Update on HDR

New Preston, Connecticut

Back in August I posted some pictures using the relatively new HDR function in Lightroom, not available at the time in Photoshop itself. Just the past couple days a slew of Adobe CC updates have been released, including PS, ACR, and Bridge. The new ACR has the same HDR function. You highlight the set of bracketed exposures in Bridge and hit command+R to bring into Adobe Camera Raw in filmstrip mode. Highlight the set there, open the filmstrip dropdown, and select merge to HDR. As in the previously available Lightroom version, the data from all the pictures is merged into one file that you then save as a new, gigantic DNG. Then you can open the DNG and use all the normal ACR controls, but working on the data from the whole set of captures.

I don't often find myself wanting to use HDR—but that could be because I never much liked the results until this new DNG approach. I might begin to use it more often now that it's available directly in my normal Bridge/ACR/PSCC workflow.