, and we suspected that most users would do "TIFF in TIFF out" or "RAW in DNG out" or "DNG in DNG out" and then it does not matter, so we postponed it for a later release. If you open DNG instead of proprietary RAW for input does not matter from a color management perspective in general, unless you attach some custom profile with a custom color matrix to your DNG.

When I use the software myself I usually open .mos from my Leaf Aptus and save to DNG for further processing in RawTherapee or Lightroom. Unfortunately some raw converters have a bit dodgy DNG support, so if you are for example a Capture One user you'd probably want to use a C1 -> TIFF -> Lumariver HDR -> TIFF -> C1, at least if you want to take part of C1's color rendering (which kind of sucks in the DNG case :( ). In the "fine art" case when I really want to fine-tune I want multipage TIFF output from Lumariver HDR so I can post-process further in say photoshop then I usually prepare TIFF input so color rendering is complete before Lumariver HDR is inolved. However if there's a merge involved I do that first, raw in raw out, as merges get more precise that way.

No screen grabs yet unfortunately, we wrote the manual at the same time the GUI was moving around a bit in design so I did not dare to make screengrabs then as I would have to redo that work :). The GUI is pretty basic though. We do merging and tonemapping with a few parameters and generate and display layers.
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wolfnowl

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #7 on: November 26, 2013, 02:22:01 am »

Let me know when you have a Windows version and I'll be happy to give it a try!

Mike.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #8 on: November 26, 2013, 02:44:40 am »

Let me know when you have a Windows version and I'll be happy to give it a try!

Same here.

Cheers,
Bart
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walter.sk

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #9 on: November 26, 2013, 10:51:51 am »

Let me know when you have a Windows version and I'll be happy to give it a try!

Mike.
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Jason DiMichele

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #10 on: November 26, 2013, 11:13:49 am »

Let me know when you have a Windows version and I'll be happy to give it a try!

Mike.

+1
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Jason DiMichele
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francois

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #11 on: November 26, 2013, 11:22:25 am »

I'll give it a try tomorrow… Looks promising.
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Francois

steveclv

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #12 on: November 27, 2013, 06:44:40 am »

I'm just about to download it and give it a try on a 2013 Macbook Pro, Mavericks and processing Nikon D800 NEFs however I can't find a mention of the ultimate price. I'd hate to fall in love with a new piece of software only to find that I can't afford it when it gets a final release :)

How much??
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steveclv

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #13 on: November 27, 2013, 06:45:40 am »

OK, found it - on the download page - 50 Euro ;)

Sorry!
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steveclv

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #14 on: November 27, 2013, 06:53:56 am »

OK, so do you want feedback here on the forum or via pm or email?

I installed and opened - went to grab a string of 5 bracketed NEFs but it would not select the NEF files, either from the File/Open command or the Mac drag and drop.

I'm sure I read that you supported NEF files.
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francois

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #15 on: November 27, 2013, 07:19:22 am »

OK, so do you want feedback here on the forum or via pm or email?

I installed and opened - went to grab a string of 5 bracketed NEFs but it would not select the NEF files, either from the File/Open command or the Mac drag and drop.

I'm sure I read that you supported NEF files.

You need to "Add Images", it's a button on the right of the window. I had the same problem. Drag and drop doesn't work.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2013, 07:21:14 am by francois »
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Francois

steveclv

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #16 on: November 27, 2013, 07:42:19 am »

Oh for heavens sake ;)

I needed to scroll the right pane to see the menu items at the top LOL

Thanks, I'm now playing a little more.
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steveclv

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #17 on: November 27, 2013, 08:13:14 am »

OK, so I have managed to load up 5 bracketed shots - -2,-2,0,+1,+2

Firstly I try an Normal Merge and get "Too small well-exposed overlap between images to be able to match tonecurves" - I had set 'Noisy' to be 1.00 and Underexposed to be 2.00. I then tried again with the defaults of 4.00 and 6.00 and just got a very horrible mess of a dark underexposed result.

We do need some guidance on how to get this software to work please :)
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francois

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #18 on: November 27, 2013, 08:40:50 am »


We do need some guidance on how to get this software to work please :)

I agree 100%. Something like a video tutorial on Youtube/Vimeo/etc would be useful.
FWIW, I played a few minutes and got good results but I don't know how and reading the documentation makes me think that I missed a lot of features.
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Francois

torger

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Re: Lumariver HDR: new HDR software with raw-in-raw-out capability
« Reply #19 on: November 27, 2013, 09:34:49 am »

Yes we probably need to make a video :) , it's a quite technical piece of software. It's on the todo list for sure, as well as tooltips. And implement drag-and-drop sounds like a good idea too ;).

Concerning bracketing I'd recommend that you space the files about 2 stops. The typical input I use for merging myself is three shots, one ETTR shot, one +2 and one +4. Some more shooting tips is found in the "HDR shooting tips" section in the manual.

When it comes to picking out well-exposed pixels the defaults are quite good. If you set the values too small on "noisy" and "underexposed" the merger won't find a overlap. The unit is "stops from saturation", so the default of 4.00 says that "all pixels withing 4 stops from saturation (=clipping) is virtually noise-free and can be used as-is". The closer to saturation you specify these values the tougher the task for the merger will be, so it's wise to set "sane" values.

A Nikon D800 has class-leading dynamic range so you could probably change 4 and 6 defaults to 5 and 7 and still get "virtually noise-free" results.

The merger part of the software is pretty straight-forward in terms of functionality, you can merge with the different algorithms and the clipping/noisy/underexposed settings, and import and export resulting layers, as well as save the resulting output in various formats, including raw DNG. You can export a merge layer, edit in for example photoshop and import it again and make a new merge with that mask if you don't like the merging algorithm's choice.

The idea of the merger is that it should provide you with a really good default, it shows the result to you and you'll be able to inspect it in detail, and if you're still not happy with the merge you can adjust it. It's not (yet) possible to edit the masks inside the program though, you need to export/import them. Being able to see the result and having good possibilities for export/import is a key design choice. I'm a perfectionist myself and I don't like it when software hides away what they've done or limits my abilities to control the result. When I do casual work I do with the defaults, but if I make that important fine art print there's almost always some fine-tuning to be done, regardless how great algorithms are.

On raw import there's also a "raw highlight reconstruction" which can be very useful for some pictures, if your darkest picture have clipped highlights we have an algorithm to reconstruct the highlights in raw. Unlike highlight reconstruction you find in raw converters our algorithm takes risks to be able to reconstruct more, ie it can fail (and then you choose standard reconstruction). The advantage of this is that you can get very good results in situations it works. It often works very well for partially clipped clouds and sun, as long as the clipping is not too heavy. Examples of that is found in the "Highlight reconstruction" section of the manual. If use it myself to reconstruct when I've been too daring with ETTR, or when I want to have a pale yellow in my sun center rather than just clipped to white.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2013, 09:55:50 am by torger »
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